It will be evident from the title of this book that it does not aim at providing a handbook dealing systematically with the conduct of church services. There are already a number of such guides in existence, each speaking the language of the ""Crede Michi"" recommending its own way as the one way to be implicitly followed. There is no need to add one more to this motley multitude. To discuss the principles of ceremonials seems a more necessary task, for it is only by a recurrence to principles that the wide diversities of today can be brought to a better unity: and that is the aim which is here kept in view. - From the Preface