probably unacquainted with the
fact that in the American Episcopal Church the experimental setting
forth of Offices "for optional and discretional use" is not possible
under the terms of the Constitution. We either must adopt outright
and for permanent use, or else peremptorily reject whatever is urged
upon us in the name of liturgical improvement.

Entering next upon a detailed criticism of the contents of The _Book
Annexed_ the writer proceeds to offer a number of suggestions, some
of them of great value. He pleads earnestly and with real force for
the restoration of the Lord's Prayer to its "place of honor" between
the Creed and the Preces, showing, in a passage of singular beauty,
how the whole daily office "may be said to have grown out of, or
radiated from, or been crystallized round the central _Pater
noster_" even as "from the Words of Institution has grown the
Christian Liturgy."

The critic has only praise for the amendments in the Office
for Thanksgiving Day; approves the selection of Proper Sentences
for the opening of Morning and Evening Prayer; avers, certainly
with truth, that the Office of the Beatitudes might be improved;
welcomes "the very full repertory of special prayers"; thinks
that the _Short Office of Prayer for Sundry Occasions_ "certainly
supplies a want"; rejoices in the recognition of the Feast of the
Transfiguration; and closes what is by far the most considerable,
and, both as respects praise and blame, the most valuable of all
the reviews that have been made of _The Book Annexed_ whether at
home or abroad, with these words:

On the whole, we very heartily congratulate our Transatlantic
brothers on the labors of their Joint Committee. We hope their
recommendations may be adopted, and more in the same direction;
and that the two or three serious blemishes which we have felt
constrained to point out and to lament may be removed from the
book in the form finally adopted.

And further, we very earnestly trust that this work, which has
been very evidently so carefully and conscientiously done, may
speedily, by way of example and precedent, bear fruit in a like
process of enrichment among ourselves.

Commending these last words to the consideration of those who
take alarm at the suggestion of touching the Prayer Book lest
we may hurt the susceptibilities of our "kin beyond sea," and
unduly anticipate that "joint action of both Churches," which,
at least until disestablishment comes, must