f faith on the
Church's part, constitutional revision, I might be betrayed into
expressions of hopefulness which would strike most of you as
overwrought.

Suffice it to say, that never since the Reformation of Religion
in the sixteenth century has a fairer prospect been opened to
the Church of our affections than is opened to her to-day. No
interpretation of the divine purpose with respect to this broad
land we name America has one-half so much of likelihood as that
which makes our country the predestined building plot for the
Church of the Reconciliation.

All signs point that way. To us, if we have but the eyes to see it,
there falls, not through any merit of our own, but by the accident,
if it be right to use that word, by the accident of historical
association, the opportunity of leadership.

It is possible for us, at this crisis of our destiny, so to mould
our organic law that we shall be brought into sympathetic contact
with hundreds of thousands of our fellow-countrymen who worship the
same God, hold the same faith, love the same Christ. On the other
hand, it is possible for us so to fence ourselves off from this
huge family of our fellow-believers as to secure for our lasting
heritage only the cold privileges of a proud and selfish isolation.
There could be no real catholicity in such a choice as that.

We have the opportunity of growing into a great and comprehensive
Church. We have the opportunity of dwindling into a self-conscious,
self-conceited, and unsympathetic sect. Which shall it be? With
those to whom, under God, the remoulding of our organic law has
been intrusted it largely rests to say.

COMPARATIVE TABLE OF ADDITIONS MADE TO THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER AT
THE SEVERAL REVISIONS SINCE 1549.

1552 1559 1604 1662 1789 1892
Scripture Sentences 11 8 31
Collects 3 1 3
Epistles 2 1 3
Gospels 1 1 3
Offices 13 8 1 1
Prayers 15 2 7 18 13 9
Proper Psalms (days) 2 10
Selections of Psalms 10 10
Canticles 8 2
Versicles 4 3 11
Litany