possibly some others. It is
evident that these new formularies might give opportunity for
the introduction of hitherto unused collects, anthems, and
benedictions of a sort that would greatly enhance the general
usefulness of the Prayer Book.

This completes the survey of the field of "liturgical enrichment."
A full discussion of the allied topic, "flexibility of use," would
involve the examination in detail of all the rubrics of the Prayer
Book, and for this there is no room. It is enough to say that
unless the rubrics, the hinges and joints of a service-book, are
kept well oiled, much creaking is a necessary result. There are
turning-points in our public worship where congregations almost
invariably betray an awkward embarrassment, simply because there
is nothing to tell them whether they are expected to stand or to
sit or to kneel. It is easy to sneer at such points as trifles and
to make sport of those who call attention to them; but if it
is worth our while to have ritual worship at all it is also worth
our while to make the directions as to how people are to behave
adequate, explicit, plain. A lofty contempt for detail is not the
token of good administration either in Church or State. To the list
of defective rubrics add those that are confessedly obsolete and
such as are palpably contradictory and we have a bill of particulars
that would amply justify a rubrical revision of the Prayer Book even
if nothing more were to be attempted.

There is another reason. Far more rapidly than many people
imagine, we are drifting away from the position of a Church that
worships by liturgy to that of a Church worshipping by directory.
The multiplicity of "uses" that vexed the Anglican Reformers is
in our day multiplied four-fold. To those who honestly consider a
directory a better thing than a liturgy this process of relaxation
is most welcome, but for others who hold that, until the binding
clauses of a Book of Common Prayer have been formally rescinded,
they ought to be observed, the spectacle is the reverse of edifying.
They would much prefer seeing the channels of liberty opened at the
touch of law, and this is one of their chief reasons for advocating
revision.

Two questions remain untouched, both of them of great practical
importance. Could the Prayer Book be enriched to the extent
suggested in this paper without a serious and most undesirable
increase in its bulk as a volume?

Even supposing this were possible, is