_The Morning Prayer_.
(a) _The First Rubric_.--The Maryland Committee is quite right
in remarking that the language of this important rubric, as set
forth by the Convention of 1883, is "inelegant and inaccurate,"
but another diocese has called attention to the fact that the
substitute which Maryland offers would, if adopted, enable any
rector who might be so minded to withhold entirely from the
non-communicating portion of his flock all opportunity for _public_
confession and absolution from year's end to year's end. It is not
for a moment to be supposed that there was any covert intention
here, but the incident illustrates the value to rubric-makers of
the Horatian warning--_Brevis esse labor o, obscurus fio_.
Passing by the Proper Sentences for special Days and Seasons,
against which no serious complaint has been entered,[65] we come
to the proposed short alternative for the Declaration of Absolution.
As it stood in the Sarum Use this Absolution ran as follows:
"The Almighty and Merciful Lord grant you Absolution and Remission
of all your sins, space for true penitence, amendment of life, and
the grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit. Amen."[66]
With the single change of the word "penitence" to "repentance" this
is the form in which the Absolution stood in the original _Book
Annexed_. The Convention thought that it detected a "Romanizing
germ" in the place assigned to "penitence," and an archaism in the
temporal sense assigned to "space," and accordingly rearranged the
whole sentence. But in their effort to mend the language, our
legislators assuredly marred the music.[67]
(e) _The Benedictus es, Domine_.--The insertion of this Canticle
as an alternate to the _Te Deum_ was in the interest of shortened
services for week-day use, as has been already explained. The same
purpose could be served equally well, and the always objectionable
expedient of a second alternate avoided, by spacing off the last
six verses of the _Benedicite_, which have an integrity of their
own, and prefixing a rubric similar to those that stand before the
_Venite_ and the _Benedictus_ in "_The Book Annexed_"; e. g.:
_On week-days, it shall suffice if only the latter portion of
this Canticle be said or sung_.
(n) _The Benedictus_.--With reference to the restoration of the
last portion of this Hymn, it has been very properly remarked by
one of the critics of _The Book Annexed_, that the line of division
between the required and the optional portions would more properly
come after the eighth than after the fourth verse. This would make
the portion reserved for Advent begin with the reference to John
the Baptist, as undoubtedly it ought to do: "And thou, child, shalt
be called the Prophet of the Highest."
(o) _De Profundis_.--There will probably be general consent to the
omission of this alternate, as being what the Maryland Committee
_naively_ call it, "too mournful a psalm" for this purpose.[68]