introduced also in the form of praying, as this kind of composition seems capable of admitting. The prayer at one time is continued; at another, broken by responses, or cast into short alternate ejaculations; and sometimes the congregation is called upon to take its share in the service, by being left to complete a sentence which the minister had begun. The enumeration of human wants and sufferings in the Litany is almost complete. A Christian petitioner can have few things to ask of God, or to deprecate, which he will not find there expressed, and for the most part with inimitable tenderness and simplicity."

"Testimonies to its superior excellence," observes Bishop Ryder, "abound in dead and living authors of communions differing among themselves, and all different from our own; and the well merited weight of whose opinion is therefore doubly enhanced by this undeniable proof of their impartiality."

The validity of these testimonies, it may be added, is still further enhanced, by the consideration that several of these "differing

communions" statedly avail themselves of our form of prayer. The episcopal church in America, which is daily increasing in numbers and respectability, steadily retains its original predilection for the Anglican Liturgy; the numerous followers of Wesley and Whitefield, and of the late Countess of Huntingdon, and not a few of the Independent persuasion, have appointed that a selection from our Service should be read every Sunday morning in their principal chapels. Nor is this use of the established ritual confined to our own language. It has been translated into various foreign tongues, and constitutes the form of public worship adopted by missionaries of different denominations among their heathen converts.

Notwithstanding, however, the peculiar excellency of our Liturgy, it is not without imperfections, and these too of a description not easily to escape observation; but of so conspicuous a character, as immediately to arrest the attention, and at the same time of so indefensible a nature, that

the warmest admirers of our Church have been unanimous in regretting their existence. A brief reference to the nature and origin of these imperfections will manifest the propriety and facility of their removal.

Omitting for the present the consideration of those verbal alterations which the lapse of time, and perhaps an occasionally unguarded expression of our Reformers, might render expedient, the writer would refer to the two principal objections which are constantly brought against our Liturgy, viz: the undue length and unnecessary repetitions which encumber the Sunday Morning's Service.

In reference to this subject, Archdeacon Paley properly reminds us "that the length and repetitions complained of in our Liturgy, are not so much the fault of the compilers, as the effect of uniting into one Service, what was originally, but with very little regard to the conveniency of the people, distributed into three."* An anonymous

* The Morning Prayer was read at six o'clock, the

clergyman, also, who has lately published a very sensible and temperate work on the Expediency of Church Reform, observes that" each of the three Services is complete in itself, comprising confessions of unworthiness, prayer and supplication, profession of faith, intercession and praise and thanksgiving."

Plain observations like the preceding, contain a more powerful vindication of the compilers of our Liturgy, than volumes of eulogistic remarks. They at once exonerate these venerable men from the principal charges which have been brought against them, of undue length and unmeaning repetitions, and at the same time forcibly remind us that the existence of such imperfections in a Liturgy compounded like our own, was absolutely necessary to free their original works from objections of a contrary and more serious description. If our present Morning Service were not decidedly too

Litany about nine, and the Office of the Holy Communion at a considerable distance of time after the Litany.

long, their three distinct Services must have been decidedly too short; and were not our present Liturgy encumbered with unnecessary repetitions, their original Services must necessarily have been very incomplete as distinct manuals of devotion. Surely then if a change of circumstances renders three distinct Morning Services inexpedient, not to say impracticable, other seasons should be appointed for their separate use, or a judicious selection should be made from the whole, retaining all that is needful for devotion, and omitting whatever is superfluous, or savours of unnecessary repetition. Common sense and a common degree of respect for the character and writings of our Reformers, require such an arrangement.

According to our present regulations, these three distinct Services, with the trifling exception of three short Collects, and the Prayer for all Conditions of Men, are appointed to be read in one continuous Service every Sunday Morning. Is it then surprising that a Liturgy thus singularly compounded, should be found too long both in