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PREFACE

For I need hardly say that no authority comes near to that of one whose researches in this branch of Moslem history are unexampled in their range and familiarity with the subject

FOURTH ESSAY, 1850 A.D. The Indian Liturgy. —Our Prayer Book is altogether inadequate to meet the needs of the Indian Church. Among other things for which there is no provision, two stand out pre-eminently. Prayers for the early and the latter Rain are nowhere to be found; and yet on these in India hang life and death, fruitful seasons or fatal dearth. Then there are the surrounding masses of Heathen and Mohammedans, and the dangers to our converts resulting from their influence and example; the necessity also of unceasing supplication for the ingathering of all around them. Hence the importance, as urged in this Essay, of such an enlargement of the Indian Liturgy as will meet these and other objects of time and place. The reasonableness is also urged of permission to use unfixed forms, as borne out by the example of the early Church. The authority of Bingham, Palmer, and others, as to the practice of the apostolical age and the gradual introduction of liturgical services, is referred to as a lesson to ourselves. This historical outline (though, I fear, -carried to an unnecessary length) will, it is hoped, be found of interest, and to abound with lessons bearing on the reasonableness of the adoption of such a service as may best suit the wants of churches planted in the midst of heathen nations.

FIFTH ESSAY, 1887 A.D. The freer and more varied use of the Psalms in our churches. —Looking to the Eastern and Roman Churches, we find that the serial repetition of the Psalter is modified by the use in its stead of the Proper Psalms appointed for the Ferial and Saints' days constantly recurring in their services. Such being not the case in our own Church (six holy days excepted), the daily and monthly repetition of the Psalms in the same serial form is with us never changed from one year's end to another.

This want of freedom has long been felt in America to be a serious disadvantage. And, to remedy it, two measures have for