The survey of corrigenda is now complete. The list looks like a long one, but really the points noted are few compared with those which have passed unchallenged. Here and there in the Resolutions that have not been considered are words or phrases that admit of improvement, and which in an actual and authorized re-review by a Committee of Conference would undoubtedly be improved.

The bulk of the work has, for a period of three years, stood the incessant fire of a not always friendly criticism far better than could have been anticipated by those who in the first instance gave it shape. The difficulties of the task have been immense. That they have not all of them been successfully overcome is clear enough, but that they were faced with an honest purpose to be just and fair, and that this purpose was clung to persistently throughout, is a credit which Churchmen of the next generation will not withhold from those who sought to be of service to them.

It remains to be seen whether the representatives of the Church will take up this work and perfect it; or per contra in response to the demand for a "Commission of Experts," or the specious but utterly impracticable[89] proposal of concerted action with the Church of England, will decide to postpone the whole affair to the Greek Kalends. One thing is certain, to wit, that the death of this movement will mean inaction for at least a quarter of a century. The men do not live who will have the courage to embark on a fresh enterprise of the like purport while the shipwreck of this one is before their eyes. There are many who, out of a conscientious fear of disturbing what they like to think of as permanently settled, would view such a conclusion of the whole matter with profound gratitude to God. But there are many more to whom such a confession of the Church's inability to appreciate and unwillingness to meet the spiritual needs of a civilization wonderfully unlike anything that has preceded it would be most disheartening. Least of all is there valid ground for hope in the case of those who fancy that if they can only annihilate this project, the day will speedily come when they can revise the Prayer Book in a manner perfectly conformable to their own conception of the "Ideal Liturgy," and after a fashion which the most ardent Anglo-Catholic must fain approve.

The American Book of Common Prayer bears the impress to-day of two controlling minds, the mind of Seabury and the mind of White. Doubtless it stood written in the councils of the Divine Providence that so it should be. The two men represented respectively the two modes of apprehending spiritual truth which have always been allowed counterplay and interaction in the history of English religion, and which always will be allowed such counterplay and interaction while English religion remains the comprehensive thing it is. No scheme of liturgical revision, no matter how scientifically constructed, will ever find acceptance with the people of this Church which does not do even-handed justice to both of the great historic growths which find their common root in Anglican soil.

When the spirit of Seabury shall have completely exorcised the spirit of White, or the spirit of White shall have completely exorcised the spirit of Seabury from the Church and from the Prayer Book, logic will have triumphed, as sixteen years ago it triumphed under the dome of St. Peter's—logical consistency will have triumphed, but catholicity will have fled.