new dwelling-place. The life within the vine remains what it always
was. The growth means health. The power of adaptation is the
guarantee of a perpetual youth.

REVISION OF THE AMERICAN COMMON PRAYER.

II. REVISION OF THE AMERICAN COMMON PRAYER.[1]

The revision of long established formularies of public worship is,
as it ought to be, a matter compassed about with obstacles many and
great. A wise doubtfulness prompts conservative minds to throw every
mover for change upon the defensive, when liturgical interests
are at stake. So many men are born into the world with a native
disposition to tamper with and tinker all settled things, and so
many more become persuaded, as time goes on, of a personal "mission"
to pull down and remake whatever has been once built up, esteeming
life a failure unless they have contrived to build each his own
monument upon a clearing, that lovers of the old ways are sometimes
compelled in sheer self-defence to put on the appearance of being
more obstinately set against change than they really are. It ought
not to be absolutely impossible to alter a national hand-book of
worship (which is what any manual calling itself a Common Prayer
must aspire to become), but it is well that it should be all but
impossible to do so. Logically it might seem as if the possession
of a power to make involved a continuance of power to remake; and
so it does, to a certain extent, but only to a certain extent.
Living organisms cannot be remodelled with the same freedom as dead
matter. A solemnity hangs about the moment of birth that attaches
to no other crisis in a man's life until death comes. Similarly
there are certain features which the founders of institutions, the
first makers of organic law, imprint lastingly upon their work. We
may destroy the living thing so brought to birth; to kill is always
possible; but only by very gradual and plastic methods can we hope
in any measure to reconstruct the actual embodiment of life once
achieved. The men of 1789 had us in their power, even as the men
of 1549 had had both them and us. In every creative epoch many
things are settled by which unborn generations will be bound.[2]

It may be urged that this is an argument against adopting liturgies
in the first instance as vehicles of worship; and such undoubtedly
it is in so far forth as immobility ought in such matters to be
reckoned a disadvantage. But we are bound to take into account the
gain which comes