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PREFACE

many years been there observed. First, by substituting a table of Proper Psalms for sixteen holy days. And secondly, another table containing ten series of selected Psalms was long ago introduced into the Prayer-Book, "to be read, instead of the Psalms for the day, at the discretion of the Minister." The American services are thus enriched in no ordinary degree, and made suitable to time and occasion. A further object has been to escape the imperative use of the minatory passages in the Psalms, a subject which has long exercised the American mind.. The alter native table entirely avoids these; so that it is in the power of the Minister, when they occur in the Psalms for the day, to read out of the other table instead.

Following the example of their American sister, the Conventions of Canterbury and York, some twenty years ago, approached Her Majesty with a table of Proper Psalms. It is earnestly to be hoped that the endeavour thus already made will not be lost sight of, but be prosecuted till it meet with the desired success.

W. Muir

Edinburgh, 1897.