These imperfect notices show how carefully the Reformers retained what they considered most precious in the ancient records of Christian devotion; how reverently they looked on words which had been vehicles for ages, of the service of song and the offering of prayer. This conservative element--connected with a prudential policy lest offence should be given to semi-Protestants, when it could by any means be avoided--appears to many an admirer of the Liturgy in the present day to have been a snare, betraying the compilers into the retention of some things which marred the beauty of their work, and really caused it to narrow "the Communion of Saints" in the kingdom of England. Others think far otherwise. For my own part I would say that as the sources whence the Book was compiled are so numerous and so ancient, belonging to Christendom in the remotest times--as there is in it so little that is really original, so little that belongs to the Reformed Episcopal Church in England, any more than to other Churches constrained by conscience to separate from Rome--the bulk of what the Book contains, including all that is most beautiful and noble, like hymns which, by whomsoever written, are sung in Churches of every name, ought to be regarded as the rightful inheritance of any who believe in the essential unity of Christ's Catholic Church, and can sympathize in the devotions of a Chrysostom, a Hilary, and an Ambrose. [Sidenote: CONVOCATION.] Such was the Book which Convocation had now to examine and revise, in connection with necessities which had been felt ever since the Reformation, and which had greatly increased during the seventeenth century. The Upper House appointed on the 21st of November, a Committee consisting of the Bishops of Durham, Ely, Oxford, Rochester, Sarum, Worcester, Lincoln, and Gloucester, most of whom had been Commissioners at the Savoy, to meet in the palace of the Bishop of Ely in Hatton Garden, at five o'clock in the afternoon of every day, except Sunday, until their work was finished. But when they had taken their walk as the evening drew in, they really found little to do. Their work had been anticipated; materials were ready to hand, The Prayer Book had been carefully studied and revised for a long time, by eminent Anglicans. MS. notes existed of great value, made or collected by Bishop Overall, Bishop Andrewes, and Bishop Cosin.[289] Those by the last, as we shall see, were largely used. That the Bishops when they met had much of what they needed provided for them may be concluded from the fact that, on the 23rd of November, only the second day after the appointment of the Committee, a portion of the corrected copy was delivered to the Prolocutor of the Lower House.[290] Previous labours had almost superseded a discharge of the duties laid upon the newly-appointed Committee.[291] From day to day progress was made, until, within a month, the work was completed. [Sidenote: 1661.]