arca is only cognate, and has nothing to do with the derivation of our English word. Its first meaning is chest, coffer, bin, as we have it in the Bible in the "ark" of the Tabernacle, and the "ark" of bulrushes on which Moses was exposed as a child; but because the ship which Noah built was like a huge box or chest, it was called an ark. Dr. Latham, as usual, has confused his quotations by placing Noah's ark first, and by adding the meaning of "chest" at the end. The word, he admits, is still used in that sense in the northern counties; and those who agree with us rather than with him, will see in our "ark" a pure Northumbrian form, which, both in spelling and sound, has ousted the West-Saxon "earc" or "yark."

We are curious to see what Dr. Latham will make of such undoubted Norse words as "threshold," which has as much to do with "threshing" and "holding," as the German "armbrust” from "arcubalista," has to do with "arm" and "brust." Costermonger, too, is a philological nut, and cannot be ignored, as the word is used by Shakspeare. An English Dictionary is a task not lightly to be attempted, and one may break one's neck at every step. Such a work, therefore, should be treated with forbearance in minor faults, and we are not inclined to make much of such confusing errors of the press as "Van Harmer's History of the Assassins," where Von Hammer Purgstall, the great Oriental scholar, is turned into a name which, under a Dutch form, reminds us of a distinguished Old Bailey attorney and thief-catcher, who was also an Alderman of London.

But, on the whole, we may say, that if the parts of this Dictionary which have yet to appear are not a great improvement, both in etymology, quotation, and arrangement, on these six which have already seen the light, this new edition of Johnson's Dictionary will not only be the worst Johnson, but one of the worst Dictionaries that the world can show.

ART. III.-LITURGICAL REFORM IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

Special Address of the Association for Promoting a Revision of the Prayer-Book, 1862.

No candid observer can regard without disquietude the present position of the Church of England. She is labouring in a sea of tronbles, and none can discern any sure promise of a serene future. Uncertainty surrounds her doctrine; the authority of her judicatories has been rudely impugned; her discipline is defective; and her formularies are a cause of offence to many of her most zealous children. This state of things does not affect the south alone. The good or evil fortunes of the Church of England are matters of interest to us all. It concerns every denomination in Great Britain; nay, it concerns Protestants, in whatever country they may live, that the mischiefs which disturb her should be faced, their causes examined, and the remedies for them, if remedies are possible, found out. It is not our present purpose to enter upon questions of doctrine, or of Church judicatories. Of Essays and Reviews, or of the authority of the Privy Council, we shall say not a word. We shall confine ourselves to matters, less weighty indeed, but yet of abundant importance the Liturgy and the Formularies, and the Discipline of the English Church. These points are worthy of all consideration for their own sakes, and, moreover, it is only when our southern friends shall have succeeded in putting them on a satisfactory footing that they will be able to grapple with those deeper and more complex questions which at present so disturb their Church, and of which a solution seems so remote. Reform, too, with regard to these minor points, appears to be now within their reach; and prudence would surely dictate that they should apply themselves with all zeal to improvements which are feasible, which are highly expedient in themselves, and which will prove of the utmost service as leading up to more arduous undertakings.

The attention of Parliament has of late been seriously directed to the acknowledged difficulties of the Burial Service of the Church of England. In the course of the debates which have taken place on this subject, a most important admission was made, if not in express words, at least by implication.

The principle of non-infallibility was applied to the Prayerbook, by no less an authority than the Primate of the English Church, who openly avowed the incompatibility of the clerical

functions in certain cases with the requirements of the law. It matters not this admission may have been much qualified, both then and since: dictated as it was by the well-known candour and sincerity of the most reverend Primate, it will probably prove to have been the real turning point of a crisis in Church reform, and cannot fail to be looked upon, both by liturgical revisionists, and by those who advocate an improved state of discipline among the clergy, as a happy omen for the consideration of questions which are still more important than the objections urged against the offices for the dead, and which still more deeply affect the peace, efficiency, and future welfare of the Church of England.

For it would be idle to speak of the Burial Service as the topic which, of its kind, receives the largest amount of interest; or which, if one were to be selected from the whole list of such matters, would, by its satisfactory solution, propitiate the largest number of objectors. The Burial Service may count the conscientious scruples to which it gives rise by hundreds; the Baptismal Services by thousands. It is these last which perplex vast numbers of pious and faithful Churchmen, and which constitute an almost insurmountable obstacle to Nonconformists. The words attributed to the late Archbishop Sumner, forcibly describe the magnitude of the evil, and the facility of a remedy:"I do not know what I may have said at any former time; but my opinion now is, that if I could be allowed to alter twenty words in the Prayer-book, I could bring 20,000 Dissenters into the Church!" At the present moment complaints are loudest against the Burial Service; but the cry for reform which has arisen upon this single point, undoubtedly represents a long pent-up desire for a revision of those formularies, which restrict the latitude of opinion held allowable by the law of England upon the subject of Baptismal Regeneration, and which seem to exceed, in dogmatic assertion and in positiveness of language, the statements of the Thirty-nine Articles themselves.

The demand for alteration in the Burial Service must therefore be considered as necessarily involving other and yet more important changes. The propriety of this course will probably make itself more and more apparent to those who have undertaken to apply a remedy to existing grievances. There must be a due proportion always between the work to be done and the machinery for doing it. The appointment of a Royal Commission to consider nothing more than how the Burial Service might best be amended, would, even if clogged with no conditions, be a violation of this principle; but the language used

by the Primate in assenting to such a step, if correctly reported, seems to point at conditions which leave no hope of any worthy result even as regards this service itself. The archiepiscopal consent is to be given only upon the supposition that there is to be no alteration in the words of the service; and as the objections to the Burial Office do raise distinctly the question of altering or omitting some half-dozen words, which are the gist of all the conscientious scruples involved, what good will come of an inquiry so limited in its scope and end? It is vain to expect that the deliberations of such a commission would lead to any settlement of the question, or indeed to any useful result whatever, save, perhaps, that the futility of its labours might bring out in a yet more striking light the imperative necessity for some verbal alterations. But the application of a large and cumbrous machinery to a single object of such comparative insignificance, would be, in any case, of very doubtful propriety. It is hardly probable that any statesmen would be found to aid in the undertaking, or that the Episcopal Bench would be induced seriously to apply themselves to an inquiry which presents no one hopeful feature. The more thoughtful among our legislators might feel, that real harm may be done to the Church of England by an inadequate treatment of these questions, and that it would be better and wiser to deal with the whole case, as put forward by the friends of a moderate revision of the Prayer-book, than to lose time, and incur the risk of strife and troubles, for what at best could only end in an imperfect settlement of a minor point in a great subject.

One long-standing objection to a comprehensive inquiry into the claims of English Church reformers has been the want of some well-defined statement of the reforms proposed. In this respect the Central London " Association for promoting a Revision of the Prayer-Book and a Review of the Acts of Uniformity" has rendered real service, by gathering up into a small compass, and by expressly stating, the main points upon which

1 Extract from the Special Address of the Council, adopted March 11, 1862 : II. With respect to the Daily and Occasional Services :

:

1. The substitution, in the Service for Ordering Priests, of a precatory form for the words, "Receive the Holy Ghost," etc.; and the removal of the clause, "Whose soever sins thou dost forgive," etc. These words formed no part of the ordinals of the Western Church for at least the first thousand years of the Christian era, and at this moment are not found in the rituals of the Greek and Eastern Churches.

2. Such a modification of the Baptismal Services as will relieve the minister from the necessity of asserting that the baptized person is thereby regenerate, with such verbal alteration in the Catechism and Order of Confirmation as

there is a general agreement. These points are reduced to seven in number; and of these, some are merely rubrical. It would seem, therefore, that no further statement is necessary to refute the objection which attributes vagueness and indefiniteness to liturgical reformers. The Council of the above-named Association comprises the names of influential noblemen, clergymen, and laymen of the Church of England; and we may fairly assume, that the "Seven Points" specially put forward by them represent the case of the majority among revisionists. These points involve no extravagant or violent changes in the services of the English Church, and no changes at all in her fundamental doctrines; while, on the other hand, they are of sufficient difficulty to demand all the care and labour which any commission could bestow upon them, and of sufficient extent, as it seems to us, to give room for a well-grounded hope that, should they be honestly and openly discussed and settled, many of the evils which at present trouble and grievously weaken the Church of England will disappear. We may surely, then, expect from our statesmen that they will not shrink from the fair and impartial examination of matters which have now been singled out, as it were by general consent, as causes of offence to a large body in the English Church. Signs, indeed, are not wanting that those statesmen whose names are especially connected with the cause of political reform, are preparing to recognise ecclesiastical

will bring these formularies into more complete harmony with the freedom of opinion which has been legally declared permissible within the Established Church. Also the optional use of vicarious stipulations on behalf of children to be baptized, with permission to parents to undertake all needful responsibilities for their own children.

3. The form of absolution in the Service for the Visitation of the Sick to be assimilated to the declaration of pardon in the Morning and Evening Prayer, or to the form of absolution in the Communion Service.

4. Such amendments in the Burial Service as may render it more universally appropriate.

5. The optional use of the Athanasian Creed, with or without the damnatory clauses. Also the power of omitting a part or the whole of the Commination Service, and of abbreviating the Service for the Solemnization of Matrimony.

6. The separation of services originally distinct, so as to detach the Litany and Communion Service from being of necessity part and parcel of the Morning Prayer on Sundays and other holy-days; as well as permission to the minister to make use of certain portions of the Prayer-book for Afternoon or Evening Service on Sundays, when both are held in the same church, and for any extra week-day service.

7. The restoration to the minister of the discretionary power he formerly possessed1 of occasionally substituting for the appointed Lessons some others which he may consider more appropriate.

1 See the Preface to the Second Book of Homilies.