outwardly illogical but
spiritually self-consistent policy which, breaking away, a century
ago, from the chain of precedent, inserted in the American Book
"The Forms of Prayer to be used in Families."

RESOLUTION VIII.

_Penitential Office for Ash-Wednesday_.

This is the English Commination Office, with the introductory
portion omitted. It would add to the merit of the formulary,
especially when used as a separate office, were it to be prefaced
by the versicle and response, similarly employed in the Hereford
Breviary:

_V_. Let us confess unto the Lord, for he is gracious.

_R_. And his mercy endureth forever.

In view of the great length of the Morning Service on Ash-Wednesday,
and the close similarity between the closing portion of the Litany
and the intermediate portion of this Office, the following emendation
of the first Rubric is suggested, a change which would carry with
it the omission of the Rubric after psalm li. a little further on.

_On the_ First Day of Lent, _at_ Morning Prayer, _the Office
ensuing shall be read immediately after the words_, Have mercy
upon us, _in the Litany, and in place of what there followeth_.

In the third Rubric it might be well to add to "_shall be said_"
the words, "_or sung_."

The blessing at the end of the office should stand, as in the
English Book, in the precatory form; otherwise we might have the
anomaly of a benediction pronounced before the end of the service.

RESOLUTION IX.

_Thanksgiving-day or Harvest-home_.

The only alteration needed in this office is the restoration of
the beautiful prayer for unity to its own proper wording as given
in the so-called "Accession Service" appended to the English Prayer
Book. As it stands in _The Book Annexed_ the language of the prayer
is possibly ungrammatical and certainly redundant. A critic,
already more than once quoted,[87] protests against the prominence
given to this office in _The Book Annexed_, ascribing it to
influences born of the associations of New England. But although
the motive of the revisers might have had a worse origin than that
of which the reviewer complains, the actual fact is that the
formulary was placed where it is purely in consideration of the
liturgical fitness of things; it having been held that the proper
position for an Office of Thanksgiving must be in immediate sequence
to an Office of Penitence.

It is with sincere diffidence that the present writer differs
with