[Transcriber's Note: The footnotes have been numbered and moved to the end of the document.] This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries. A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER TOGETHER WITH CERTAIN PAPERS ILLUSTRATIVE OF LITURGICAL REVISION 1878-1892 BY WILLIAM REED HUNTINGTON D. D. D. C. L. _Rector of Grace Church New York_ NEW YORK THOMAS WHITTAKER 2 and 3 Bible House Copyright, 1893, by THOMAS WHITTAKER, THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, RAHWAY, N. J. CONTENTS I. A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer: I. Origins, II. Vicissitudes, II. Revision of the American Common Prayer, III. _The Book Annexed_: Its Critics and its Prospects, Appendix: I. Permanent and Variable Characteristics of the Prayer Book--A Sermon Before Revision, 1878 II. The Outcome of Revision, 1892 III. Tabular View of Additions Made at the Successive Revisions, 1552-1892 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. The opening paper of this collection was originally read as a lecture before a liturgical class, and is now published for the first time. The others have appeared in print from time to time during the movement for revision. If they have any permanent value, it is because of their showing, so far as the writer's part in the matter is concerned, what things were attempted and what things failed of accomplishment. Should they serve as contributory to some future narrative of the revision, the object of their publication will have been accomplished. So much has been said as to the poverty of our gains on the side of "enrichment," as compared with what has been secured in the line of "flexibility," that it has seemed proper to append to the volume a Comparative Table detailing the additions of liturgical matter made to the Common Prayer at the successive revisions. W. R. H. New York, Christmas, 1892. A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. I. ORIGINS. Liturgical worship, understood in the largest sense the phrase can bear, means divine service rendered in accordance with an established form. Of late years there has been an attempt made among purists to confine the word "liturgy" to the office entitled in the Prayer Book, _The Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion_.