THE ENGLISHMAN'S PRAYER-BOOK.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—If the laymen are so sincerely enamoured of the old Prayer-book it is difficult to understand why, as a matter of common clerical experience, they nearly always ask us to revise it whenever they have the chance. For example, it is the laity who ask us to alter the Wedding Service, the Funeral Service and the Baptism Service, by omissions, alterations and substitutions. It is the laity who ask us to omit the Athanasian Creed and who themselves ignore rubrics about confirmation and fasting. I think if they considered the matter more closely they would like the Grey Book alterations which aim at more reality in worship than we at present have. We need not be scared by some articles in the Press. I doubt the genuineness of many such articles (not your own, of course). I lately came across two mutually contradictory articles, one in favour of and the other violently opposed to revision. They were both written by the same person and he was a Roman Catholic !
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