om which the gold was gathered.

In a later paper the present writer intends to venture upon a task
similar to that undertaken by the Maryland Committee. He will do
this largely in the hope of encouraging by example other and more
competent critics to busy themselves in the same way. Meanwhile a
few observations may not be amiss with respect to the sources of
liturgical material, and the methods by which they can be drawn
upon to the best advantage.

There has been, first and last, a deal of ill considered talk
about the boundlessness of the liturgical treasures lying unused
in the pre-Reformation formularies of the English Church, as well
as in the old sacramentaries and office-books of the East and the
West. Wonder is expressed that with such limitless wealth at its
command, an "Enrichment Committee" should have brought in so
poverty-stricken a Report. Have we not Muratori and Mabillon? it
is asked: Daniel and Assemani, Renaudot and Goar? Are there not
Missals Roman, Ambrosian, and Mozarabic? Breviaries Anglican,
Gallican, and Quignonian? Has Maskell delved and Neale translated
and Littledale compiled in vain? To all of which there are two
replies, namely: first, It is inexpedient to overload a Prayer
Book, even if the material be of the best; and secondly, This best
material is by no means so abundant as the volume of our resources
would seem to suggest. It was for the very purpose of escaping
redundancy and getting rid of surplusage that the Anglican Reformers
condensed Missal, Breviary, and Rituale into the one small and
handy volume known as the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. It was
a bold stroke, doubtless denounced as perilously radical at the
time; but experience has justified Cranmer and his friends. In the
whole history of liturgies there is no record of a wiser step. It
is scarcely possible so grievously to sin against a people's Prayer
Book as by making it more complicated in arrangement and more bulky
in volume than need actually requires. It was ground of justifiable
pride with the "Enrichment Committee" that the Book which they
brought in, despite the many additions it contained, was no thicker
by a single page than the Prayer Book as it is. To be sure, the
General Convention spoiled all this by insisting on retaining
certain duplicated formularies which the Committee had very properly
dropped in order to find room for fresh material. But of the Book
as first presented, it was possible to say that i