useful to him:--"Ut
Dompnum Apostolicum, et omnes gradus ecclesie in sancta religione
conservare digneris." Meaning that whatever errors particular persons
might, and must, fall into, they prayed God to keep the Pope right, and
the collective testimony and conduct of the ranks below him. Then
follows the prayer for their own bishop and _his_ flock--then for the
king and the princes (chief lords), that they (not all nations) might be
kept in concord--and then for _our_ bishops and abbots,--the Church of
England proper; every one of these petitions being direct, limited, and
personally heartfelt;--and then this lovely one for themselves:--

"Ut obsequium servitutis nostre rationabile facias."--"That Thou wouldst
make the obedience of our service reasonable" ("which is your reasonable
service").

This glorious prayer is, I believe, accurately an "early English" one.
It is not in the St. Louis Litany, nor in a later elaborate French
fourteenth century one; but I find it softened in an Italian MS. of the
fifteenth century into "ut nosmet ipsos in tuo sancto servitio
confortare et conservare digneris,"--"that Thou wouldst deign to keep
and comfort us ourselves in Thy sacred service" (the comfort, observe,
being here asked for whether reasonable or not!); and in the best and
fullest French service-book I have, printed at Rouen in 1520, it
becomes, "ut congregationes omnium sanctorum in tuo sancto servitio
conservare digneris;" while victory as well as concord is asked for the
king and the princes,--thus leading the way to that for our own Queen's
victory over all her enemies, a prayer which might now be advisedly
altered into one that she--and in her, the monarchy of England--might
find more fidelity in their friends.

255. I give one more example of the corruption of our Prayer-Book, with
reference to the objections taken by some of your correspondents to the
distinction implied in my Letters between the Persons of the Father and
the Christ.

The "Memoria de Sancta Trinitate," in the St. Louis service-book, runs
thus:--

"Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui dedisti famulis tuis in confessione
vere fidei eterne Trinitatis gloriam agnoscere, et in potentia
majestatis adorare unitatem, quesumus ut ejus fidei firmitate ab omnibus
semper muniemur adversis. Qui vivis et regnas Deus, per omnia secula
seculorum. Amen."

"Almighty and everlasting God, who has given to Thy servants, in
confession of true faith to recognize the glo