BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 110 BOOKPLATE published a treatise on the subject in Italian in 1495. It is generally divided into bookkeeping by single and bookkeep- ing by double entry. Bookkeeping by single entry is imperfect, and is scarcely fitted even for very limited establish- ments. Bookkeeping by double entry be- ing first practiced in Venice, Genoa, and the adjacent towns, is often called the Italian method. In bookkeeping by dou- ble entry all transactions inward fall un- der four heads: cash, bills, book debts, and stock. There are, moreover, a cash book, a bill book, a book for book debts — called the ledger — and a book for the record of stock, that is, stock on hand. There are various other books in a large establishment. BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER, the book that forms the liturgy of the Church of England. It is a development from the "Breviary Missal" and "Man- ual" compiled in the 11th century by Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury. A revi- sion of the "Breviary" was made in 1516, by order of Cardinal Wolsey, and it was again revised in 1531, and the "Missal" in 1533. In 1542 a Committee of Convocation was appointed whose work, a litany, in English, was issued in 1544. In 1547 Cranmer's rendering of the "Missal" into English appeared as the "Order of Communion." In 1548 the first version of the present "Book of Common Prayer" was repoi'ted to the convocation and adopted by Parliament, as a part of the Act of Uniformity of 1548-1549. A second revision was sanc- tioned by Parliament in 1552. This was repealed by Queen Mary, and restored by Elizabeth, with changes in 1559. The Puritans suppressed the book, but it was restored at the Restoration. The Savoy Conference of 1661 modified it by con- cession to the Puritans. It was adopted in Ireland in 1662 and has since been used by the Anglican Church, in its various branches. It consists of various tables, Morning and Evening Prayers, the Lit- any, Prayers and Thanksgivings, Col- lects, Epistles and Gospels chosen in ac- cordance with the Church calendar. Or- der of Communion and other special ser- vices, as Matrimony, and Burial of the Dead, the Catechism, the Psalter services connected with the imposition of the clerical and lay offices, and Articles of Religion. The "Prayer Book" of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States is a revision of the Angli- can book, authorized in 1789, and revised again, 1886-1893. BOOK OF MARTYRS, a history of the persecution of Reformers in England, by John Fox. BOOK OF MORMON, a book forming the authoritative scriptures of the mem- bers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Joseph Smith, an American, of Manchester, N. Y., pro- fessed to have heard in 1823 the Angel Moroni reveal to him in visions that the Bible of the Western Continent was buried in a box near his residence. This, according to his own account, he at length found — a volume six inches thick, with leaves of thin gold plate, eight inches long by seven broad, bound to- gether with three gold rings; on which leaves was a mystic writing that he char- acterized as reformed Egyptian. With the book he professed to have found a pair of magic spectacles, by means of which he was able to read the contents which he dictated to an amanuensis. This book consists of an alleged history of America from 600 B. c, when Lehi and his family (descended from the disper- sion after the building of the Babel tower) landed in Chile. Between the de- scendants of Nephi, Lehi's youngest son, and the offspring of his older brothers, who are the North American Indians, long conflicts were waged; the Nephites finally being almost annihilated. There remained a fragment, among whom were Mormon and his son, Moroni. They col- lected the records of their people, and buried them in the hill of Cumorah, on the Divine assurance that they would be found by the Lord's prophet. Besides this history, the book, as it finally was received, has various moral and religious teachings. The real history of it is as follows: Solomon Spalding, an eccentric preacher, wrote a historical romance in 1812, which a compositor, into whose hands it fell, sold to Smith. This was, for substance, the "Book of Mormon" which Smith issued, to which various additions have since been made. BOOK OF THE DEAD, a compilation of the religious literature of Egypt in 106 chapters. According to Sayce's "An- cient Empires of the East" (1884), it is a collection of inscriptions from the mummy cases, tombs, and demotic writ- ings — the funeral ritual of the Egyp- tians, setting forth, in mystical language, the adventures of the soul after death and the means of escaping torment. BOOKPLATE, an English name for labels of ownership frequently placed on the inside covers of books. The use of bookplates is of some antiquity, and mention has been made of one dated in the middle of the 15th century, but at present the fine bookplates of Bilibaldus Pirckheimer (1470-1530), designed by Albert Diirer. hold the foremost place in
