30 APRIL 1904, Page 30

IS A NEW LECTIONARY REALLY NEEDED ?

LTO THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECrATOR..]

Are OLD GROMWELLIAN.

THE ARMY COUNCIL AND UNIFORMS.

[To TEE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR,']

SIE,—The following announcement appeared in the Times of April 26th :-- "The Army Council has called for reports describing fully the uniforms (full dress, service, or undress, and other articles) worn by every Volunteer battalion of infantry, with the authority and date of their adoption."

have read with much interest and a very large measure of agreement the two articles which have appeared in the Spectator entitled respectively "Christ and the Old Testament" (April 9th) and "Reading in Church" (April 23rd), and I feel emboldened, as well by their general drift as by the courteously unfavourable view expressed with respect to a suggestion of mine (to which I need not further refer), to appeal to you for your powerful aid in securing a revision of the Lectionary. Perhaps the weightiest argument for an affirmative answer to the question at the head of this letter is an unadorned list of some of the Lessons appointed for use on Sundays. If the list were extended to the weekdays, the argument would be greatly strengthened ; but I limit it to the Sunday Lessons because everybody knows that they have been selected on the express ground of their edifying character, and cannot claim the justification of any general theory as to continuous reading, which might fairly be advanced in the case of the weekday Lessons. The following examples of un- edifying Lessons may perhaps suffice :—