become necessary in the prayers for our civil rulers." But the Preface goes on to say, "while these alterations "were in review before the Convention they could not "but, with gratitude to God, embrace the happy occasion "which was offered to them to establish such other al"terations and amendments as might be deemed ex"pedient."

In making these changes we are told, indeed, that "this Church is far from intending to depart from the "Church of England in any essential point of doctrine,

discipline or worship, or further than local circum"stances require." But from this very assertion it is evident, as the whole Preface implies, that they deemed "the alterations and amendments" made to be such as the "local circumstances" did require; and further, so just and "weighty" did they feel "the considerations moving" them thereto," that they could not refrain from expressing their "gratitude to God" that the occasion and conditions had been "offered to them" to make these changes and thus to promulgate "the truths of the Gospel" in what they deemed "the clearest, plainest, most affecting and majestic manner."

Hence, so far from allowing us to restore the forms of the English Prayer Book where these differ from ours, the import of the whole Preface, especially when taken in connection with the promise of conformity and the ordination vow, is a strong affirmation of the duty of the clergy of the American Church "always to minister the doctrine and sacraments" in precisely the special forms in which these have been embodied in our offices, and requires that we should accept the services of our book, both in their Rubric and text, as

explicitly intended to be "the use" and law of the American Church in place of "The Book of Common Prayer," however revered, admired and loved, "according to the use of the Church of England."

Thus the whole legislation of our Church in the United States, whether in the Constitution of its national organization or in its Prayer Book, shows that it was designed to establish the "rites and ceremonies" of its own "Liturgy," as the law and the only law of worship for its clergy and people in their respective conditions and spheres.

The English Church and its principles were held in the highest regard and honor by those who framed our Prayer Book; where its offices or their history could shed any light on the interpretation or application of corresponding parts of our services they were consulted as of preponderating weight, and in those classes of things where there is no legislation by either the Church or the civil authority in this country, such as the rights of a rector in his church, the nature of pew-holding, the privileges of pew-holders and matters of like character, the similar relations in the English Church have furnished the principles by which the courts have been guided in their decisions on our affairs. And hence, in so far and in such conditions, the laws of the English Church may be regarded as the basis of the law governing our Church in the United States (see the decision of Chief Justice Beasley, of New Jersey, in Lynd vs. Menzies).

But there is no place for any such reference to the law or the customs of England in subjects on which our Church has itself taken action; hence not on any

of the offices which are "set forth" in our Prayer Book or any of the forms or language in which they are to be administered; for all these have been "established" by the legislation of this Church as it desires and "requires" they "shall be received by ALL its members," and they have been accepted and applied by every bishop in his diocese as its authoritative "use," so that no individual minister has a right to re-introduce the words or usages of the English Book into his services any more than to establish an independent Church according to his own ideas.

But there is another phase of our relation to the historic past that is held by many, and this is, that the living continuity of the Church through all the ages gives to every clergyman of both the Church of England and, from it, of the United States, the authority to introduce again into his performance of its offices whatever of the discontinued "rights and ceremonies" of any of the English "uses" before the Reformation he may desire, especially of the "use of Sarum."

In accordance with this theory, it is maintained "that some of the prescribed ritual of the Sarum use "was omitted at the Reformation, but whatever was "not specifically and by name rejected remained a "part of the Church's lawful inheritance."

In the first place, the "Sarum use," on which so much stress is laid, was never at any time THE legal ritual of "the Church of England" as a whole. It was originally nothing more than the "use" of the single diocese of Sarum (Salisbury); little by little it was adopted by a considerable number of the

bishops of the South of England as the order for their respective dioceses, and as such it was the law of worship for the clergy in those dioceses, but not for any others or any otherwhere. Each bishop adopted "the use" he preferred and gave it to the clergy within his own jurisdiction as the law they must obey.

It has, indeed, been frequently asserted that in the year 1541, a short time before the Reformation, a resolution of the Convocation of Canterbury directed that the Sarum use should be employed in all the dioceses in that province. But Dixon, the latest authority on this period, has shown, as we have previously noted (ante, p. 31), that this decree referred only to the private devotions of the clergy, and accordingly did not impose this ritual on their public ministrations.

But however extensive may have been the employment of the "Sarum use" in the Province of Canterbury, it never was adopted in the Northern Convocation, that of York, and it certainly was not the universal or accepted "use" of the whole Church of England at the time of the formation of the First Book of Edward VI (1549), for the preface of that book gives as one reason for its establishment, "where heretofore "there hath been great diversity in saying and singing "in churches within this realm; some following Salis"bury use, some Hereford use, some the use of Bangor,

some of York and some of Lincoln. Now, from "henceforth all the whole realm shall have but one "use," so that the Sarum ritual never was the legal ritual of the Church of England, but only a diocesan order, more or less widely used in one Province of that Church, and a priest of Bangor or of York would

have had no more liberty to interpolate a portion of its offices into the appointed services of his own diocese than fragments of the ceremonial of St. Basil or St. James.

But not only was the "Sarum use "never the lawful ritual of a priest in any diocese whose bishops had not appointed it as his order, the whole history of the Church of England at the Reformation and since shows that the intention of the English Church in establishing its "use" was, that all the previously existing "uses" should terminate and be put away so far as any connection with the public service was concerned, and that the language and ceremonies given in its present authorized book were the only words and symbolical ceremonies which its clergy were to be allowed to employ in the performance of any of the offices it had "set forth" for them to minister.

This position is stated, and in terms which admit no reasonable doubt, in the Preface of the Book of 1549, already quoted. In its earlier portions it had referred to the character of the previous offices, especially their numerous and complicated rules, and then goes on to say, "here is set forth an order whereby the same shall "be redressed," "yet because there is no remedy, but "that of necessity there must be some rules-certain "rules are here set forth which, as they be few in num "ber, are plain and easy to be understood," and "furthermore by this order the curates shall need NONE OTHER BOOK for their public service but THIS "ONE BOOK and the Bible." The practical outcome of all which is, the declaration which we have previously cited, that "now from henceforth all the whole realm