Note 673 — Chapter III

On the records of the New York Provincial Congress, or Convention, is a letter dated July 11, 1776, drafted by Gouverneur Morris, and addressed to Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, which contains the following remarkable proposition: "We take the liberty of suggesting to your consideration the propriety of taking some measures for expunging from the Book of Common Prayer such parts, and discontinuing in the congregations of all other denominations all such prayers, as interfere with the interests of the American cause. It is a subject we are afraid to meddle with. The enemies of America have taken great pains to insinuate into the minds of the Episcopalians that the church is in danger. We could wish that the Congress would pass some resolve to quiet their fears, and we are confident it would do essential service to the cause of America at least in this State." Happily Hancock did not act on this suggestion. Congress might indeed have issued a revised edition of the English Liturgy; but a censorship of the utterances of extemporaneous prayers would have been beyond its range. These extemporaneous devotions were doubtless at the time sufficiently patriotic.