by way of demurrer,—We refuse to entertain the question itself until we find that it is put by an authority which comes into court with legitimate credentials to act as our interrogator. The agitation for Prayer-book reform has not always been prompted by any real, simple desire to improve the book in its literary character, to make it more practically sound and useable, or to import into it a deeper and wider learning. Undisguisedly it has, from first to last, been a dodge of the party which is bent upon excising or cutting down the assertion of sacramental doctrine which runs through the formularies of the Church of England. From crochetty Mr. Bingham, downwards, all the reformers harp on that string. They may have been a little too early outspoken in the way they have shown what part of the Prayer-book it is which they dislike, but they evince much worldly wisdom in agitating for a change in the formularies. Their conviction is, that the party which will, by the laws that govern all great revolutions, be almost certain to win, if the lines of the status in quo be given up, must be themselves, and not the persons who are enthusiatic enough to imperil that status in quo in hopes of attaining something more catholic. The catholicity of the existing Church of England, explicit or implicit, is, we believe, quite strong enough to keep the book, as it is, afloat: it is not strong enough to guide it through a revision.
We do not for a moment pretend to say that we think the Prayer-book is perfect—we have our own notions as to the points in which it might be improved. For example, it would be all the better if it possessed some special service for Christmas Eve, proper psalms and a proper preface for the Epiphany, lessons for Ash-Wednesday, and psalms for other days in Holy Week than merely Good Friday. But we are not so enamoured of the policy of 'coming and being killed,' that, for the chance of carrying these and maybe other alterations, we should risk turning over the book to the tender mercies of Lord Ebury and his compeers. We have little doubt that, when the mêlée came, other persons would flock in, whose projects of catholic modification far outran ours. The prospects of success for their claims would be nil; but not so their influence for harm. Their plans would setup John Bull's No-Popery susceptibilities, and thus their urgency would assuredly play the game of the ultra-Protestant innovators. The present Prayer-book is a compromise, binding both Church and State; and holding it to be a compromise, we refuse, as the world now is, to have its contents opened up within the limits of the English and Irish Establishments; although in countries such as Sarawak, where the Establishment 'runneth not,' and where the liturgical legislators act from practical and not polemical motives, we warmly welcome any serious
