survey the practices of churches and the way in which ministers weretrained concerning worship, but the effects of the surveys themselves were farreaching. They stirred the Church into concerted action on the issue of worshipand led several Presbyteries, most notably that of New York, to comprehensivelyexamine the issue themselves.The fruits of this examination where to quicklybecome apparent. In 1903 both New York and Denver Presbyteries overtured theGeneral Assembly to produce forms for public worship. With Henry Van Dykeacting as the chairman of the all-important Committee on Bills and Overtures,the committee quickly resolved to answer the two overtures favorably andappointed a committee to consider the preparation of a simple common book ofworship for voluntary usage in Presbyterian churches. This measure too wasapproved and eventually resulted in the publication in 1906 of the Book ofCommon Worship. While the General Assembly stressed that the use of this bookwas strictly voluntary and not officially recommended (the title page simplystated Prepared by the Committee of the General Assembly of the PresbyterianChurch in the U.S.A. for Voluntary Use) it had far reaching effects it was,after all, an official publication of the denomination. More importantly, asfar as the question we are considering was concerned, it contained prayers forGood Friday, Easter, Advent, and Christmas. Barely 71 years since Samuel Millerhad declared that Presbyterians do not observe Holy Days the denomination hadboldly proclaimed that this was no longer true.The 1906 edition of the Book of Common worship waseventually replaced twenty-two years later by the edition of 1932. The 1932edition continued the advance towards a liturgical format and included evenmore emphasis on the Church year, with prayers provided for Lent, Palm Sunday,Pentecost, and All Saints Day. The 1932 edition was also the first edition tobe officially accepted by the Southern Presbyterian Church. This was even more startlingin light of the fact that in 1899 the Southern General Assembly had declared:There is no warrant in Scripture for theobservance of Christmas and Easter as holy days, rather the contrary (see Gal.4:9-11; Col. 2:16-21), and such observance is contrary to the principles of theReformed Faith, conducive to will worship, and not in harmony with thesimplicity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.23Apparently the intervening 33 years and the obviousinfluence of the 1906 edition of the Book of Common Worship had made a world ofdifference in Southern Presbyterian Attitudes. It is important to note however,that the original declaration of the 1899 General Assembly was never repealed.As the Book of Common Worship continued to berevised, subsequent editions indicated that Presbyterians continued to becomemore and more comfortable with the observance of Holy Days. The 1946 editionincluded prayers for Maundy Thursday, Ascension Day, Trinity Sunday, andthirteen Sundays after Trinity.By 1955, when Northern Presbyterians were onceagain considering another revision of the Book of Common Worship, it had becomepainfully obvious that the Directory of Worship of 1788, which was stilltechnically in force, had little or nothing to do with the actual worship of Presbyterians.Indeed it was questionable whether the Presbyterian practice could even claimto follow the Regulative Principle of Worship outlined in chapter twenty-one ofthe Westminster Confession, especially now that the gap