The Prayer-Book in the Making. By the Rev. Frank H.
Weston. (John Murray. 5s. net.)—Mr. Weston begins with Jewish worship, and traces the history of Christian common prayer through ,Apostolic, primitive, early and late mediaeval, and Reformation times. He seems to have done this with considerable diligence ; whether he is always accurate in his citation is more than we can say. Curiously enough, in one instance, where it is easy to verify his reference, he makes a great mistake. He is comparing the rubrics of 1549 and 1552, in the matter of daily service. " In 1552' preaching or studying of divinity' was sufficient cause for neglecting daily prayer." Why " neglecting " ? "Our present Frayer-book only admits of sickness as an excuse." Our present Prayer-book adds. "or some other urgent cause," a very different thing indeed, and obviously broader in its scope than the excep- tion of the earlier rubric. If Mr. Weston is equally careless in other cases, his book must be read with caution. Generally, it seems a pity that in a book meant for the great mass of ordinary church-going folk he should have set himself to disparage the
Second Book of King Edward, which he allows to be "largely identical with our present book," as compared with the First. Such language is scarcely loyal.
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