30 NOVEMBER 1907, Page 17

PRAYER-BOOK REVISION.

[To TUB EDITOR or Tue ..spacrAroa."3 Stu,—Will yon allow a Wesleyan minister to correct a " Wesleyan Layman" (Spectator, November 23rd) ? The excellent newspaper which he quotes is not "the official organ" of Methodism, and never claims to be so regarded.

Moreover, the Prayer-book is actually in use in every Wesleyan Methodist church. It is invariably used for the Sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, for marriages, and for burials. "The kind of thing Methodism has left behind" is the wearisome drawling of the Morning Prayer and the Litany with no help whatever from the choir. Methodism has abandoned that, but it does not follow that Methodism has finally abandoned the democratic form of worship which the Prayer-book provides. On the contrary, there is a strong undercurrent in the Wesleyan Methodist Church which is setting in the direction of a reverent form of service in which the congregation may join. Wealeyans are beginning to recognise that to leave the whole service at the will andin the words of a preacher is in reality a focal

of priestcraft.—I am, Sir, &c., HENRY T. HOOPER. Hezham.