Of even greater moment is the other point, which concerns the quality of the available material. It is the greatest mistake in the world to suppose that simply because a given prayer exists, say in an Oriental liturgy, and has been translated into English by an eminent scholar, it is therefore proper material to be worked into our services. As a matter of fact, a great deal of devotional language of which the Oriental liturgies is made up is prolix and tedious to a degree simply insufferable. Moreover in the case of prayers in themselves admirable in the original tongue in which they were composed, all is often lost through lack of a verbal felicity in the translation. If anyone questions this judgment, let him toil through Neale's and Littledale's _Translations of the Primitive Liturgies_ and see whether he can find six, nay, three, consecutive lines which he would be willing to see introduced into our own Communion Office. Or, as respects translations from the Latin office-books of the Church of England, let him scrupulously search the pages of the "Sarum Hours," as done into the vernacular by the Recorder of Salisbury, and see how many of the Collects strike him as good enough to be transplanted into the Book of Common Prayer. The result of this latter voyage of discovery will be an increased wonder at the affluence of the mediaeval devotions, combined with amazement at the poverty and unsatisfactoriness of the existing translations. It is with a Latin collect as with a Greek ode or an Italian sonnet: no matter how wonderful the diction, the charm of it is as a locked secret until the thing has been Englished by genius akin to his who first made it out of his own heart. Of others besides the many brave men who lived before Agamemnon might it be written: sed omnes illacrumabiles Urgentur, ignotique larga Nocte, carent quia vate sacro. It was the peculiar felicity of Schiller that he had Coleridge for a translator, and the shades of Gregory and Leo owe it to a living Anglican divine that we English-speaking Christians can think their thoughts after them, and pray their prayers. Such being the facts in the case, it is evident that the range of choice open to American revisers is far narrower than half-informed persons imagine it to be. The very best sources of liturgical material are the following: (_a_) King James's Bible, including the Apocrypha, and supplemented by the Prayer Book version of the Psalms; (_b_) The old Sacramentaries, Leonine, Gregorian, and Gelasian, chiefly as illustrated by the genius of Dr. Bright; (_c_) The Breviary in its various forms; (_d_) The Primers and other like _fragmenta_ of the era of the English Reformation;[59] (_e_) The devotional writings of the great Anglican divines of the school of Andrews, Ken, and Taylor;[60] and last and least, (_f_) The various manuals of prayer, of which the past twenty years have shown themselves so prolific.[61]