Upon taking up the Second Book after laying down the First, one is struck immediately with the changed look of Morning Prayer. This is no longer called Matins, and no longer begins as before with the Lord's Prayer. An Introduction has been prefixed to the office consisting of a collection of sentences from Holy Scripture, all of them of a penitential character, and besides these of an Exhortation, a Confession, and an Absolution. There can be little doubt that this opportunity for making public acknowledgment of sin and hearing the declaration of God's willingness to forgive, was meant to counterbalance the removal from the book of all reference, save in one instance, to private confession and absolution. The Church of England has always retained in her Visitation Office a permission to the priest to pronounce absolution privately to the sick man. This was a feature of the First Book that was not disturbed in the Second. But wherever else they found anything that seemed to look toward the continuance of the system familiarly known to us under the name of "the Confessional," they expunged it. Between the Exhortation and the Confession there is, in point of literary merit, a noticeable contrast, and it is scarcely to be believed that both formularies can have proceeded from one and the same pen. Another step in the Protestant direction was the prohibition of certain vestments that in the First Book had been allowed, as the alb and cope. The Introit Psalms were taken away. The word "table" was everywhere substituted for the word "altar." The changes in the Office of the Holy Communion were numerous and significant. The Ten Commandments, for instance, were inserted in the place where we now have them. The _Gloria in Excelsis_ was transferred from the beginning of the service to the end. The Exhortations were re-written. The supplication for the dead was taken out of the Prayer for the whole state of Christ's Church, and the words "militant here on earth" were added to the title with a view to confining the scope of the intercession to the circle of people still alive. The Confession, Absolution, Comfortable Words, and Prayer of Humble Access were placed before the Consecration instead of after it. Most important of all was the change of the words appointed to be said in delivering the elements to the communicants. In the First Book these had been, "The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life," and in the case of the cup, "The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life." For these were now substituted in the one instance the words, "Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith, with thanksgiving," and in the other, "Drink this in remembrance that Christ's blood was shed for thee, and be thankful."