MATINS AND EVENSONG AND THE CELEBRATION OF THE HOLY COMMUNION COMMONLY CALLED THE MASS CHIEFLY AFTER THE FIRST PRAYER BOOK TOGETHER WITH A BRIEF CEREMONIAL COMPILED AND ARRANGED BY CHARLES WALKER Author of the "Ritual Reason Why," Liturgy of LONDON BASIL MONTAGU PICKERING 196 PICCADILLY 1877. 138. i. 481. TO THE BISHOPS IN VISIBLE COMMUNION WITH THE SEE OF CANTERBURY WHO DO NOT SIT UNDER THE UPAS TREE OF THE ACT OF UNIFORMITY; AND TO THE CLERGY OF THE LOWER HOUSE OF CONVOCATION THIS TENTATIVE ESSAY TOWARDS A Modus Vivendi FOR THOSE MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND WHO, DISCARDING THE TRADITIONS OF THE LAST THREE CENTURIES, ACCEPT ex animo HER APPEAL TO PRIMITIVE CATHOLICITY, IS MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. PREFACE. THE following compilation is the result of a conviction, long cherished and profound, that the only adequate settlement of the controversy which is now raging on the question of Ceremonial in the Church of England, will be found in the Legalization of the Liturgy of 1549 (or some modification of it) with the limits of allowable Ritual clearly laid down. So, and so only (as it seems to me), will congregations have Christian liberty of worshipping God with more or less of Ceremonial circumstance according to their spiritual needs, and the evils which cannot but ensue from continued litigation, and the promulgation of "judgments" at once one-sided, contradictory, and inadequate, be averted. I put forth this view some years ago ;* and the subsequent course of events has convinced me more and more of its soundness. Indeed, nothing but the intensity of the conviction could justify me in coming forth before the world as in any sense-however humbly-the compiler of a Liturgy. I am thankful to say that nothing in the following pages is my own, but the adaptation and arrangement of well-known and authoritative materials. A few words will be destrable (1) as to the intention of the present compilation; (2) as to its advantages (me judice); and (3) as to the principles upon which it has been arranged. * In a pamphlet entitled "Pax Super Israel," published by Mr. Palmer, and now out of print. |