# The Parson's Handbook (Second Edition)/Preface

​PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
I SHOULD like to take this opportunity of making clear two points, which have been missed by nearly all those who have criticised this book. As these criticisms have been unexpectedly fair and kindly, I feel that the failure to understand my meaning must have been due to an insufficient insistence on these points in the Introduction. Yet I tried to anticipate them on page 36, and indeed in other places also.
The first point is that this Handbook is not meant only for the extreme, still less is it meant to hound any parsons on to extravagances, or to provide a 'ritualistic' manifesto to swell the discordant noises which the newspapers are just now calling 'the crisis'. It would have been written, in the same way and at the same time, if the Philistine giant had never uplifted his head and shouted the warcry of persecution. The reason why The Parsons Handbook contains as much ceremonial as it does is because I have tried to make it suitable for all parsons. It is, like the Church of England, comprehensive : therefore it had to include the extremest amount of ceremonial which is in my opinion (and it must be a matter of opinion) compatible with loyalty ​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 ​the criticisms on this point afford a curious illustration of the strength with which generations of careless slovenlihood have impressed us. If I had written a Cricketer's Handbook, no one would have complained of minutiæ ; if a Cookery Book, every one would have been up in arms against me for the superficial treatment of a great and serious subject. Yet I cannot help thinking that the worship of God calls for as careful treatment as the playing of games, and that an orderly complement of accessories is as necessary in the church as in the scullery.
In this edition I have carefully revised the text ; and I must express my obligations to the Rev. F. E. Brightman and the Rev. W. H. Frere for their suggestions and corrections, as well as to Mr. W. A. Luning to whom throughout I have been greatly indebted.
I can only add that I shall always be grateful for any further suggestions which may lead to the improvement of this book. No one can be more sensible than I of its many deficiencies.