Page:The Parson's Handbook - 2nd ed.djvu/12

 to our Church ; if it had excluded the more elaborate type of service, it would have ceased to be comprehensive, and would have left the extremer churches (which exist and will continue to exist in considerable number) to the too tender mercies of the fancy ritualist. Therefore I pointed out on page 36 that the parson could make considerable erasures ; and on page 39 I suggested that, however simple the ceremonial of any church might be, it should yet be conducted on legitimate lines so far as it went. Some may dislike the chasuble, and some the black gown, but for both a place is found by the Church of England, and for both provision is made in this book. The harm comes from narrow prejudices on both sides ; for, indeed, the smaller a matter is, the more easily and completely are we apt to lose our heads over it.

I would therefore make a special plea to those who may think this book too elaborate, to ask themselves whether it may not be still of some little use to them, whether a church has any more right to be lawless because it is simple, or ugly because it is unadorned, and whether it would not advance both the credit and peace of our Church if we all tried more to conform to her directions.

The second point that I would mention is the minuteness of some very practical and humdrum directions, which occur specially in the chapter on Vestries. I do not think the clergy will complain of them ; for they know too well what it is to be called upon to write a certificate on the back of an old envelope, with a crossed nib and a dry inkpot. But