In the earlier part of the nineteenth-century, the rubric at the beginning of the PECUSA BCP 1789 Order for Holy Communion was changed. Previously it made explicit reference to the priest standing at "the north side of the Table". Beginning in 1833, the rubric was printed as "the right side of the Table".I am speculating, but it could be that this change reflected how the Old High Church tradition understood the significance of the North End during the Eucharist. As seen here in Wheatly's A Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer (1714), the position of the priest at the 'right side' of the Holy Table mirrors the place of the Ascended Lord in the heavenly sanctuary:- Hebrews 8:1;- Hebrews 10:12;- Te Deum.The North End thus embodies the understanding of eucharistic sacrifice set forth by Wheatly: Sparrow had earlier indicated a similar understanding with his statement that "the Chancel typifies heaven". This was also reflected in the Church of Ireland's 1666 'Form of Consecration, or, Dedication of Churches'. The prayer for the dedication of "the Altar, or Communion Table" declared:The North End, therefore, was understood to give expression to a richly patristic account of eucharistic sacrifice, a setting forth on earth of "the commemorative Sacrifice of the death of Christ, which does as really and truly shew forth the death of Christ" (Sparrow), reflecting the Ascended Lord's ministry in the sanctuary not made by mortal hands, like unto "a Lamb as it had been slain" (Revelation 5:6). It was on this basis, in his classic celebration of the Caroline tradition in the Church of Ireland, that F.R. Bolton defended the post-disestablishment Church of Ireland's "rubrical and canonical insistence" on the North End:As George Herring reminds us, the North End was only abandoned by "some, but by no means all" Tractarian parishes in the 1840s and 1850s. Prior to this, it was a unifying practice within Anglicanism, an expression of Common Prayer and uniformity, embracing both catholic and reformed emphases - reflecting the heavenly sanctuary and ensuring that the manual acts were seen by the people. It was, in other words, a practice both catholic and reformed.So what is the purpose of this post? Firstly, it is to attempt in some way to rescue the North End from "the enormous condescension of posterity", from its outright dismissal as an absurd eccentricity by the Parish Communion and Liturgical Movements. Secondly, it is to suggest that the portrayal of the North End as a 'low' practice - the view of that unholy alliance of Ritualists and neo-Puritans - deprives Anglicanism of an authentic understanding of a practice which was a part of eucharistic piety for generations of Anglicans. Thirdly, it is a reminder that contemporary use of eitherorneeds a rationale at least as theologically rich and coherent as that given by the pre-1833 High Church tradition for the North End.And finally ... yes, perhaps it is to tentatively propose that the North End should not be entirely lost to the Anglican patrimony. Perhaps parishes and communities with a charism for restoring Common Prayer in an age of "[a]lmost ubiquitous liturgical chaos" ( Milbank ) might consider retrieving a practice at once richly catholic and authentically reformed.