Suffrages 1 1
Catechetical Questions 12
Exhortations 3 2

NOTES

Notes for a Short History of the Book of Common Prayer

[1] First printed in the _American Church Review_, April, 1881.

[2] Much confusion of thought and speech in connection with our
ecclesiastical legislation grows out of not keeping in mind the
fact that here in America the organic genetic law of the Church,
as well as of the State, is in writing, and compacted into definite
propositions. We draw, that is to say, a far sharper distinction
than it is possible to do in England between what is constitutional
and what is simply statutory. There is no function of our General
Convention that answers to the "omnipotence of Parliament." This
creative faculty was vacated once for all at the adoption of the
Constitution.

[3] _Conferences_, p. 461.

[4] _Principles of Divine Service_, vol. i. p. 390.

[5] _Church Quarterly Review_, London, October, 1876.

[6] The votes of the House of Bishops are not reported numerically.
In the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies the vote stood as
follows: "Of the Clergy there were 43 Dioceses represented--Ayes,
33; nays, 9; divided, 1. Of the Laity there were 35 Dioceses
represented--Ayes, 20; nays, 11; divided, 4."--_Journal of
Convention of_ 1880, p. 152.

[7] _Church Eclectic_ for November, 1880.

[8] Remembering the deluge of "centennial" rhetoric let loose
upon the country five years ago, another critic may well feel
justified in finding in the language of the resolution what he
considers "an unnecessary _raison d'etre_." But it is just possible
that centennial changes rest on a basis of genuine cause and effect
quite independent of the decimal system. A century covers the range
of three generations, and the generation is a natural, not an
arbitrary division of time. What the grandfather practises the son
criticises and the grandson amends. This at least ought to commend
itself to the consideration of the lovers of mystical numbers and
"periodic laws."

[9] The real argument against the "driblet method" (by which is
meant the concession of improvement only as it is actually conquered
inch by inch) lies in what has been already said about the
undesirability of frequent changes in widely used formularies of
worship.

It may be true, as some allege, that a revision of the Prayer Book
would shake the Church, bu