[58] In addition to the Maryland Report we have now a still more admirable one from Central New York. [59] Strangely enough the Elizabethan period, so rich in genius of every other type, seems to have been almost wholly barren of liturgical power. Men had not ceased to write prayers, as a stout volume in the Parker Society's Library abundantly evidences; but they had ceased to write them with the terseness and melody that give to the style of the great Churchmen of the earlier reigns so singular a charm. [60] The liturgical manuscripts of Sanderson and Wren, made public only recently by the late Bishop of Chester, ought to be included under this head. [61] Many of these "Treasuries," "Golden Gates," and the like, have here and there something good, but for the most part they are disfigured by sins against that "sober standard of feeling," than which, as a high authority assures us, nothing except "a sound rule of faith" is more important "in matters of practical religion." Of all of them, Scudamore's unpretentious little "Manual" is, perhaps, the best. [62] For a _conspectus_ of the various title-pages, see Keeling's _Litugiae Britannicae_, London, 1842. [63] The question of a change in the name of the Church is a constitutional, and in no sense a liturgical question. Let it be considered at the proper time, and in a proper way, but why thrust it precipitately into a discussion to which it is thoroughly foreign? [64] By the Maryland Committee. [65] This paragraph was written before the author had been privileged to read Prof. Gold's interesting paper in _The Seminarian_. It is only proper to say that this accomplished writer and very competent critic does object emphatically to the theory that the opening Sentences are designed to give the key-note of the Service. But here he differs with Blunt, as elsewhere in the same paper he dissents from Freeman and from Littledale, admirably illustrating by his proper assertion of an independent judgment, the difficulty of applying the Vicentian rule in liturgical criticism. Such variations of opinion do, indeed, make against "science," but they favor good sense. [66] Chambers's Translation. [67] This is not to be understood as an acknowledgment that the doctrinal and philological objections to the formulary as it originally stood were sound and sufficient. On the lips of a Church which declares "repentance" to be an act whereby we "forsake sin," a prayer for time does not seem wholly inappropriate, while as for this use of the word "space" of which complaint was made, it should be noticed that King James's Bible gives us nineteen precedents for it; and the Prayer Book itself one.