re excellent
way than that followed in _The Book Annexed_, the compilation of

An Appendix to the Book of Common Prayer to contain the much
needed _Additional Services_ for both Sunday and other use in
churches, in mission chapels, and in religious communities, as
well as a full supply of _Occasional Prayers and Thanksgivings_
for objects and purposes, missionary and otherwise, which are as
yet entirely unrepresented in our Offices.

There are obvious reasons why this device should commend itself to
an English Churchman, for it is unlikely that anything better than
this, or, indeed, anything one half so satisfactory, could be
secured by Act of Parliament.

For something very much better than this, however, a self-governed
Church, like our own, has a right to look, and, in all probability,
will continue to look until the thing is found. _An Appendix_ to a
manual of worship, whether the manual be Prayer Book or Hymnal,[41]
is and cannot but be, from the very nature of things, a blemish to
the eye, an embarrassment to the hand, and a vexation to the spirit.
Such _addenda_ carry on their face the suggestion that they are
makeshifts, postscripts, after-thoughts; and in their lack of
dignity, as well as of convenience, pronounce their own condemnation.

Moreover, in our particular case, no "Appendix," "Prymer," or
"Authorized Vade-mecum" could accomplish the ends that are most
of all desired. Fancy putting the _Magnificat_, the _Nunc dimittis_,
the Versicles that follow the Creed, and the "Lighten our darkness"
into an "Appendix." It would be the defeat of our main object.

Then, too, this is to be remembered, that in order to secure a
"fully authorized Appendix," we, in this country, should be obliged
to follow precisely the same legal process we follow in altering
the Prayer Book. If an Occasional Office cannot pass the ordeal of
the criticism of two successive Conventions, it ought not to be set
forth at all; if it can and does stand that test, then it ought to
be inserted in the Prayer Book in the particular place where it most
appropriately belongs and may most readily be found.

Moreover, it should be remembered that one, and by no means the
least efficient, of the causes that brought the Common Prayer into
existence in the sixteenth century was disgust at the multiplication
of service-books. We American Churchmen have two already; let us
beware of adding a third.

The critic of _The Quarterly_ was