Prayer Book Revision Since 1662

By The Editor

      In the following sketch England will be found claiming a space which may seem to some readers disproportionate.  The reason for this is the present complication in the relations of Church and State, which might cause confusion, especially in the minds of overseas readers, if the narrative were too condensed.

      A drastic revision of the Book of Common Prayer was proposed in 1689, after the accession of William and Mary, with a view to reconciling religious differences. [See Procter and Frere, pp. 206–21.]  A Commission of ten Bishops and twenty divines prepared a series of proposals, by which not only would the style of the Prayer Book have been altered for the worse, according to our modern view, [See below.] but the standard of Churchmanship would have been appreciably lowered.  They included the following changes : the alteration of the word “Priest” to “Minister” in many places; the removal of Black-letter Days from the Calendar; the making of the surplice optional; the substitution (apparently) of Psalms for the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis; the dispensing of those who had conscientious objections from the necessity of using the sign of the cross in Baptism; the reordaining of priests ordained by the Roman Rite; [Roman Catholicism was a proscribed religion and its priests often went under assumed names; this made their letters of orders valueless for purposes of identification.] etc.  The proposals had an unfavourable reception and were never formally presented to Convocation.  The resistance came mainly from the Lower House.

      The general atmosphere of the eighteenth century and the fact that many of the clergy with liturgical knowledge were Non-jurors prevented the question of revision from being seriously raised until the revival of Convocation in 1852.  It will be convenient to consider the line taken by the Lambeth Conference subsequent to that date before we trace the course of events in the Provinces of Canterbury and York.

      1867.  Resolution 8. “... each Province should have the right to make such adaptations and additions to the services of the Church as its peculiar circumstances may require. Provided, that no change or addition be made inconsistent with the spirit and principles of the Book of Common Prayer, and that all such changes be liable to revision by any Synod of the Anglican Communion in which the said Province shall be represented.” [Abp. Davidson, The Six Lambeth Conferences (1929), p. 56.  The idea of a supreme Synod with power over the Provinces does not recur in the utterances of later Conferences.]

      1888.  Resolution 10.  “... no particular portion of the Church should undertake revision without seriously considering the possible effect of such action on other branches of the Church.” [Ib., p. 125.]

      1897.  Resolutions 45, 46 recognize the jus liturgicum of the Diocesan Bishop [See Introduction above.] – “the exclusive right of each Bishop to put forth or sanction additional services for use within his jurisdiction, subject to such limitations as may be imposed by the provincial or other lawful authority”; and [46] “of adapting the Services in the Book of Common Prayer to local circumstances ... subject to ... lawful authority, provided also that any such adaptation shall not affect the doctrinal teaching or value of the Service or passage thus adapted.” [The Six Lambeth Conferences, p. 207.]

      1908.  The Conference laid down the following principles which should be kept in view by a competent authority revising the Prayer Book (Resolution 27): [Ib., p. 323.]

      (a) The adaptation of rubrics in a large number of cases to present customs as generally accepted;

      (b) The omission of parts of the services to obviate repetition or redundancy;

      (c) The framing of additions to the present services in the way of enrichment;

      (d) The fuller provision of alternatives in our forms of worship;

      (e) The provision for greater elasticity in public worship;

      (f) The change of words obscure or commonly misunderstood;

      (g) The revision of the Calendar and Tables prefixed to the Book of Common Prayer.

      1920.  The Fourth Report to the Conference recommended that “it should be recognized that full liberty belongs to Diocesan Bishops not only for the adaptations and additions alluded to above [i.e. by previous Conferences, as here quoted] but also for the adoption of other uses.” [Ib., Appendix, p. 88.]

      The last words do not appear in the Resolutions, which run thus:

      “36.  While maintaining the authority of the Book of Common Prayer as the Anglican standard of doctrine and practice, we consider that liturgical uniformity should not be regarded as a necessity throughout the Churches of the Anglican Communion. ...”

      “37.  Although the inherent right of a Diocesan Bishop to put forth or sanction liturgical forms is subject to such limitations as may be imposed by higher synodical authority, it is desirable that such authority should not be too rigidly exercised so long as those features are maintained which are essential to the safeguarding of the unity of the Anglican Communion.”

      Resolution 38 requested the Archbishop of Canterbury to appoint a Committee of students of liturgical questions which would be ready to advise any Province or Diocese on these matters. [The Six Lambeth Conferences, Appendix, p. 36.]

      In 1930, Resolution 50 recommended that this Committee need not be reappointed, since the Consultative Body, “calling in expert advisers at its discretion,” existed to give advice on all such questions.  It may be surmised that the usefulness of such a Committee (or such experts) would in practice be realized chiefly by an isolated missionary diocese under the direct supervision of the See of Canterbury.  The histories of the Scottish, American and Canadian Revisions do not mention any reference to the Committee appointed in 1920, nor was there any suggestion during the discussion of Prayer Book Revision in England that advice should be sought from the self-governing Churches in Communion with Canterbury.

      To return to the situation in England when the sittings of the Convocation of Canterbury were resumed. [York did not meet till 1861, i.e. in more than outward form.  For practical purposes it is sufficient to use the records of proceedings of the Convocation of Canterbury.  The authority for the statements that follow will be found in the Chronicle (or Journal) of Convocation for the years in question.]  The outstanding problem was the Sunday Morning Service, which had to comprise Mattins, Litany, and Holy Communion, in this order and none other, if the Act of Uniformity was obeyed.  But in many places the three services had fallen into desuetude (1857); there was no compulsion to follow the Prayer Book in noblemen’s chapels, nor did the Bishops necessarily do so in their own chapels (1858).  The clergy were all but unanimous in desiring a change (1857).  But the Bishops were slow to move.  Permission to have an early Communion Service was given only “by tacit connivance”. (Bp. of Winchester, 1859); strictly speaking it was illegal.  If a church was reopened after restoration, “all we can do to meet such a case is to use the ordinary Offices of the day, it may be with lessons singularly inappropriate” (Bp. of Oxford, 1859). [It is interesting to note that an exception was made for the rite of Consecrating Churches.  “The existing form has been so long used as to have obtained the character of prescription” (Prolocutor, 1860); see p. 710.]  Faced by this situation, Convocation in 1854 presented a report by which the Bishop would be empowered to authorize a division of the Morning Service, such as was already found in unconsecrated buildings (1852); but no action followed. In 1855 it was agreed that the Prayer Book had better be left intact, additional services being provided.  An Address to the Queen in 1859 refers to the attempts to revise the Prayer Book.  “The recently authorized use of the Litany as a separate service” has removed one argument in their favour.  “We declare our conviction that the supposed advantages of a revision of the Book of Common Prayer are far outweighed by the manifest disadvantages of such a course.”  But the controversy over Prayer Book revision had begun.  Three utterances of 1860 may be quoted which might have been made in 1927–28.  “There is the greatest excitement out of doors on subjects connected with the Prayer Book” (Dr. McCaul).  “As this is a new course for the Church to enter upon, I need not, I am sure, say how important it is that every step we take should be taken with the utmost caution” (Bp. of Oxford).  “The attendance of the poor in our churches has gradually died away” (Dean of Norwich).

      Discussion arose next over a Harvest Thanksgiving Service, petitions for which had been presented.  The Archbishop thought that there was no precedent for putting forth a service of this description for one Province only, and that York and Ireland would have to be consulted.  But he agreed to ask if the Queen would see fit to order by royal proclamation the use of a special service of Harvest Thanksgiving in the United Church of England and Ireland.  To this the Lord Chancellor replied that it was doubtful whether the Crown had any such power, and that the Queen ought not to be advised to reply (1863).  In 1867 a Royal Commission was appointed to consider the rubrics concerned with ritual; its scope was enlarged in 1869.  As a result of its Reports a revised Lectionary was published in 1871 [See above, The Lectionary.] and the Act of Uniformity Amendment Act was passed in 1872.  By it shortened services were allowed on weekdays, designed unfortunately on non-liturgical lines; any of the three Morning Services could be used separately; and additional services could be used on special occasions, if approved by the Ordinary, provided they were entirely derived from Holy Scripture and the Prayer Book. [This Act is the only legal authority for certain universal deviations from the strict letter of 1662.]  In the same year Letters of Business were issued to the Convocations to confer and report on a revision of the rubrics on the basis of the fourth and final report of the Royal Commission.  The next few years were devoted largely to this task, and in 1879 a Report was presented to the Crown with a draft Bill for facilitating changes in the services.  The Convocation Prayer Book, being the Book of Common Prayer with altered rubrics, in accordance with the Report, was published in 1880. [Some of the features are interesting.  “A Table to regulate the service when two Feasts or Holydays fall upon the same day” came into general use.  The preliminary tables include the movable feasts from 1500 to 2000, an exceedingly valuable addition for students of history.  Canterbury amended the Ornaments Rubric to prescribe surplice with stole or scarf and hood, or, in preaching, gown with hood and scarf; “no other ornament shall at any time of his ministrations be used by him contrary to the monition of the Bishop of the Diocese.”  York kept the rubric unaltered.  Provision is made for laymen reading the lessons.  At the Holy Communion the Collect for the Queen may be omitted if the service is said with Mattins or Litany.  A pause is to be made for non-communicants to withdraw.]  No action followed the presentation of the Report. [We learn that some clergy were in the habit of shortening the Holy Communion by beginning at the Offertory (1872), and that so long ago as the days of Bp. van Mildert (1826–36) shortened Daily Services were held in Durham Cathedral with the Bishop’s authorization.  Uniformity can never have been so strictly observed as might be deduced from the Proceedings of Convocation.  It should be remembered that the Bishops, as members of the House of Lords, were part of the legislature and in close touch with the law officers of the Crown.  Convocation had only recently been revived, and it was natural that the Bishops, if they had to choose between their obligations to Parliament and their obligations to Convocation, sometimes laid more stress on the former.]

      The next quarter of a century can be treated very briefly.  Reference is made to the distress caused by irregular services in church, especially in connection with Temperance Societies (1886); but two forms of Children’s Services, both conforming to the Act of Uniformity Amendment Act, are stated to have been published (1888).  In 1896 a resolution of the Lower House affirmed that the time was not opportune to seek powers to revise the rubrics.  In 1898 a Joint Committee was appointed to revise the Accession Service, and, in deference to a petition signed by leading theologians at Oxford and Cambridge, a new form was adopted which departed from the model of Mattins and Evensong.  This with the concurrence of the Convocations was authorized by Royal Warrant in 1901. [See art. “Consecration of Churches, etc.,” for an account of the labours of Convocation during the period 1852–1906 on additional services.]

The Proposed English Revision.

      A new chapter begins with the Report in 1906 of the Royal Commission appointed in 1904 to inquire into the alleged breaches of “the law of the Church.  The Commissioners declared that the law of public worship in the Church of England is too narrow for the religious life of the present generation. ... It is important that the law should be reformed, that it should admit of reasonable elasticity ... above all, it is necessary that it should be obeyed.”  On November 10, 1906, Letters of Business were issued to the Convocations with instructions to prepare a new rubric regulating the vesture of the clergy in church and to frame modifications in the existing law relating to the conduct of Divine Service, with a view to their enactment by Parliament.  The end was stated to be “to secure the greater elasticity which a reasonable recognition of the comprehensiveness of the Church of England and of its present needs seems to demand.”  From this date to 1920 the work of Convocation went on continuously.  Three General Elections, involving the reelection of the Lower Houses, as well as the war’ contributed to the slowness of movement.  The Convocations finished their work on April 29, 1920, and sent their answer to the Crown.  The Convocation of York dissented from Canterbury in respect of the proposed Canon in the revised Communion Service.  The Archbishop of Canterbury stated on April 27 that, had the answer been sent two years earlier, the matter would have rested with the Crown, or Parliament, including the Bishops in the House of Lords, to decide what the next step should be.  But now that the Church Assembly had been set up, the pledge given in 1909, that the Representative Church Council (including the Houses of Laymen) should have an opportunity of saying Yes or No “to its [the new Prayer Book’s] principles, and perhaps to the larger details,” naturally involved consulting the Assembly.

      In view of what happened subsequently, the proceedings in the Lower House of the Convocation of Canterbury on February 12, 1920, are significant.  The Alternative Order of Holy Communion was discussed.  It was stated that it “would not be used by the High Church party.”  Dr. Wace, Dean of Canterbury, the veteran leader of the Evangelicals, said that “several of them were willing to accept the proposal, provided that it would satisfy. those who belonged to the opposite party in the Church, and consequently would make peace. ... If it was not a final settlement, the only reason for those who thought with him accepting it was gone.” [See Chronicle of Convocation, pp. 154, 155, 160.]

      The procedure in the Assembly when any Measure dealing with Doctrine or Ritual is concerned is as follows.  The Measure is introduced by one or other of the three Houses (Bishops, Clergy, and Laity) and receives General Approval.  The Clergy and Laity sitting separately revise the Measure in detail.  It is then laid before the House of Bishops by each of the other two Houses.  The Measure is revised by Bishops and laid before the Assembly as a whole, “and shall then be either accepted or rejected by the Assembly in the terms in which it is finally proposed by the House of Bishops.”  If accepted it goes before the Legislative Committee for submission to Parliament.

      In November 1920 the Assembly appointed a Committee to review the proposals of Convocation.  Its Report was received in June 1922, when it was agreed that “certain changes and additions should be embodied in another volume or schedule to be sanctioned by authority for optional use for such period as may hereafter be determined” [An installment of revision came into force in 1922, in the shape of an Alternative Lectionary; see p. 298.]  Next year the House of Bishops introduced the “Revised Prayer Book (Permissive Use) Measure, 1923.”  General Approval was given, and the Houses of Clergy and Laity began the work of revision.  By this time an extraordinary amount of interest had been aroused.  The English Church Union published an alternative revision, known popularly as “The Green Book”.  A group anxious for more thoroughgoing adaptation of services to modern needs published “The Grey Book,” and a critical review of all the proposals was put out by a group of liturgists – it was called “The Orange Book”.

      The amendments of the two Houses were carefully considered by the House of Bishops, sitting in private on many occasions.  The result of their deliberations was published early in 1927, in the form of a Composite Book, containing, with a few exceptions, the whole of the old services as well as the new matter.  Its official title was “The Deposited Book,” since the standard copy, referred to in the Measure, was signed by the Archbishops and deposited with the Clerk of the Parliaments.

      In March consent was given by the Convocations to the book’s being laid before the Assembly for Final Approval (268 votes to 36).  In July Final Approval was carried in the Assembly by 517 votes to 133.  The Archbishop of Canterbury promised that, should the Measure receive the approval of Parliament, it should be brought before the Convocations for synodical sanction before the Royal Assent was given.

      The Measure came before Parliament in December 1927.  During the previous six months an almost unprecedented agitation had been carried on in the country, chiefly based on a conviction that Protestantism was in danger.  The Measure was passed by the House of Lords, but the House of Commons rejected it by a small majority (238 to 205), the opposition of the Scottish and Irish members being sufficient to outweigh a small majority of English members in favour of the Measure.  The debate was largely concerned with the Reservation rubrics.  The Bishops then decided on a new Measure, in which some misunderstandings would be removed, notably in respect of the rubrics dealing with Reservation.  The majority in the Convocations sank, the votes being 196 to 73, and the final figures in the Assembly were 396 to 153.  The minorities, as in 1927, were composed partly of Evangelicals, partly of Anglo-Catholics.  In June 1928 the Prayer Book Measure was defeated in the House of Commons by an increased majority, 266 to 220.

      In July the Archbishop of Canterbury stated, on behalf of the diocesan Bishops, who concurred: “It is a fundamental principle that the Church – that is, the Bishops together with the Clergy and the Laity – must in the last resort, when its mind has been fully ascertained, retain its inalienable right, in loyalty to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to formulate its Faith in Him and to arrange the expression of that Holy Faith in its forms of worship.”  No further Measure, he said, was possible at present.

      At the end of 1928 “The Prayer Book as Proposed in 1928” was published as an ordinary book in many different editions.

      In July 1929 the Archbishop of Canterbury moved a resolution in the Upper House of Canterbury, which was carried by 23 votes to 4.  The resolution stated that the Bishops in nearly every diocese had consulted the clergy and laity and, in the light of the information gained, resolved to “consider the circumstances and needs of parishes severally, and give counsel and directions.”  In so doing they would conform to the following principles:

      1.  In view of the approval given by the Convocations “to the proposals for deviations from and additions to the Book of 1662, as set forth in the Book of 1928,” and of the Final Approval given by the Assembly, the Bishops cannot regard as inconsistent with loyalty to the principles of the Church of England the use of such additions or deviations as fall within the limits of these proposals.”

      2.  “The Bishops, in the exercise of that legal or administrative discretion, which belongs to each Bishop in his own diocese, will be guided by the proposals set forth in the Book of 1928, and will endeavour to secure that the practices which are consistent neither with the Book of 1662 nor with the Book of 1928 shall cease.”

      3.  Permission to use matter from the 1928 Book will be conditional on “the goodwill of the people as represented in the Parochial Church Council,” and as regards the Occasional Offices on the consent of the parties concerned.

      At the time of writing, therefore, the 1662 Book remains the official standard, with the 1928 Book as a supplementary Book from which services and prayers may be drawn if required.  The Occasional Offices are widely used.  So are the revised Selection of Psalms, the additional Collects, Epistles and Gospels, and the Occasional Prayers.  The Alternative Order of Holy Communion has made but little headway.  The many years of discussion have not been wasted.  The English people have received an education in liturgical matters which otherwise would have been impossible.  What seemed incredible actually came to pass.  The holiest mysteries of the Faith were discussed in Parliament, but with such sincerity that caviling was silenced.  The controversy echoed round the world, but some continental observers, at least, were not shocked but rather admired a country where the people were moved by matters of such moment, and said: “We envy you your controversies.”  The clash of Church and State, predicted by many, has not taken place.  Much of the material collected by English scholars has found a place in Revised Prayer Books overseas.  What seemed at the time a blow to the Church of England may wear a very different aspect in the eyes of future historians.

The Scottish Prayer Book.

      The Scottish Prayer Book of 1637, [See above before Part II.] over which Laud took so much trouble, did not come into use at the Restoration.  After 1688 the Episcopal services, which had been hardly distinguishable from the Presbyterian, gradually became liturgical, as the English Book made its way. But the Communion Service of 1637, from 1724 onwards, was printed separately, its popularity being fostered by the influence of the Nonjurors.  The 1764 edition is regarded as the standard.  In the nineteenth century the English Liturgy took the predominant place, and in 1863 the Canons ordered its use on official occasions, and, in new congregations unless a certain number of the communicants desired the Scottish Office.  The Dioceses of Edinburgh and Glasgow were the strongholds of the English Use. [See Procter and Frere, pp. 143–31, 228–30.]

      In 1909 the revision of the Scottish Liturgy was taken in hand, [See W. Perry, The Scottish Prayer Book (1929), for recent history.] and the Committee appointed by the Bishops was presently asked to prepare also a schedule of “permissible additions to and deviations from the Book of Common Prayer.”  This installment of revision was sanctioned by the Provincial Synod in 1911 and published in the following year.  In 1918 the task of revising the whole Prayer Book was begun, and the Committee’s proposals were brought before the Consultative Council at intervals.  The Provincial Synod of 1925 completed about half the book and then postponed further deliberation in order to await the results of Prayer Book Revision in England.  In 1928 the Provincial Synod finished the work and the proposals were referred to the Diocesan Synods and the Consultative Council for acceptance or rejection.  Acceptance was almost unanimous, and in March 1929 the Provincial Synod confirmed the approval of the new Book, which came into use at the end of the year.  The approval took the form of passing Canon XXIII, which states that the authorized Service Books of this Church are – the Scottish Book of Common Prayer approved by the Provincial Synod of 1929, and the Book commonly called the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England. ... “Services from either Book may be used in their entirety.  The English Alternative Order of Holy Communion (1928) is allowed, under certain conditions, if and when the Episcopal Synod is satisfied that it has been authorized in the Church of England”; similarly, the Scottish Communion Office of 1764 may be used.

      The Scottish Prayer Book bears the mark of two scholar-bishops, Dr. Dowden and Dr. Maclean.  It was drawn up under favourable conditions, for the Church is homogeneous in character and doctrinal controversies hardly affect it.  The Book as a whole is clearly the best of the Anglican Prayer Books; it draws freely on the rich material provided by the long English debates and is also strongly national, especially as regards the Eucharistic Liturgy and the Calendar.

The Irish Prayer Book.

      In 1662 the Irish Convocation accepted the revised English Book, the use of which was enjoined by the Irish Parliament in 1666.  Additional services for the Visitation of Prisoners, the Consecration of Churches, and the Reconciling of the Lapsed or the Receiving of Converts, were printed with the Irish Book during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  From 1800 to 1870, as a result of the union between England and Ireland, the Churches of the two countries were united under the title of “The United Church of England and Ireland.”  When disestablishment took effect in 1871, the existing Prayer Book was accepted for a time, pending revision.  The revised Book “according to the use of the Church of Ireland” was published in 1878.  The Preface, like that of the American Book, disclaims any intention of departing from the English standard, but, unlike the American one, implies that doubtful points have been interpreted in a uniform direction.  The changes “imply no censure upon the former Book ... when it is rightly understood and equitably construed.”  The concluding words – “what is imperfect, with peace, is often better than what is otherwise more excellent, without it” – reflect the difficulties experienced by the revisers.

      The demand that phrases in the Communion Service, patient of a supposedly materialistic interpretation, should be removed was resisted, and the service remained practically unaltered.  The same is true of the Ordination Services.  In the Order for the Visitation of the Sick the form of Absolution is that found in the Communion Service.  Additional services are provided for Harvest Thanksgiving, Consecration of a Church or Churchyard, and the Visitation of Prisoners; and a form of Morning Service is provided, to be used on the Sunday after Institution.

      Outside criticism has been directed rather against the “Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical,” as decreed at Dublin in 1871 and 1877, which are printed with the Prayer Book, rather than against the changes in the Book itself.  The sign of the cross is forbidden even to the laity; so also are bowing to the altar, a cross on the Communion Table, or on the covering thereof, and even the carrying of a banner in procession.  The intention is to differentiate the Church as clearly as possible from Roman Catholicism.

      In 1909 General Synod began to consider how best “the Rubrics and Services of the Church might be adapted to the requirements of the present time,” “without making any modification in doctrine or in the ritual Canons.”  The plates of the Prayer Book were destroyed in the Dublin rising of 1916.  Finally, the new Prayer Book was approved in 1926 and came into force in 1927.  It has several interesting features.  The Psalter follows the Occasional Prayers, and the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels follow the Holy Communion.  St. Patrick and the Transfiguration are added to the Calendar.  The Commination Service and the Visitation of the Sick are completely recast.  A service for the Burial of Baptized Children is added.

The American Prayer Book. [This summary is based on W. McGarvey, Liturgia Americanae (1895), and E. C. Chorley, The New American Prayer Book (1929).]

      After the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, it became impossible to use the State prayers, and the parishes acting separately omitted them.  When peace was signed, a general desire, expressed at several Conventions, was felt for a uniform book of worship, as near as possible to that of the Mother Church.  On November 14, 1784, Dr. Seabury was consecrated as the first American Bishop by three Scottish Bishops, at Aberdeen; the next day he agreed to a Concordat by which he was to do his best to get the Scottish Eucharistic Service accepted in America.  In August 1785 the Bishop met the clergy of Connecticut and a small Committee was appointed to consider necessary changes in the Prayer Book.

      The first General Convention was held at Philadelphia in September and October, 1785; Bishop Seabury was absent, and there were no delegates from the New England States.  A Committee was appointed to report on Prayer Book revision.  Its Chairman, Dr. William White, in a sermon before the Convention referred to the principles governing the proposed changes, which were based on those suggested “at the Revolution, that great aera of liberty, when in 1689 commissioners were appointed”; after this new Revolution in the New World, “all these proposed alterations and amendments were in our hands, and we had it in power to adopt or even improve them.”  The same Convention requested the English Bishops “to confer the Episcopal character on such persons as shall be recommended by this Church.”  In February 1786 the Bishops replied in favourable terms, but wished first to be told of the proposed changes in the Prayer Book.  In April the “Proposed Book” was published.  The Preface declared that it was not the intention “to depart from the Church of England, any farther than local circumstances require.”  The proposals, which included the omission of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds and a complete remodeling of the Psalter, raised a storm of protest in America, and the English Bishops objected.  In February 1787 Drs. White and Provoost were consecrated in the chapel of Lambeth Palace, the English Archbishops having received an assurance that “whatever could be done towards a compliance with your fatherly wishes and advice, consistently with our local circumstances, and the peace and unity of our Church, hath been done.” [The Proposed Book of 1785 was reprinted in London by J. Depret in 1789.  The edition was of fifty copies only, and is stated to have been probably for the use of the English Bishops, who were considering the request of the American Church for the succession (see McGarvey, p. lv); but the dates do not fit.]

      General Convention met in 1789 and dealt with the Prayer Book.  All references to English political conditions were omitted and prayers for the President and for Congress were inserted.  The Athanasian Creed was omitted, “with great reluctance” on the part of Bishop Seabury and the New England deputies.  Many minor changes were made.  The chief ones with possible doctrinal implications were that the sign of the cross in Baptism was made optional, and the personal absolution in the Visitation of the Sick was omitted, as were also the Thirty-nine Articles.  In the Communion Service the Scottish form of Consecration Prayer, which went back to that of 1549, [See above for the differences.] was adopted substantially without opposition; it had already been incorporated in an Order of Communion put out by Seabury for Connecticut in 1786.  Three new services were added: a form for the Visitation of Prisoners, based on one drawn up at Dublin in 1711; a form of Thanksgiving for the Fruits of the Earth; and Forms of Family Prayer, taken from a well-known compilation by Bishop Gibson, of London.  The Ordinal was not printed.

      In 1792 the Ordinal was formally adopted with a few changes, including an alternative to “Whosesoever sins ...”, and henceforward bound up with the Prayer Book.  The changes, taken as a whole, were not serious and must be judged in the light of the declaration in the Preface, “that this Church is far from intending to depart from the Church of England in any essential point of doctrine, discipline, or worship.”  In 1801 the Articles, slightly revised, were added.  In 1799 a Form of Consecration of a Church, and in 1804 an Office of Induction (since 1808 called Institution), completed the work of revision.  The resulting Book remained the standard until 1892.

      The task of revision was resumed in 1880.  Twelve years of discussion revealed a strongly conservative spirit.  The Convention of 1892 contented itself with unimportant changes, largely verbal, “most of them made in accordance with the reading of the English Book, or for the sake of rubrical relaxation” (McGarvey, p. liii).  It is not surprising that the devotional life of the Church outgrew the formularies and a situation resembling that found in England arose.  So in 1913 a Commission was appointed to consider and report on “revision and enrichment of the Prayer Book,” with the stipulation that no proposition involving the Faith and Doctrine of the Church be considered or reported.”  Finally, a revision was approved in 1928 and came into use on Advent Sunday 1929.

      Some of the special features of the present Book are noted elsewhere.  Here it is sufficient to call attention to the statement in the Preface, that, besides the services ordered, other devotions “set forth by lawful authority” may be used, or, under carefully defined conditions, “may supersede Morning and Evening Prayer.”  All passages of Scripture are taken from the Revised Version, and in some cases the marginal rendering is adopted.

The Canadian Prayer Book. [See W. J. Armitage, The Story of the Canadian Revision of the Prayer Book (Cambridge, 1922), a chatty book which contains a good deal of information not readily obtainable elsewhere.]

      A Canadian edition of the Prayer Book was first mooted in 1896, and in the autumn of that year the General Synod asked the Bishops to take steps towards the provision of supplementary services and prayers.  At the next General Synod in 1902 a Committee was appointed to draw up an Appendix.  Bishop Kingdon of Fredericton was the convener, and the report, which was submitted in 1905, and ran to 63 pages of printed matter, was largely his work.  The general impression was that the proposals were too academic, and the House of Bishops deliberately shelved the whole matter.  In 1908, the Canadian Hymn Book having been successfully completed, Prayer Book revision was taken up again; and in 1911 the decision was reached to revise the whole Book and not to be content with an Appendix.  It was agreed that “no change, in either text or rubric, shall be introduced which will involve or imply a change of doctrine or of principles, it being always understood that the Ornaments rubric be left untouched”; also that “no change shall be made not in accordance with Resolution XXVII of the Lambeth Conference of 1908.” [See above.]

      The Committee responsible for revision sent a form of inquiry, covering every possible aspect of the problem, to every clergyman in Canada, as well as to the lay members of General Synod, and a great deal of interest was aroused.  A draft Prayer Book was prepared by 1915, when it was authorized by the House of Bishops “for temporary or occasional use, according to the discretion of the Bishop, until the next meeting of this Synod.”  In 1918 the Book in an amended form was once more approved, subject to the report of a Committee “appointed to settle any details overlooked by the General Synod.”  The 1921 Synod finally confirmed the new Book by adopting Canon XII, which made it legal.  The Bishops were unanimous, the other Houses all but unanimous.  The Book came into use at Easter 1922.

      The Preface states the chief results of the revision to be: “The adaptation of rubrics to customs generally accepted at the present time; the provision of directions for the combined use of the different services; the adaptation and enrichment of the Occasional Offices; the supplying of Forms for Additional Services in use throughout the Church though not provided for in the Book of Common Prayer heretofore; [Viz. for Dominion Day, Children, Missions, Thanksgiving for Harvest, Institution and Induction, Laying the Foundation Stone of a Church, Consecration of a Church, and Consecration of a Churchyard; with Family Prayers.] the addition of many new Prayers for Special Occasions; the revision of the Calendar, the Lectionary, and the Psalter.”  The Canadian Church may be congratulated on the smooth passage of a workmanlike revision on conservative lines.  The Communion Service was virtually untouched, and so one cause of contention was eliminated.  To some observers the new Book will seem an opportunity missed and a perpetuation of features in the 1662 Book which the twentieth century, with its fuller liturgical knowledge, might rightly wish to change.

The South African Revision.

      This began in 1911 with the publication of a schedule of permitted modifications, which in fuller form was published in 1915 by Episcopal Synod.  It should be noted that the work has been done by Episcopal Synod, which meets every year and has put out a number of tentative editions, inviting criticisms or suggestions, which they have adopted or not at their discretion.  Provincial Synod, which meets every five years, has merely ratified the work of the Bishops without attempting to revise it.  The Alternative Liturgy, which was revised several times, was generally approved by Provincial Synod in 1919 with a hope that further consideration be given to objections.  It was once more generally approved in 1924 with a rider that “this Synod ... desires to affirm at the same time its continued loyalty to the Order for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper in the Book of Common Prayer, and to its use, when retained, as a sufficient and completely catholic rite, endeared to multitudes of churchmen by the most sacred associations.”  The 1929 Synod confirmed the approval given in 1924, and the Alternative Form is now legal in the same sense as the 1662 Rite.  It is largely used in the Northern Dioceses, not so largely in the Cape Province.

      In 1924 Provincial Synod authorized the English Revised Lectionary of 1922 as the only one allowed to be used.

      Additional Occasional Prayers were bound up with the Constitution and Canons at least as early as 1904, and more have been added in later editions.  None have been authorized since 1915.  An Alternative Form of the Occasional Offices appeared in 1926, largely based on the English revision proposals.  In 1930 this, in a new recension, was published in London by the S.P C.K.  It contains additional Offices as follows: Form of Admitting Catechumens; a Form of Confession and Absolution; the Blessing of Civil Marriage ; and Burial Services for a Baptized Infant, an Unbaptized Infant, and for cases where the Prayer Book Service may not be used.  The 1930 Book also contains a revised Calendar.  Provincial Synod has not so far discussed the Occasional Offices, which have been considered by Episcopal Synod only. [This account is based on information kindly supplied by the Rev. C. Gould, of Cradock, S. Africa.]

      No attempt has been made so far in Australia and New Zealand to revise the Prayer Book.  In both countries the Anglican section of the population cherishes the link with the Mother Country provided by the 1662 Prayer Book, and in Australia the distances make Synodical action difficult.  The Church of Wales has full liberty to revise the Prayer Book, but has up to the present shown no sign of wishing to do so.  In other parts of the Anglican Communion the problem of revision overlaps with that of translation, which is treated elsewhere in this volume.

Printers and Printed Editions of the Prayer Book

By B. Ince

      Printing, soon after its introduction into England, became there as elsewhere a concern of the State.  The Crown assumed an unlimited right to regulate it, and continued down to the year 1640 to exercise a restrictive jurisdiction over printers, presses and all printed books.

      The first King’s Printer, William Faques, was appointed in 1503 and was succeeded in 1508 by Richard Pynson, who in turn was followed in 1530 by Thomas Berthelet, who held office till the death of Henry VIII in 1547.  No peculiar privilege in regard to printing the Bible or the service books of the Church then attached to the office of King’s Printer, but Berthelet was given sole authority to print the Litany of 1544.  The license for the Primer of 1545, however, was granted jointly to Richard Grafton, who was not then King’s Printer, and Edward Whitchurch, who never held that office.

      On the accession of Edward VI, Grafton was appointed King’s Printer, and he printed The Order of the Communion in March 1548.  But authority to print the first Prayer Book, of 1549, was given not only to him but also to Whitchurch, to John Oswen of Worcester, and later (by the Lord Deputy of Ireland) to Humphrey Powell in Dublin.

      Grafton and Whitchurch had been in partnership till 1541 but had then separated.  By 1549 Grafton was printing “within the precincte of the late dissolved house of the grey Friers,” while Whitchurch had moved into Wynkyn de Worde’s old printing office at the sign of the Sun, on the south side of Fleet Street, opposite the entrance to Shoe Lane.  Whitchurch would seem to have got his book out first, and to have helped Grafton with his; for the colophon at the end of Whitchurch’s first edition (British Museum, C. 25, l. 14 (1)) is dated 7 March 1549, while the colophon at the end of the Communion Office in Grafton’s first book (British Museum, C. 25, l. 12 (1)) is dated 8 March, and the rest of the book is made up of Whitchurch’s sheets.  Both books are black-letter folios, as were all the editions which came from either press that year.  But, in regard to text, there are many differences between the Grafton books and the Whitchurch books, and also between editions produced by one or other printer at different times.

      The privilege given to John Oswen of Worcester was to print, for seven years from 1549, every kind of book set forth by the King “concerning the services to be used in churches, ministration of the sacraments, and instruction of our subjects of the Principality of Wales and marches thereunto belonging.”  Accordingly he printed, but in English, not Welsh, two black-letter editions of the Book of 1549, a quarto in May (British Museum, C. 10, a. 10 (1)) and a folio in July (British Museum, 468, b. 5).  These again show variation of text when compared with any of the books of Grafton or Whitchurch.  Powell, a London printer who had moved to Dublin in 1551 and there set up “in the great toure by the Crane” the first printing press in Ireland, printed a black-letter folio that year, at the command of the Lord Deputy.

      The second Prayer Book, of 1552, was printed by Grafton (several editions, all black-letter folios), by Whitchurch (some editions in folio and some in quarto, all black-letter), by Oswen (one edition only, a black-letter folio), but not by Powell, who printed Prayer Books no more.  Again the books show considerable variation in text, and the first editions of Grafton (Bodleian) and of Whitchurch (British Museum, C. 21, d. 14) are both furnished with a list of “Faultes escaped”.

      Other printers continued to be licensed for smaller books.  For instance, in 1553 an exclusive license was granted to William Seres “dwellyng at the West ende of Poules, at the signe of the Hedgehog” to print Primers “set forth agreeable and according to the book of common prayers established by us in our high court of Parliament”; and to John Day, living over Aldersgate, to print the Short Catechism.  Neither Seres nor Day ever held the office of King’s Printer, Grafton continuing to hold the post till the death of Edward VI.  Then he printed Lady Jane Grey’s proclamation and his term came to an end.

      John Cawood succeeded, but there was naturally no Prayer Book printing in Mary’s reign, and Elizabeth on her accession appointed Richard Jugge his senior colleague.  Jugge and Cawood, in partnership, and no doubt with authority, printed many editions of the Elizabethan Prayer Book of 1559.  Grafton, by correcting the standing type from which one of his folios of 1552 had been printed, produced one edition, of which he printed several impressions.  But after that Prayer Book printing was confined, or practically confined, to the Queen’s Printers.  Jugge and Cawood continued to print in partnership down to 1571, and after Cawood’s death in the following year Jugge went on alone until 1577.

      Then came a decisive change.  In September 1577 Christopher Barker, who succeeded Jugge as Queen’s Printer, obtained through Sir Thomas Wilkes a patent which gave him specifically the sole right to print the Bible in English, whatever the translation, the Book of Common Prayer, and (as he put it himself) “in generall wordes, all matters for the Churche.”  Twelve years later he secured a similar patent direct from Queen Elizabeth, this time for his own life and for that of his son Robert.  As it happened, the patent remained in the Barker family for 132 years.  The first Christopher or his deputies continued to print till 1600; Robert, the son, produced in 1604 the first edition of the Prayer Book of James I (British Museum, C. 25, m. 11); and Christopher, the grandson, with his partner John Bill, printed in his turn the Sealed Books and first edition of 1662.

      When the Star Chamber was abolished in 1640 and the unlimited jurisdiction over printing ceased, the Crown still claimed the exclusive right to print certain books, including the Authorized Version of the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer and any other book which might be commanded to be used in churches.  The precise origin of this particular prerogative may not be clear, but the existence and continuance of the right have long been placed beyond dispute by a series of decisions in the courts of law.  So, save for the period of the Commonwealth, the King’s Printer’s privilege remained practically intact, and has so remained ever since, for all subsequent patents in England have followed the precedent set towards the close of the sixteenth century.

      In 1709 John Baskett succeeded the last representatives of the Barkers, and he or his sons held the patent until 1769, when Charles Eyre, the predecessor of the present firm of Eyre and Spottiswoode, became King’s Printer.  Baskett was a man of large ideas and litigious habits.  He extended his operations to Oxford, where he became printer to the University; he tried unsuccessfully to restrict the privilege of the Cambridge Press; he maintained his right to sell his books in Scotland; and he successfully disputed a corresponding claim by his Scottish colleague.  In July 1716 he secured for himself, jointly with Agnes Campbell, a Scottish patent in which the right to print Bibles and books for Church use was specifically included.

      In Scotland printing privileges had been bestowed as early as 1507, and in 1579 Alexander Arbuthnot, “dwelling at the Kirk of feild,” had been appointed King’s Printer, with special license to print Bibles “in the vulgar Inglis, Scottis, and Lateine toungis.”  The first Prayer Book of the Church of England to be printed in Scotland would seem to have been an octavo edition (British Museum, 3406, c. 20) produced in Edinburgh in 1633 “by the Printers to the King’s most excellent Majestie,” of whom Robert Young was one.  Young alone four years later printed, in folio, the two impressions of the unfortunate “Booke of Common Prayer, and administration of the Sacraments, and other parts of devine Service for the Church of Scotland.”  And in 1712 James Watson, who had been appointed joint Queen’s Printer the year before, printed an octavo Prayer Book in Edinburgh, “with the Psalms in Metre, translated by King James the VI.”  But all along there had been unrestricted importation into Scotland of Bibles and Prayer Books printed by authority in England.

      Baskett and Campbell, and their successors Alexander Kincaid and Charles Ker, did nothing to check the practice, which continued until 1821.  By that time the King’s Printer’s patent had been for over twenty years in the hands of David Hunter Blair and John Bruce.  Blair and Bruce, in 1821, successfully proceeded in the Scottish Courts against certain booksellers for importing Bibles from England; and, in 1824, took similar proceedings against the Edinburgh Bible Society.  The Bible Society case was carried to the House of Lords, but Blair and Bruce won, and a practice which had existed since the Reformation was suddenly brought to an end.  That result raised an outcry in Scotland.

      There was, however, another reason for the ultimate non- renewal of the patent in Scotland.  Like their immediate predecessors, Kincaid and Ker, Blair and Bruce held two separate patents; one as the King’s Printers in Scotland and the other as His Majesty’s sole booksellers, bookbinders and stationers in that country.  The second patent, it was conceived, had given them the right, and the sole right, to supply government offices in Scotland with all the goods and services of those trades.  It could not always be an economical method to obtain limited supplies in this way; nor, it was suggested, had it been rendered any the less expensive by Blair and Bruce’s scale of charges.  The two Select Committees of the House of Commons which had the whole matter under consideration, in 1831 and in 1837–38, were undoubtedly influenced by these considerations; and, in the end, the old Printer’s patent in Scotland, the final term of which expired in 1839, was not renewed.

      Instead, in July 1839, the Lord Advocate and others were by Letters Patent appointed “Her Majesty’s sole and only Master Printers in Scotland,” and formally given “the sole and only privilege of printing in Scotland Bibles, New Testaments, Psalm Books, Books of Common Prayer” and certain other things.  To the Board so appointed, Royal Instructions were issued on 11 July 1839 directing that the free importation into Scotland should be permitted “of all Bibles, New Testaments, Psalm Books and Books of Common Prayer printed by authority in England or in Ireland,” and setting up an elaborate arrangement for safeguarding the printing of those books in Scotland.  Any person desiring to print “in exact conformity to an edition specified, being any one of the editions published by authority in Great Britain,” was to transmit a copy of the specified edition to the Board’s Secretary, and to give bond to the Lord Advocate “so framed as to secure the faithful execution of the work.”  The Lord Advocate was then to authorize the printing, on condition that the work in course of its execution should be submitted for examination.  If, by a month after the submission of the last portion, no objection were taken by the Board, the new edition might be published; and was then to be deemed to be printed and published under Royal Authority, provided that it bore on the back of the title page a copy of the license granted by the Lord Advocate.

      These provisions governed such Prayer Book printing as there was in Scotland between 1839 and 1890.  But on 29 November 1890 further Instructions were issued to the Board, revoking part of the Instructions of 11 July 1839 and directing that no further licenses for printing the Book of Common Prayer should be issued in Scotland, and that free publication of the book there was not to be interfered with, provided that it did not purport to be made by Royal Authority.  But only one firm of printers in Scotland has availed itself of the latitude thus allowed.

      In England, on the other hand, there are three privileged printers, the King’s Printers, whose title has already been sketched, and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.  The University privileges spring from ancient charters, very similar in wording and identical in effect.  It is one of the many distinctions of Oxford to have possessed the second press in England; for Theodoric Rood printed his first book there only a year after Caxton’s first dated book had come from Westminster, and more than forty years before John Siberch set up his press in Cambridge.  But it so happens that the original printing charter granted to the University of Cambridge is considerably earlier than the corresponding charter given to the University of Oxford.  So it may be convenient to give particulars relating more especially to the Cambridge privilege, merely repeating that the rights, as also the duties, of the two Universities are in this matter identical.

      On 20 July 1534 Henry VIII by Letters Patent granted to the Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Cambridge the right to elect from time to time three stationers and printers or sellers of books, who were thereby empowered to print all manner of books (“omnimodos libros”) approved of by the Chancellor or his vicegerent and three doctors, and to sell such books anywhere within the realm.  A subsequent Act of Parliament, passed in the reign of Elizabeth (13 Eliz., c. 29), confirmed the grant “as amply, fully and largely” as if the Letters Patent had been recited verbatim in the Act.

      In those days printers’ licenses, obtained directly or indirectly from the Crown, constituted the only available form of copyright protection.  So the King’s grant to Cambridge amounted, at the time, to an overriding license to print any approved book, whatever particular rights in it others might already have acquired or might afterwards acquire.  It happened that there was no press at work in either University between 1534, the date of Henry’s Letters Patent, and 1582.  In the interval, Mary’s charter of 1557 to the Stationers’ Company had resulted in the complete discontinuance of provincial printing in England.  The Stationers’ Company, too, and certain of its members, had obtained grants of exclusive right to print particular books.

      So when Cambridge, alone in the provinces, started to print again in 1582, both the justice and the wisdom of Henry’s grant were questioned.  Objectors appealed to the courts on material grounds, and to the Bishops on moral, urging the danger of a press “farre from ordinarie research” and protesting “it maie be thought we speake this for our pryvate proffitte, but it is not soe.”  Still the press, though raided by the agents of the Stationers’ Company, continued to print, and produced its first Bible in 1591.

      Some years later both King (by Letters Patent of 6 February 1627/8) and courts definitely overruled the Stationers’ contention.  When, still later, the unlimited jurisdiction of the Crown over printers and printing ceased, the scope of the University privilege narrowed.  But from the wide overriding license to print any book, the Universities retained, and still retain, the right to print the King’s own books, of which the principal were then and are now the Authorized Version of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer.  In 1732, well after the era of Copyright Acts had set in, the redoubtable Baskett, or rather his assignees in bankruptcy, possibly misled by the imposing terms of the prohibition addressed to “all and singular the subjects of Us and all others whatsoever” which the King’s Printer’s patent contains, assailed the privilege of the University of Cambridge and filed a bill in Chancery.  Twenty-six years later, in what it may be hoped was a sufficiently considered judgment, a decision was given in favour of the University.  It was held that, though Baskett (by then dead for some sixteen years) had undoubtedly been given an exclusive grant, Cambridge had been “intrusted with a concurrent authority”.

      The privilege enjoyed by the Universities, and successfully maintained in this case as in later cases in the courts, carries with it serious obligations.  To mention a lesser matter first, certain parts of the Prayer Book are subject to alteration on the happening of any event which affects the names in the State Prayers.  The practice, on such an event, is for the Privy Council Office to transmit to the University Presses and to the King’s Printer an Order of His Majesty in Council declaring the changes to be made.  The Presses forthwith make new plates and print cancel sheets for the parts affected.  The pages with the new State Prayers are then substituted for the old pages in every Prayer Book, even in bound copies already in booksellers’ hands.  The cost of these substitutions amounts on each occasion to many thousands of pounds, and there have been eleven such occasions within the last hundred years.

      A greater responsibility entailed is that of printing the Prayer Book in the most accurate form.  In part this is a matter of the skill and care which are needed to secure the accuracy of any print; and a Prayer Book produced by either of the University Presses is set by skilled hands, and read and re-read by readers trained for the purpose.  But there are special difficulties in the printing of Prayer Books.  The primary authority for the text is the manuscript book annexed to the Act of Uniformity of 1662.  This manuscript, known to have been copied in haste, probably by several hands, is inconsistent, in punctuation, spelling and the use of capital letters, not only with modern practice but with itself.  For instance, two only out of the nineteen written versions of the Lord’s Prayer are identical in regard to punctuation and the use of capital letters.

      The Sealed Books furnish other authority for the text.  Printed by John Bill and Christopher Barker the younger, examined and corrected by Commissioners, sealed with the Great Seal of England, and preserved for record in the Tower, the several courts at Westminister and the chapters of cathedrals, they were all of them certified as true and perfect copies; to be accounted, as the Act of Uniformity provides, as good records as the manuscript book itself.  But there were some thirty-five of these printed books to be corrected and certified, and they were not all examined at one time; with the result that they were not in fact made absolutely identical one with another, or in every place with the manuscript book.

      It follows then that in printing the Prayer Book some editorial discretion has to be exercised in regard to punctuation, spelling and capital letters.  The separate exercise, in some cases, of this discretion accounts for the differences still to be found between Prayer Books printed at Oxford and those produced at Cambridge.  Oxford, for instance, punctuates the Lord’s Prayer in one way and prints “The power, and the glory,” while Cambridge punctuates differently and prints “the power, and the glory,” without the capital.  In the first verse of Psalm 99 Oxford has “impatient,” and in Psalm 139:15 “imperfect”; while Cambridge retains the older form in both places and prints “unpatient” and “unperfect”.  In Psalm 12:5, and Psalm 117:27, where manuscript book and Sealed Books alike give “troubles sake” and “wits end” without any apostrophe, Oxford prints “troubles’ sake” and “wit’s end,” while Cambridge has “trouble’s sake” and “wits’ end”.  In Oxford books the twenty-fifth verse of Psalm 105 begins “Whose heart turned so, that they hated his people”; in Cambridge books the comma is differently placed and the sentence reads “Whose heart turned, so that they hated his people.”  Other, though smaller, points of difference may be found in the Apostles’ Creed, where there is a slight difference in punctuation, in Psalm 10:16, Psalm 17:10, Psalm 21:8, Psalm 50:6, Psalm 61:8, and in some other places; but, taking all the differences and the extent of the book into consideration, the points of difference are relatively few and unimportant.

The Prayer Book As Literature

By The Editor

      Though in various places throughout this book reference is made to questions of style, it seemed desirable to put together some remarks on the subject in a separate essay.  Since a very large proportion of the Prayer Book consists of passages from the Bible, something must first be said about the Authorized Version.

      Few writers have appreciated the achievement of the Authorized Version so happily as Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch.  The translators, he says, had before them the work of Tyndale, a man of genius.  But “you have yet to face the miracle that forty-seven men [Actually fifty-four were nominated; see Westcott, History of the English Bible, p. 147.] – not one of them known, outside of this performance, for any superlative talent – sat in committee and almost consistently, over a vast extent of work, improved upon what Genius had done. ... That a large committee of forty-seven should have gone steadily through the great mass of Holy Writ, seldom interfering with genius, yet, when interfering, seldom missing to improve: that a committee of forty-seven should have captured ... a rhythm so personal, so constant, that our Bible has the voice of one author speaking through its many mouths,” is surely a miracle. [The Art of Writing (1916), p. 122.]

      Sometimes the translators use monosyllables almost entirely: “And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.”  Sometimes they achieve the grand style, as in the following passage, where after a quiet beginning presently the pace is quickened to correspond with the sense, and finally great rolling Latin polysyllables achieve an effect of awe and splendour: “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.  For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”  Sir Arthur points out that the mingled charm and grandeur of Biblical prose is largely due to the subtle interplay of vowel sounds.  The sentence “Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee,” illustrates this very happily.  Four long i-sounds in succession produce a unique effect, since in ī English has a true vowel where other languages make shift with diphthongs.  In the second half there is an equally characteristic broad o-sound.  The first half ends with the decisive “come,” the second with the tripping melody of five short vowels culminating in the long “thee”.

      Having said all this in praise of the Authorized Version, it is rather surprising that we should have to own its inferiority to the earlier version as regards the Psalms.  In the 1662 Book the Psalms remained in the 1539 Great Bible form, itself based ultimately on Tyndale and Coverdale.  It is not certain that the Puritans at the Savoy Conference asked that the A. V. should be used for the Psalms.  In any case the Bishops discriminated between the Epistles and Gospels on the one hand and the Psalms on the other; the latter were to be said or sung in the form that had come to be recognized as most suitable for devotion.  The A. V. of the Psalms, according to Bishop Dowden, is spiritless, the work of a committee rather than of a single translator of genius, whereas in 1539 we have English at its happiest, “an instinctive avoiding of language that was either trivial or newfangled.” [The Workmanship of the Prayer Book, p. 579.  This book contains the most satisfactory treatment of the subject in a short compass.]  This suggests that the excellences of the A. V. are those of inspired revisers rather than of originators, and that the real “miracle” is to be found in the sixteenth century.  English then was new-minted and fitter to reproduce the sacred originals than at any subsequent time.  The Prayer Book Psalter, like the A. V., has escaped the fate of most literature of the time and remains a living possession in the twentieth century.  Just because it has been read so constantly its language has not, except for a few phrases, grown obsolete.  The large number of obsolete words to be found in the headings of the Authorized Version, which are now either not printed or, if printed, seldom looked at, show us what would otherwise have been its lot.

      The Collects and the Litany are generally considered the outstanding examples of literary merit in the Prayer Book.  The former have an emotional tinge generally lacking in the originals.  For example, an official Roman Catholic version of the Palm Sunday Collect runs thus: “O almighty and eternal God, who wouldst have our Saviour become man, and suffer on a cross to give mankind an example of humility; mercifully grant that we may improve by the example of his patience, and partake of his resurrection” [Ib., p. 523.  The Gregorian original is: “Omnipotens sempiterne deus, qui humano generi ad imitandum humilitatis exemplum salvatorem nostrum carnem sumere, et crucem subire fecisti; concede propitius ut et patientiae ipsius habere documenta, et resurrectionis consortia mereamur.”] – which is not to be compared with the Prayer Book version.

      The exact part played by each of the compilers of the 1549 Book is unknown, though it is reasonable to suppose that Cranmer was mainly responsible.  The hand that wrote the Litany in 1544 has been at work throughout the book.  A happy illustration of his style is afforded by the petition, “That it may please thee to succour, help, and comfort all that be in danger, necessity and tribulation,” a sonorous sentence in which eighteen English words represent eight words of the Latin original – “Ut afflictos et periclitantes respicere et salvare digneris.”

      A particular theory has recently been propounded to account for the literary qualities of the sixteenth-century Prayer Book, namely, the survival of the cursus, [This account is summarized in the main from three articles in The Church Quarterly Review: April 1912, “Rhythmical Prose in Latin and English,” by J. Shelley; January 1929, “Coverdale and the Psalter,” by E. Clapton; April 1930, “Coverdale and the Cursus,” by G. C. Richards.  A. C. Clark’s The Cursus in Medieval and Vulgar Latin is the standard English book.] or flow of the cadence in prose.  The beauty of Latin prose depended on the arrangement of long and short syllables, especially at the end of the sentence.  Cicero’s rules were continued and, with some modifications, taken over by the Christian Fathers and the compilers of liturgical prayers.  In course of time the difference between long and short syllables ceased to be noticed and accent took its place.  About the end of the seventh century the cursus was abandoned, to be revived in the eleventh century, quantity now being entirely ignored; it was used by Dante and Petrarch and finally given up in the fifteenth century.  The cursus had three main forms: planus, with the accent on the second and fifth syllable from the end; tardus, on the third and sixth; and velox, on the second and seventh.  The Annunciation Collect illustrates these: Gratiam tuam quaesumus domine mentibus nóstris infúnde (planus); ut qui angelo nuntiante Christi filii tui incarnatiónem cognóvimus (tardus), per passionem eius et crucem ad resurrectionis glóriam perducámur (velox).”

      When the habit of writing consciously rhythmical prose was abandoned, the sound remained familiar in Church services, especially in Collects, and the rhythm, so it is held, was reproduced in the new English forms.  So we get the planus effect in “mártyr Saint Stéphen,” “hélp and defénd us,” “mércy and píty’; the tardus in “thém that be pénitent,” “contínual gódliness”; the velox in “ríse to the life immórtal,” “peóple which call upón thee,” “lóse not the things etérnal”.  In the Collects of 1549 about half the clause endings conform to the cursus rules.  Of the rest, some violate them, being in verse, such as “pleáse thee bóth in wíll and deéd,” or ending with an accented syllable, e.g. “desire or desérve”.

      In the Psalms, according to Canon Richards, in 150 last verses, 97 final clauses are simple planus, tardus, or velox.  The Litany yields many examples: “hónour and glóry” (planus), “shéw it accórdingly” (tardus), “ángry with us for éver” (velox). [This is clearly a more beautiful pronunciation than when the accent falls on “us”.]  For the sake of clearness, nothing has been said about the modified forms of cursus.  The three main forms “become increasingly common, until finally, like Aaron’s rod, they swallow up their competitors” (Prof. A. C. Clark).  The more exceptions we allow, the weaker the case becomes.  The chief objection to the theory of a conscious employment of the cursus is the radical difference between Latin and English.  How could a system that suited Latin be thought to apply to English with its monosyllables, English that idiomatically represents “insere pectoribus nostris amorem tui nominis” by the nine consecutive monosyllables of “graft in our hearts the love of thy name”?  But that instinctively and unconsciously the sixteenth-century writers used rhythmical prose, whether influenced by Latin analogies or not, is obvious.  And modern prayer writers might learn something from a study of the principles underlying “rhythmical prose”.  As an illustration, we may take the new “Prayer for Sunday Schools” in the English 1928 Book.

      “Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who hast committed to thy holy Church | the cáre | and núrt | ure óf | thy chíld | ren: Enlighten with thy wisd | om thóse | who teách | and thóse | who leárn; |that, rejoicing in the knowledge of thy truth, they may worship thee and serve thee all the days of their life.”

      Is the complaint that the new prayers do not read well connected in any way with the neglect of the cursus rules? In this case the first two clauses end in verse, and the last with an accented syllable; both are devices forbidden by the cursus.

      Seeing that some critics take an unfavourable view of the Prayer Book Exhortations, judging them by “Dearly beloved brethren,” which has grown stale by repetition, it is worth while calling attention to the beauty and impressiveness of some of them; the long address in the Ordering of Priests, for example, is almost overpowering in its effect.  The long version of “Veni Creator Spiritus” in the 1552 Book, best known in the amended form of 1661, proves that men whose achievements in prose were so great could fail conspicuously when they tried their hands at verse.

      That the English Prayer Books of 1549–59 were happy in the date of their appearance is suggested by a perusal of the Parker Society volume of Liturgies and Occasional Forms of Prayer set forth in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth.  Liturgical good taste decayed very rapidly.  In a service published in 1589, “thought fit to be daily used in the English Army in France,” there is a prayer of nearly woo words, with sentences like these: “Avance thyself like a mighty giant with a swift and terrible judgment against them; frustrate the counsels of all their Achitophels ... Finally, let them be as Oreb and Zeb ...”

      In 1661 the Anglican divines had no temptation to rewrite the Prayer Book.  Its proscription had endeared it to their hearts and a conservative bringing up to date was all they desired.  The new prayers are more flowing, but generally admirable in their own style; see, for instance, the General Thanksgiving and the Collect of the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany.  In 1689 the restraining influences of 1661 had passed and abortive proposals were made for a further revision, marked by – to our taste – almost intolerable verbosity.  After that, inertia and complacency combined with real appreciation of the merits of the 1661 Book to postpone revision until the twentieth century.

      With great traditions to live up to, we look anxiously at twentieth-century additions to the Prayer Book.  On the whole they are not unworthy.  The Scottish Book, in general, is a model of careful phrasing.  The English Book of 1928 is far the most ambitious revision and, as might be expected, the most open to criticism on literary grounds.  The whole has been reviewed by Dr. Brightman with some severity, [In The Church Quarterly Review, July 1927.] and Mr. Milner-White has treated the Occasional Prayers.[ The Occasional Prayers Reconsidered (1930).]  In what follows an attempt is made to criticize two lengthy pieces of prose – “The Preface (1928)” and “An Exhortation,” which comes last in the book.  If the criticism is justified, these pieces are likely to be classed in days to come with the liturgical achievements of 1589 and 1689 rather than with those of 1549–52 and 1661.

      The purpose of the Preface is to explain and justify the changes made in the 1661 Book as the 1661 Preface did in regard to those made in the 1552 Book.  For example, the 1661 Book refers to “the more proper expressing of some words or phrases of ancient usage in terms more suitable to the language of the present time,” and to the provision for new needs, such as prayers for those at Sea and the Baptism of such as are of Riper Years.  So 1928 lays stress on the new “facts and modes of English life,” “new customs and forms of speech unknown before,” and the “new occasions of worship” which men seek.  The altering of a word like “indifferently” to “impartially” illustrates the change in the meaning of words, but there is very little in the new Orders of Service that testifies to “new occasions of worship”.  The statement that those who prefer the old ways of worship “cannot quite so worship, because they cannot ... be blind to what has been happening during two hundred and fifty years,” is surprising when it is remembered that the Latin Mass has remained unchanged for a longer period.

      But we are concerned with literary expression rather than with sense.  The style is not happy.  “Nothing save the English version of the Holy Scriptures [we are told] is enwoven so closely in the language ... of our people.”  “Save” in this sense according to Trench is “almost exclusively limited to poetry”; Mr. Fowler, [See Modern English Usage.] however, says that the rule is ceasing to apply owing to the influence of journalists.  Enwoven in the language is hardly possible.  After “inweave” the preposition “with” may follow, but at best the verb is unnatural, as will be seen if the sentence is rewritten in the form “I inweave the Prayer Book in the language ...” [The Concise Oxford Dictionary does not give “enweave’.  However, the New English Dictionary does give one example, from Coleridge in 1817, of the use “inweave in’.]  “Since 1662 there has been a change almost beyond belief” is a loose use of “belief,” since we do believe it.  “The rise of numbers” is a strange substitute for “the increase of population”.  These and other phrases which seem to have been approved with insufficient criticism make one wish that in the twentieth, as in the sixteenth, century a new Prayer Book had to stand the test of translation into Latin prose. [See below.]

      A new feature in the 1928 Book is the “Exhortation, whereby the people are put in mind of the Law of Christ,” for use in Advent and Lent.  The choice of Scripture passages is admirable, the Exhortation in which they are embedded less so.  The obvious principle to follow is that the style should be simple and dignified, in harmony with the Authorized Version, appropriate both to the twentieth and the seventeenth century, avoiding equally modernisms and archaisms.  It is interesting to note the number of times the style conflicts with that recommended by modern authorities.  “So are we bounden ... to remember” – this past participle of “bind” is obsolete except in the phrase “bounden duty” (Concise Oxford Dictionary).  “The law of Christ declareth unto us no whit less fearful a penalty, if we do not those that we ought; to wit ...”  To have two different words, with identical pronunciation in Southern English, so near together is objectionable.  Mr. Fowler’s comment on both in Modern English Usage is “‘see Wardour Street.”  “For unto us also by this his commandment sin is made exceedingly sinful” is an example of the inversion which with elegant variation is one of the vices of modern writing. [Fowler, p. 285.]

      In “which sentences of his law” the antecedent of “which” is “admonitions,” half a page away.  “By his Apostle he assigneth us that single reason why ...” is deliberate archaizing.  So is this manner of interpreting the Law he leaveth us to fulfill by help of ...”; if the sentence is inverted we get “I leave you to fulfill this manner.”  “Which parable, as it standeth last in the Gospel, so it shall be the end of our exhortation” is a sentence which would not be passed in a schoolboy’s essay.  Finally, “unto which life he vouchsafe to bring us all” is impossible in modern English.  The subjunctive without “may” survives in a stereotyped phrase like “God grant you success”: “he grant you” cannot be substituted.  However, this can be justified since it reproduces the conclusion of the Commination Service.

      To some readers the foregoing analysis will seem hypercritical.  But criticism of proposed liturgical forms, always necessary, is especially necessary in this case, since the proposed English Book was not intended to come up for revision and final authorization after an experimental period.

      There is another consideration.  Sixteenth and seventeenth century English is a great inheritance.  Our tongue has become a world language.  Its spoken varieties will tend to increase.  An English lecturer in America is already heard with difficulty unless he makes a special effort to enunciate his words clearly.  “Pidgin English” is a recognized variety in the East.  The English used as a means of communication by Indians may easily in the future develop peculiarities of its own.  But literary English will probably continue to be uniform, owing to the influence of our classics.  Teachers will inculcate standards which have been laid down long ago by our forefathers.  If, in the Anglican Communion of the future, English is to hold its own as a vehicle for liturgical worship, not unworthy to be compared with Latin, our Prayer Book revisions must be watched very jealously on the literary side.  As Mr. Milner-White has said: “The English of the Prayer Book has exactly that value [of hieratic language, comparable to Latin, in the Holy Mysteries], with the gain that it does not sacrifice intelligence.  It is a language unapproachable today, the national language alike of its birth and fine flower, contemporary – more or less – with the great Tudor writers, senior even to the Bible, and with it the norm and inspiration of English literature since, bringing at every turn nobility and discipline into the common speech.” [“The Value of the English Tradition” in Theology, March 1924.]

Prayer Book Translations

By The Editor

      In this chapter an attempt will be made (a) to summarize the history of Prayer Book translations, and (b) to give information about recent developments in the Mission Field.  Until lately the ideal was to reproduce the English Book almost verbatim in other languages; this is now giving place to a desire for both enrichment and simplification.  In so far as the desire takes concrete form, the story becomes one of Prayer Book Revision, and the line of demarcation between the chapter dealing with that subject and the present one is not very clear.

      Latin. [See Procter and Frere, History of the B.C.P., pp. 116 ff.] – A version made by Alexander Aless, or Alane, for the information of the foreign reformers, was published in Leipzig in 1551; it was full of inaccuracies, which doubtless conduced to their unfavourable opinion of the 1549 Book.  An official translation of the Elizabethan Prayer Book (1559) was published in 1560, for use in college chapels in the Universities, and for the clergy in their private devotions; it contained a number of divergences from the English Book.  The intention was that those of the Irish clergy who did not understand English should use the Latin version.  The 1560 Book was supplemented in 1571 by a new version closely following the original.  In 1670 Jean Durel completed the version of the 1662 Book initiated by Convocation.  The standard, though not official, version is now that of Drs. W. Bright and P. G. Medd (1865 and subsequent editions).

      Greek. – The first translation was published in 1569; it contained parts only, in Latin as well as Greek, and was made by William Whittaker.  The entire Book, translated by Elias Petley, appeared in 1638, at a time when Laud was interesting himself in the Eastern Church.

      The standard Greek Prayer Book is that published by the S.P.C.K. in 1923.  Dr. Brightman was the editor, but the whole Book was worked over and, where necessary, rewritten by Greeks.  It is “an entirely new translation, into neither ‘ancient’ nor ‘modern’ Greek, but into ecclesiastical and liturgical Greek, the language of the Greek service books, and with all attention that can be given to technicalities.” [Dr. Brightman in Muss-Arnolt, The Book of Common Prayer among the Nations of the World, p. 51.]  The book is so little known that examples of its style may be interesting.  The Collect for the 20th Sunday after Trinity is as follows:

      “O Θεος ο παντοκράτωρ και πολυεύσπλαγχνος, δια την άφθονόν σου αγαθότητα πάντα τα ημιν αντικείμενα, δεόμηθά σου, απόφραξον·  ίνα ψυχη τε και σώματι ανεμπόδιστοι γενόμενοι, τα σοι ευάρεστα μετ” ελευθέρων εκτελέσωμεν διανοιων, δια Ιησου Χριστου του Κυρίου ημων.

      The first two questions and answers of the last part of the Catechism appear thus:

      Πόσα Μυστήρια κατέστησενο Χριστος εν τη Εκκλησία αυτου;

      Δύο μόνον, ως καθόλου αναγκαια εις σωτηρίαν, ήτοι το Βάπτισμα, και το Δειπνον το Κυριακόν.

      Τί νοεις δια της λέξεως ταύτης, Μυστήριον;

      Νοω εξωτερικόν τι και ορατον σημειον εσωτέρας και πνευματικης χάριτος, δαψιλευομένης ημιν, διαταχθεν υπ αυτου του Χριστου, ως μέσον δι ου τυγχάνομεν της χάριτος, και ως εχέγγυον βεβαιουν ημας περι τούτου.

      Latin and Greek versions were originally made for scholars at a time when classical studies flourished greatly in England.  A number of translations now to be mentioned have served practical purposes within the British Isles.

      Welsh. – The first translation was issued in 1567.  Since then many editions have appeared.  The Book now in use is popular and generally understood by the people.  Since the separation of the Welsh Church from the Church of England in 1919 the attention of its leaders has been absorbed in the urgent tasks of reorganization, and so far there is no movement to produce a revised Prayer Book, whether in Welsh or English, for the Church of the Province.  Welsh Prayer Books have found their way to the Welsh settlements in Patagonia.

      Manx. – Bishop Phillips of Sodor and Man completed a Manx translation by 1610.  His clergy preferred to continue their practice of extemporizing translations of the English Book, and the MS. remained unpublished until 1895.  The first printed translation appeared in 1765 and was distributed gratis by the S.P.C.K.  After 1825 Manx began to disappear as a spoken language and the later editions were produced for philological rather than practical reasons.  The earlier editions prayed for “the House of Keys” instead of for Parliament, and in the prayer for the Royal Family inserted the words: “And with them the Lord and Lady, and Rulers of this Isle.”

      Irish. – In 1608 the first Irish version, a translation of the current (1604) text of the English Book, was published at Dublin.  The 1662 Book was issued in Irish in 1712.  The revival of the language since the establishment of the Irish Free State has made it desirable to have an official version of the present Irish Prayer Book.  A Committee was appointed in 1929 to prepare it.  The Book, when ready, will be used at a monthly service in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, and occasionally elsewhere.

      Gaelic. – The first translation of the Book of Common Prayer into this language was published in 1794; an appendix gave the Scottish Communion Office.  The last revision appeared in 1895.  There is no prospect of the 1929 Scottish Prayer Book being translated.  Two congregations only, at Glencoe and Ballachulish, now use the Gaelic Book.

      French. – The need for this version was felt at once, that the king’s subjects in Calais and the Channel Islands might use the national service book.  There is stated to have been an edition published in 1551, but the first one known with certainty appeared in 1553, a translation of the 1552 Book.  The 1662 Book was first published in French in 1665, having been translated by Jean Durel.  Outside the Channel Islands, a number of congregations of French refugees used it.  At present the S.P.C.K. has two versions, one for general use and the other, slightly different, for the Channel Islands.  The first is sold occasionally to the Continent and Canada, and regularly to Mauritius, the Seychelles, and the Rio Pongas Mission in French West Africa.  Complaints have been levied against the Society for publishing a book in which the Almighty is addressed by the familiar “Tu” of the Protestants instead of by the dignified “Vous” of the Catholics.  It is sufficient to say that the Churchmen of Jersey and Guernsey prefer to follow the English custom, and that a Book which used “Vous” would find purchasers nowhere in the world.  The American Church first published a French version of its Prayer Book in 1831.  The existing edition is used in the missionary diocese of Haiti as well as in certain churches in the United States.

      Hebrew. – A very remarkable Liturgy is used at the Church of Holy Trinity, Shoreditch, in the Diocese of London, compiled by the priest in charge, Dr. P. P. Levertoff.  It is derived from early Christian and Jewish sources, and represents the kind of rite that might have been evolved by a Hebrew Christian Church of the first centuries that had preserved its national idiosyncrasies without drifting into Ebionitism.  Its title is “The Order of Service of the Meal of the Holy King.”  The Ark with rolls of the Book and a New Testament stands at the right hand side of the Altar.  Haloth (Jewish loaves) are used, except on the Passover, when they give place to Matzoth (unleavened bread).  The celebrant wears cassock, talith (prayer-shawl), skull cap, and stole.  The congregational responses are numerous.  Lessons are read from the Law and the Prophets, besides the Epistle and the Gospel.  Considerable use is made of the Old Testament, especially the Psalms and Isaiah 53.  After communicating himself the priest says: “This is the Bread of the Messiah.  All who are hungry, let them come and eat.”  The beauty and the impressiveness of the rite are beyond praise.  Whether so drastic a departure from all other Liturgies past or present can be justified depends upon one’s attitude towards the ideal of a Hebrew-Christian Church which Jews should be invited to enter.  It may be argued that the case of the Jews is unique.  But when everything has been said in favour of Dr. Levertoff’s rite, which has elements of greatness, it remains a “fancy Liturgy,” an archaeological reconstruction without roots in history.

      There have also been Hebrew versions of the 1662 Book, made in connection with missions to Jews.

      Spanish. – The first version appeared, at the costs of John Williams, afterwards Archbishop of York, about 1617, at the time of the proposed match between Prince Charles and the Infanta of Spain.  The 1662 Book was translated in 1707 for the benefit of Spanish merchants in London who conformed to the Church of England.  Later versions were used at Gibraltar.  The present Book is occasionally ordered for Spanish America.  Thus Anglican negroes from Jamaica emigrating to Central America may come to speak Spanish in the second generation while still cherishing their British citizenship and membership of the Church of England.  Various translations of the American Prayer Book have been issued, for Cuba, Porto Rico, Mexico, and the Philippines.

      Portuguese. – In 1695 a version was published for Portuguese-speaking congregations in the East Indies.  There have been later ones published by the S.P.C.K.; also versions in the debased form of the language spoken in Ceylon by descendants of Portuguese settlers who married native women.  The American Church has an edition for its Brazil mission.

      To complete the record, a short description of the Prayer Books of the Reformed Spanish and Portuguese Churches may be given, since information on the subject is not very accessible, and the future may see other such examples of small bodies affiliated to one or other branch of the Anglican Communion, which in this respect has acted independently. [The Archbishop of Dublin, Lord Plunket, with the Bishops of Clogher and Down, consecrated Senor Cabrera as first Bishop of the Reformed Church on September 23,1894.  Resolutions 15 (D) and (E) of the Lambeth Conference, 1888, had expressed a hope that the Reformers in Latin countries would “adopt such sound forms of doctrine and discipline,” and “secure such Catholic organization as will permit us to give them a fuller recognition,” and had deprecated “any action that does not regard primitive and established principles of jurisdiction and the interests of the whole Anglican Communion” (cf. The Six Lambeth Conferences, p. 123).  In 1908 a Committee of the Conference welcomed “the successful efforts which have been made by each of these bodies [Spanish Reformed and Lusitanian Churches] to bring its Liturgy into closer accord with Catholic standards” (p. 427).]

      The Prayer Books are Anglican in type with Mozarabic elements.  In the Office of Baptism both use the sign of the cross.  The Portuguese Book has the phrase, “seeing that this child is regenerate and incorporated into the Church of Christ”; an alternative form is not in practice used.  The corresponding Spanish Prayer gives thanks that “by thy grace [this our beloved] has been admitted to the Sacrament of regeneration and of remission of sins.”

      In the Communion Service the Portuguese Prayer of Consecration begins as in the 1662 English Book and ends: “Therefore, O heavenly Father, we ... eating this bread and drinking this cup according to the commandment of thy beloved Son, desire to show forth his Death, until he come again, remembering his blessed Passion, precious Death, mighty Resurrection and Ascension. ... Grant us thy Holy Spirit that we ... may be able to partake of this Holy Communion feeding by faith, spiritually and in a heavenly manner, on the most Holy Body and Blood of thy dear Son, who ... bade us call upon thee, saying (Our Father).”

      The Spanish Communion Service has many interesting features.  The Preparation has the threefold Kyrie.  The Introit varies with the season, so does the Offertory.  The Gloria in excelsis is in the traditional place at the beginning of the service.  The Prayer for the Church is partly Anglican, partly Mozarabic.  After the Sanctus comes “Hosanna to the Son of David; Hosanna in the highest!” and then the Consecration Prayer begins: “Truly holy and blessed art thou, O God the Father Almighty, who didst send ...”  The recital of the Institution follows, then the Anamnesis, then an Epiclesis – “bless and sanctify for our use, with thy Word and Holy Spirit, these thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine; that we receiving them ... may be partakers of his blessed Body and Blood”; the “Prayer of Oblation” concludes the Consecration Prayer. [It is interesting to find, in a Liturgy composed under the direction of Irish Bishops, features which aroused much opposition in the English Revision during 1927–28.]

      The Portuguese Ordination formula is that of the English Prayer Book, with an alternative: “May Almighty God grant thee the gift of the Holy Spirit for the office and ministry of presbyter in the Church of God, which is now committed to thee by the imposition of our hands.  And be thou a faithful dispenser of the Word of God and of his holy Sacraments.”  The Spanish formula is identical with the Portuguese alternative.

      A Mexican (Spanish) Prayer Book appeared in 1894 and 1895.  “We have here a Prayer Book that is at once individual, national, Catholic, and yet in essential accord with our American liturgy.  It is not a translation; it is not even an adaptation.  It has taken what it saw fit from Mozarabic and other sources, with the hope of adapting itself more completely to the temper of the Mexican people than any translation might do.” [Muss-Arnolt, p. 99.]

      Italian. – Versions in this language were published in 1685, 1733, 1796, and later years.  The American Prayer Book was translated in part and published in 1868 and 1874; a complete book appeared in 1886, and another edition in 1904.  A Liturgia of the “Chiesa Cattolica Riformata d’Italia” was published at Milan in 1903; it drew largely on the Book of Common Prayer.

      This is a convenient place at which to discuss the principles underlying the production of translations of the Prayer Book into European languages, for the ecclesiastical impropriety, if such it be, of such undertakings is most conspicuous in the case of Italy.  Frequently a need has arisen in connection with a small body of foreigners away from their homes seeking the ministrations of Anglican clergy.  Where there has been no such practical use for a version, the motive has generally been the desire of a Chaplain resident abroad to spread information about the Church of England.  Doubtless there has sometimes been a hope that the knowledge of such an excellent liturgy would guide the Reform movements on the Continent along the same road as that which the English Church took in the sixteenth century.  At the present time the knowledge of English has spread so widely that intelligent foreigners can satisfy their curiosity by buying an English Prayer Book; and the desire to reform the Continent on Anglican lines no longer exists –it never existed except in the minds of irresponsible individuals.

      The American situation is completely different. Large numbers of immigrants throw away the religious practices of their homeland, and if the Episcopal Church can help them by so doing it is bound to produce translations of its Prayer Book.

      Dutch. – Archbishop Laud’s efforts to enforce uniformity led to the preparation of a Dutch translation for natives of the Low Countries resident in London, which was published in 1645 after his death.  A version appeared in 1710, devised for the Dutch of New York City; it was declared to be Socinian in tendency and was destroyed.  Dutch Prayer Books are used in South Africa by coloured congregations.  A Book in Afrikaans, the officially recognized form of the language as spoken locally, exists in part, but has not superseded the older Book, which to the congregations using it seems more appropriate for a religious service.

      German. – Frederick I of Prussia had the English Prayer Book translated by professors at Frankfort on the Oder; the Book was issued in 1704.  The King hoped that it might prove a common meeting ground for the two faiths of his realm, Lutheran and Reformed.  In the early Hanoverian period relations between Germany and England were very close and six German-speaking congregations existed in London.  During the eighteenth century German Prayer Books were used by exiles who had fled from religious persecutions to settle in Canada and the American colonies; also by disbanded German mercenaries in South Africa and elsewhere.  The present Book seems to be used only by a congregation of converted Jews in Warsaw.  Various translations of the American Prayer Book have been issued.

      Other European languages. – A Danish Prayer Book was first published in 1849; it circulated in the Danish settlements of New Brunswick and in the Danish West Indies.  Several Swedish and Norwegian translations of the American Book, in whole or in part, have been published.  Other languages represented are Modern Greek, Czech, Polish and Russian (in 1855 for the benefit of Russian prisoners).

      Arabic. – Edward Pocock, who had been chaplain to the “Turkey Merchants” at Aleppo, and became the first Laudian Professor of Arabic at Oxford, made the first Arabic version, which was published in 1672.  Several other versions have followed, also one in the Maltese form of the language.  The present Arabic Book is used in Egypt and Palestine.  The special problem which this language presents is its literary quality.  A competent scholar will use classical Arabic, which is indeed eminently suitable for worship, but is little understood by the people.  Another difficulty which exercised Committees of the S.P.C.K. in the nineteenth century was whether “Sacraments” on the title page should be translated by a dual or a plural. [H. W. T. Gairdner of Cairo had several talks with the writer on the subject of the Prayer Book.  He made fun of the custom of translating the whole book, including prayers for Arabic Jack Tars going into battle.  Asked if he would have such parts omitted, he replied “No”; the unused parts were of great value, being a revelation to Easterns of how religion could apply to every department of human life.  He was anxious to see liturgical experiments made, especially in connection with the Eucharist.  The Eastern rites did not appeal to the Arabic-speaking Christians of his acquaintance.  The future lay with a modification of the English rite, which by its shortness and simplicity had won a place from which it could not be dislodged.]

      Other languages of the Near East in which the Prayer Book has been published are Turkish (both in Arabic and Armenian characters), Armenian, Amharic, Persian and Pashtu.

      Indian languages. – The most important in this geographical area are Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, Urdu in North India; Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu in the South; Sinhalese in Ceylon; Burmese and Karen in Burma.  All these have their Prayer Books, as do a number of other languages.  The problems arising in the newly-constituted “Church of India, Burma and Ceylon” are so important as to justify more extended treatment.

      So far back as 1883 the Bishops in a Pastoral Letter defined their policy as regards Indianization.  “We do not aim at imposing upon an Indian Church anything which is distinctly English or even European. ... In regard to the conditions under which [fundamental matters] are presented, the Church adapts herself, and we desire to see her adapt herself more and more, to the circumstances and to the tempers of every race of men; and from these, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, her forms of service, her customs, and rules and institutions will take an impress.”  In practice, the Indian Church has been conservative; no surprise will be felt at this when the legal connection with the Church of England is remembered.  In 1904 the Bishops passed the following resolutions, which still represented the official policy up to 1930.

      “We desire to make or permit no alterations whatever in the Book of Common Prayer itself, either in its English form or in translations; but to keep it entire and unchanged, as the standard, to the teaching of which all new or adapted Offices or Forms of Divine Service must conform.

      “The Book of Common Prayer being thus kept intact, we desire to recognize a wide liberty in the variations which each Bishop may see fit to allow; provided that such variations are made to meet needs which are specially felt in this Province, and not for the purpose of improving the contents of the Book of Common Prayer on purely liturgical grounds.”

      As an example of a local need which might, on a wide interpretation of this principle, have been sanctioned, but which the Bishops have felt obliged to forbid, the giving of the tali (necklace) instead of a ring may be mentioned: the earlier prohibition has been officially maintained. [Though the practice has none the less made its way in South India.]  The Episcopal Synod has taken the greatest possible care in supervising vernacular versions of the Prayer Book.  In practice some have been used tentatively pending the satisfying of the Synod’s requirements.

      If little progress has been made so far by the Indian Church in the task of adapting the Prayer Book to local needs, the foundations of future revision have been carefully laid in “The Constitution, Canons and Rules of the Church of India, Burma and Ceylon,” which came into force in March 1930. [The Fourth Draft, September 1928, has been used.]  Chapter XXI is entitled “Of the Services of the Church.”  It begins (Canon I) with “the following guiding principles concerning the development of public worship which the Church of India, Burma and Ceylon sets before itself:

      “(1) It desires to work towards the development of forms of worship congenial to the nature of the Indian races;

      “(2) It desires to give opportunities for great liberty of experiment in the direction of such development, but at the same time to safeguard provincial unity; and

      “(3) It desires to preserve to the English residents in India the opportunity of worshipping in their own language in a manner as nearly as may be similar to that to which they are accustomed at home, and for this last point special provision is made in Chapter XXII.”

      The jus liturgicum, here called “liturgical authority,” of the Bishops is recognized, but it is to be exercised by them “in consultation with each other, and in such a manner as not to endanger the harmony of the Dioceses and the unity of the faithful.”  Assessors should sit with the Episcopal Synod when liturgical matters are discussed, and the General Council, of which both clerical and lay representatives are members, is “to concur in the action of the Episcopal Synod in grave matters relating to public worship,” and its concurrence “shall be required for the adoption of any Book of Common Prayer to be authorized for the Province as a whole, and for any change in such a Book when once authorized” (Canon II).

      The Church has power to put out its own service books, including an edition specially designed for Indian congregations by the side of the official Prayer Book of the Province (Canon IV).  The respective powers of the Episcopal Synod and of the Diocesan Bishop are carefully defined.  Nothing may be authorized if in the judgment of the Episcopal Synod “in respect of the words employed in it or of the usages, practices or ceremonial accompanying the words, it is repugnant to or inconsistent with the doctrine expressed in the Book of Common Prayer of the Province and in other formularies recognized by this Church as standards of doctrine” (Canon X).

      A note to Chapter XXI enumerates “the modifications in the Book of Common Prayer prescribed or authorized by the Episcopal Synod previous to the date of severance” (of the Indian Church from the Church of England).  These modifications differ little from those customary in England.  It is sufficient to note the provision of an alternative form of (non-liturgical) service in place of Mattins or Evensong, “provided that one of these services is used on the same day.”  In a note to Canon XI the custom, practiced in some dioceses, “of substituting some other object for the ring in marriage, and naming that object in the service instead of the ring,” is recognized.  In Chapter XVI, Rule 17, the obligation of the clergy to say Mattins and Evensong daily is set forth, with the proviso that “the Bishop may authorize any clergyman when saying these services privately to vary their forms with a view to finding forms more suitable for use in India, Burma and Ceylon.”

      In 1930 the Episcopal Synod gave permission to use the English Book of 1928 with the exception of the latter part of the Alternative Liturgy and the provisions relating to the Reserved Sacrament.  In 1932 the use of the whole 1928 Rite and of the Scottish Rite was sanctioned.  In places throughout India the Prayer of Oblation has been said, with episcopal sanction, immediately after the Prayer of Consecration.

      The instinct for self-expression on Indian lines has taken non-liturgical forms.  Hymn singing is greatly developed.  The custom by which a sacred book is chanted and then explained by a Brahmin, a couplet (e.g. one of the Puranas) at a time, has been adapted by Christians.  Thus the Life of our Lord has been put into verse, notably by N. V. Tilak, and treated in this way.  Christian Bhajans are used, musical lyrics with a complicated system of repetitions, resembling the Antiphons of the mediaeval Latin Church, the uneducated repeating the refrains which they know by heart.  Bible stories are acted in musical plays. Even the Sacred Dance in honour of Shiva has been Christianized in places. [This paragraph is based on a conversation with Bishop Palmer, formerly of Bombay.]

      As might be expected, the diocese of Dornakal under its Indian Bishop (Dr. Azariah) has done most to adapt the Prayer Book Services. [What follows is derived from a conversation with the Bishop.]  In that diocese there are three towns only, and the problem is one of village worship.  Morning Prayer has been treated as follows.  The Venite is freely rendered in the form of a Telugu lyric, the meter being chosen to fit a suitable air; the first seven verses are sung as an Introit as the clergy take their places.  A two-minutes silence follows, ended by the Confession of Sins.  The Psalms are arranged with many omissions and shortenings.  A “Village Lectionary” is in use in the diocese, arranged in a five-years cycle.  Most characteristic is the treatment of the Canticles.  Thus the Jubilate, freely rendered as a lyric, is farsed with a chorus, or antiphon, after each verse – “Jesus is God.” [This repeats in a different form what was said above.  The descriptions given by two informants will help to make the point clear.]  Or, again, in the second part of the Te Deum, each verse ends with “O Christ”.  Similarly, the Kyrie, Sanctus, and Gloria in excelsis are rewritten to Telugu airs.  The Eucharist is little changed.  The chief need is to lengthen the service, since one that lasts half an hour is not in accordance with Indian ideas of seemliness; so long periods of silence are introduced.  The 1929 Scottish Liturgy is used at weekday services in the towns and is much appreciated.

      The service of Adult Baptism has a great appeal.  In ordinary life the taking of a solemn covenant or oath is preceded by a bath.  The vows associated with the baptismal waters assume great importance in Indian eyes, perhaps at the expense of the truths of the death unto sin and the new birth.

      The Marriage Service is expanded to last at least an hour – two hours would be better for Indian ideas of fitness.  The Espousals are made in the marriage pavilion, where the willingness to give the bride, and of the bridal pair to wed each other, is expressed.  At this stage, too, the dowry is settled, presents are bestowed, the fee is paid and fifteen minutes are allowed for drum beating.  The ceremonies take place before the priest who is to conduct the service in church.  The procession is formed, and the marriage ceremony is solemnized in church, the tali [A necklace, generally of gold, and clasped behind with a minute screw; the bridegroom clasps it on the bride’s neck.] being used instead of the ring, followed by the Eucharist, at which only the bridal pair, with their relations and near friends, communicate.  Various Indian customs have been Christianized.  A woman’s sari is blessed by the priest before it is worn.  Before harvest the sickles are brought to church to be blessed.

      The problem before the Indian Church is how best, with due regard for tradition, to bring the principle underlying these movements into its liturgical services.  The Indian clergy so far have been conservative and suspicious of anything resembling the heathen ways of the past.  But the problem must be solved by Indians cooperating with missionaries firmly rooted in the Catholic past, but open-minded and sympathetic towards Indian ideas.

      The only important Indian liturgical movement is that associated with Fr. Winslow and his colleagues at Poona.  His book, The Eucharist in India, [London, 1920.] deserves careful study.  The preliminary essays define the principles animating the proposed Rite, which is in essence a condensation of the Liturgy of St. James, as used in the Syrian Church of Malabar.  The Anaphora follows the general Eastern type, with the emphasis upon the Epiclesis.  But, lest the Indian mind should be led to disregard historical fact, the Anamnesis is also emphasized.  So is the Communion of Saints, special mention being made of St. Thomas.  Stress is laid on the Preparation Service before communicating.  The Missa Catechumenorum contains a full measure of instruction, with its three lections – Old Testament, Epistle, and Gospel.  The people’s part is far greater than in the Anglican rite, and the attention is kept alert by frequent responses, often of fair length.

      This Liturgy was sanctioned in 1920 for experimental use in Bombay diocese and has since been celebrated in several places – daily in the chapel of the Christa Seva Sangha at Poona.  A small but significant ceremony has been added since the book was published, an Indianized form of the Asperges.  The people are sprinkled with Holy Water with the help of a small bouquet of flowers, thus recalling the Hindu ceremony of Udakashanti (the Water of Peace).

      “The most characteristically Indian service in Christa Seva Sangha is our morning and evening ‘sandhya’ – the traditional twilight worship of India, answering to the original conception of Lauds and Vespers.  We hold this in the open garden, sitting on the ground in a semicircle, facing the sunrise in the morning and the sunset at night.  The worship includes prayers adapted from Hindu Sanskrit prayers; ‘Bhajans,’ viz. Indian hymns, sung to Indian music and instruments; readings from Scripture; and a long silence for quiet contemplation; ending with the three-fold ‘Shanti’ (Peace!  Peace!  Peace!).” [Letter to the writer from Fr. J. C. Winslow.]

      Attractive as this sounds to Western ears, it must be remembered that for Anglicans in India the natural link with the Catholic past is the Book of Common Prayer, and the Dornakal adaptations of that Book are probably more truly Indian, for India in its present stage of development, than the Poona experiments.

      A tentative Ceylon Liturgy, compiled by a Committee of Ceylon priests, appointed by the Bishop of Colombo in response to a petition presented to him at the Diocesan Synod in 1927, was issued for criticism in 1931.  It is a skilful blending of Eastern and Western forms.

      In Borneo Prayer Books are needed in Sea Dyak, Land Dyak, Malay and Chinese.  In Singapore diocese, Tamil, Malay and Chinese are the chief languages; the small Anglican mission in Bangkok is building up a Siamese Prayer Book by installments.  Translators in this diocese may use either the 1662 or the 1928 Book.  In Borneo some use has been made of the Scottish Liturgy.  But this diocese presents a problem which is likely to arise elsewhere in future and so deserves study.  When a number of nationalities meet, as in a school, some common language must be found.  This can only be English.  Therefore an English Prayer Book is needed as a missionary instrument.  But the 1662 Book is not suitable; the 1928 one is still less suitable, with its puzzling alternatives.  What is required is a simplified Book which could be used by those of various races to whom English, though known, is a foreign language.  But if each diocese produced its own Book, confusion would be caused.  So a need would seem to arise for common action on the part of several dioceses with common problems.

      Chinese. – Prayer Book problems in China have a distinctive character of their own.  Though the classical literary language is understood by the educated everywhere, the colloquial differs in North and South, and there are a number of genuine dialects, such as Cantonese and Hakka.  The Anglican Church, “Chung Kua Sheng Kung Hui,” consists of seven dioceses founded by the Church of England (five C.M.S., two S.P.G.), three by the American Church, and one by the Canadian.

Distances are so great and political conditions since 1911 have been so disturbed that common action has been difficult.  Eight different versions of the Prayer Book are in use. [What follows is derived from Bishop F. L. Norris’ articles on Prayer Book Revision in China in The East and the West, April and July 1927.]  In 1921 the General Synod endorsed the principle laid down by the Lambeth Conference of 1920, by which liturgical experiments were encouraged in missionary dioceses, with a reservation as to changes in the Communion Service with possible doctrinal implications.  The diocese of North China took advantage of this liberty and a Committee of five, three of them Chinese, was appointed in 1923 to revise the Prayer Book, with the following results.

      Morning and Evening Prayer are printed together, with ingenious conflation.  In them, as also in the Litany and Occasional Prayers, a good many changes are made with a view of securing variety and a wide range of subjects for intercession.  In the administration of the Sacraments and in other services the alterations are those suggested by common sense.  In the Marriage Service a new prayer meets the aspirations of the Chinese for a recognition of the good side of ancestor worship; but its thought is wholesome doctrine for the Churches of the West too.  “O Gracious God, from whom alone cometh all we have, who also hast taught us to honour our parents, we therefore ought to remember at this time our forebears, and to thank thee for them.  By thy grace these two people have been brought to be man and wife; grant them to build up their home in truth, both so doing their duty as to please thee and not shame their forebears.”

      Bishop Norris in describing these changes says that the Chinese do not yet know what they really want.  “If we are wise, we shall wait until there are Chinese liturgical scholars who can not only rightly appreciate the traditional elements of our Prayer Books, but also, by reason of their own unquestioned Chinese scholarship, can give form and beauty to such Chinese features as they wish to graft on the old stock.”

      Experiments similar to those in North China, though more modest, have been made in the dioceses of Anking and W. China.

      In 1931 the General Synod approved the preparation of forms of Morning and Evening Prayer for the whole Church, in the new vernacular literary style of the language.

      Japanese. – The “‘Japanese Church” in Communion with Canterbury, called “Nippon Sei Kokwai,” like the Chinese is of both English (S.P.G. and C.M.S.) and American origin.  From the first it has acted on provincial rather than diocesan lines.  The first synod, held in 1887, dealt with the Prayer Book, and the resulting Book, based on both English and American originals, was published in 1891.  An Ainu version, for the island of Yezo, was published in 1896.

      The Prayer Book now in use embodies features of the English Book omitted in the American, [In its pre-1929 form.] and vice versa.  Literal translations of both Consecration Prayers are given, and either may be used at the Minister’s discretion.  The Prayer of Humble Access, by a recent decision of Synod, may be said after the Consecration Prayer.  A Service of Preparation for Holy Communion is provided; it begins with the Lord’s Prayer and the Collect for Purity, continues with a part of Mattins, always including the Old Testament lesson, and ends with a short Litany.  The Apocrypha is not used in the Lectionary.  The Appendix includes three characteristically national services: for the New Year, for the Emperor’s Birthday, and for the Inauguration of the Church of Japan (Feb. 11).

      Korean. – The English Church Mission in Korea is a small body, poor and understaffed, the members of which have given much thought to the problems connected with the planting of a Western branch of the Church in an Eastern land.  The original version of the Prayer Book is destined to be superseded by a diocesan Liturgy and Service Book based on the best models, which has been practically ready for the press for some years.  For a number of years a Liturgy differing little from that proposed has been used at Ordinations and Synod Masses.  In 1932 the clergy assembled in Synod unanimously desired that the proposed Liturgy should be published.

Central Africa, the Universities’ Mission Dioceses.

      The liturgical situation in these dioceses deserves careful study.  The customs of Anglo-Catholic churches in England being far from uniform, the inevitable result was chaos.  Missionaries went out, each with his own method, armed with this or that book, and continued in Africa what they had practiced in England.  The African priests were bewildered, and some form of diocesan regulation was urgently needed.  The solution found by the diocese of Zanzibar, to which this description is primarily applicable, is given in Bishop Weston’s words in his Life. [Frank, Bishop of Zanzibar, pp. 289, 290.]  “The New [Swahili] Mass ... is 1549 adapted, with Rome supplying the priest’s [private] prayers: much as I suppose a ‘Catholic’ in 1549 said the new service. ... The rest of the book is, I think, all right: tho’ there is more Rome in it than Convocation ... would approve.”  This Swahili Prayer Book, in the dioceses of Zanzibar and Masasi, has superseded the version of the Book of Common Prayer originally made by Bishop Steere, which, however, is used in the (C.M.S.) diocese of Central Tanganyika.  A description of what is in reality a new member of the Anglican family of Liturgies may be useful to readers.

      The Mass must be said without deviation, and the rubrics prescribing the loud and sotto voce parts of the service are enforced. [English congregations in the dioceses use the 1662 rite, without addition or omission.]  In the Missa Catechumenorum the Preparation is said by all aloud.  The opening “Our Father” disappears.  The Prayer for Purity is said as the last part of the preparation as the priest goes to the Altar.  Then follow the Introit, Nine-fold Kyrie, Gloria in excelsis when ordered (no Commandments), Collects, etc., Sermon (when preached), Dismissal of Catechumens and of Penitents.  The Missa Fidelium begins with the Creed (when ordered).  A variable Offertory is followed by the offering of the Oblation with prescribed private prayers and the secrets.  The Sursum corda and Preface lead to an extended Prayer of Consecration including the Intercessions, as in Scotland; an Amen is said at the end of each section.  The next part is the 1662 Consecration Prayer.  Then comes the Prayer of Oblation, which draws largely upon Roman sources.  The whole is said aloud and the congregation join in the Lord’s Prayer.  During the priest’s private prayers the people come up into the chancel and say aloud a shortened Prayer of Humble Access and a Confession.  By this time the priest is ready to give the Absolution.  The Communion and the Ablutions follow, and the singing of the “Communio”.  The Blessing and the Last Gospel conclude the service.  The Prayer of Thanksgiving is said by the congregation, usually led by a priest, before they leave the church.

      Other features of the Prayer Book which deserve notice are these: – The Psalter is said twice a month at the four offices, obligatory for priests, of Mattins, Sext, Evensong, and Compline.  Baptism falls into two parts.  The first service, at which catechumens are set apart, is normally six months before the Baptism proper.  The white garment is put on at Baptism, in N. Rhodesia and Nyasaland as well as in the Swahili-using dioceses.  Full Christian marriage is always at Mass; married catechumens are given the nuptial blessing after Baptism, usually on the same day.*

      [*In the diocese of Masasi (Southern Tanganyika) the initiation rites have been adapted by the mission.  They fall into three parts:

      (a) On the opening day the ground is blessed; “the Cross takes the place of the ‘lupanda’ tree; and the invocation of the Saints of Christendom replaces the appealing to the great ones of the tribal past.  All this is done after dark on the vigil.”  The all-night dance follows, then the Christian Sacrifice in church, the circumcision and the dance of rejoicing.

      (b) The boys go to the forest camp for a period of four to six weeks under Christian teachers, whose instruction is supplemented by that of local chiefs.  Truth, honour, purity, temperance, etc. are inculcated, and above all religious habits.  “On the day before the end each boy makes his confession, as in the heathen rite.”

      (c) The boys then come to church with shaven heads and in new clothes, all things connected with the old life having been burned, and attend a Mass of Thanksgiving, where they are received into the Chancel as potential bridegrooms and given a special blessing.  “Then the priest takes the boys to the west door of the church and, amid a scene of wonderful enthusiasm, restores them to their waiting mothers and other relations.”

      Similar rites are practiced in the case of the girls, but their period of seclusion is ten days only, and the physical rite is not allowed.  See Bishop W. V. Lucas in Essays Catholic and Missionary, pp. 141 f.]

      The diocese of Northern Rhodesia uses the 1662 Book for English services, or alternatively the South African Rite.  As a basis for vernacular service books a diocesan rite has been prepared, in which the following features may be noted.  The Preparation is said by all.  The Gloria comes at the beginning of the service.  Catechumens are dismissed before the Creed.  The Prayer for the Church is in its English position.

      The diocese of Nyasaland also has a basic English rite from which versions have been made.  The Preparation is said by all.  After the offertory come “Ye that do truly ...,” a shortened Confession and Absolution, and the Comfortable Words; then an amplified Prayer for the Church, followed by “Lift up your hearts,” leading to the Canon, which runs as follows:

      “Truly thou art holy, O Almighty God and Heavenly Father, and to thee do we give thanks for that thou didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to take our nature upon him and to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption.  Who made there one all-sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, and did institute and in his holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory of that his precious death until his coming again.”

      [Reconsecration, if necessary, from here.] “Hear us, O merciful Father, we humbly beech thee, and with thy Holy Spirit vouchsafe to sanctify these thy creatures of bread and wine, that they may be unto us the Body and Blood of thy most dearly beloved Son Jesus Christ, who in ...

      “Wherefore, O Lord and Heavenly Father, we thy humble servants, together with all thy holy people, having in remembrance the Blessed Passion of the same thy Son Christ Our Lord, as also his mighty Resurrection and glorious Ascension, do offer unto thy Divine Majesty of these thy Holy Gifts, a pure and holy victim, this holy bread of eternal life, and this cup of everlasting salvation; beseeching thee to grant that by the merits ... Passion.  Amen.

      “And here we offer ... (almost as in 1662) ... yet we beseech thee to command that this our Sacrifice, together with our prayers, may be brought to thy Holy Altar on high before the sight of thy Divine Majesty. ...”

      The Prayer of Humble Access follows, then the Communion, Thanksgiving, Gloria in excelsis, and Blessing.

      West and East Africa. – The many Prayer Books prepared by the Church Missionary Society call for little comment.  They are characterized by a faithful adherence to the English standard.  This must not be taken to imply any lack of interest in devotional expression, but rather that missionaries have supplemented their service-books, where necessary, by free unliturgical forms.  The most important books in the West are the Yoruba and Ibo (Nigeria).  In the towns on the coast, in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and the Gold Coast alike, English is the usual language.

      In the diocese of Accra an English Missal giving the “Western Use” is sanctioned, and has been translated into Ga and Twi.

      In Uganda, Luganda and Lunyoro may be mentioned, in Kenya Swahili, Kikuyu, Dholuo and Giriama.  The Southern Sudan also has its versions in the Nilotic dialects.

      South Africa has versions of the Prayer Book in the four great native languages, Sixosa and Zulu, Sesuto and Sechwana; also in Afrikaans, Chiswina (S. Rhodesia), and various dialects of Portuguese East Africa.  The Church of this Province has moved in a methodical and orderly way.  Its liturgical history belongs to the chapter on Prayer Book Revision.  Ultimately the S. African Revised Prayer Book will be translated into all the languages spoken in Anglican Missions.  The cautious manner of advance is illustrated by the treatment of the Sesuto version of the S. African Alternative Order of Holy Communion.  (1) It was printed as a separate service, which (2) was later bound up with the Prayer Book as a supplement.  (3) The opportunity of a resetting of the Book was used to print the Alternative Service in the usual place, relegating the 1662 one to the end of the Book.  (4) Ultimately, if the 1662 service should cease to be used in the Sesuto-speaking Missions, it would presumably be omitted.

      Madagascar is generally reckoned with Africa.  The Malagasy Communion Service has a Consecration Prayer closely resembling that in the American Book.  It has an Epiclesis as follows: “And we pray thee hear us, O merciful Father, and of thy goodness let thy word and thy Holy Spirit be the means of thy blessing and making holy these thy gifts, the bread and the wine, that they may be the Body and Blood of thy most beloved Son.”

      The American Continent. – The first Indian version was in Mohawk (New York, 1715).  The American Book has been translated into several languages for the benefit of Indians living in the United States, including Alaska.  More important are the Canadian versions, especially Cree in its different varieties.  In connection with the various Eskimo versions the overworked word “romance” may fairly be used.  It is with pleasurable surprise that one hears of Cranmer’s work in an Eskimo dress being used daily in snow huts during the long Arctic nights.

      In 1924 an Ukrainian version of the Canadian Prayer Book was published, for the benefit of immigrants from Poland and Russia who, lacking any ministrations from clergy of the Eastern Orthodox Church, were seeking help from the Canadian Church.  Before the war such people were called Russians or Ruthenians, according to the political boundary, but they claim to be one nation, the Ukrainian.

      The West Indies present great difficulties.  The Church is handicapped by the isolation and poverty of the islands.  The English language is used everywhere in the Anglican Missions, except in the dioceses of Guiana and Honduras.  Common action on the part of the Bishops is difficult.  Indeed, London is the most convenient meeting place for the Episcopal Synod.  Many of the clergy have come from England, and so the conditions of the Mother Church are reflected locally.  No Prayer Book Revision has been undertaken, but divergences from the 1662 Book are allowed.  In Nassau Diocese the 1549 Liturgy is the Diocesan Use.  Antigua has a Diocesan Use for those who wish to deviate from the 1662 Book.  It is a simple form of the “Western Use” familiar in many English parishes.  The priest’s private prayers are prescribed, as also the ceremonies.  The Preparation is said by priest and server.  The service as said aloud is practically that of 1662.  The Prayer of Oblation is said after the Prayer of Consecration, with a connecting “Wherefore,” and the Lord’s Prayer follows, introduced by “As our Saviour ... to say.”

      In South America the Lengua and Mataco Prayer Books, used in Paraguay, deserve mention.

      The Pacific. – No liturgical points of interest seem to arise in this division of the world.  The Wedau and Mukawa versions in New Guinea, and the Mota, Gela, Lau, etc., versions in Melanesia, follow the 1662 Book; similarly the American Church Mission in the Philippines has translated the Prayer Book of its home Church.

      Through the kindness of the Bishop of New Guinea I have been allowed to see some interesting suggestions made by two of his priests.

      Morning and Evening Prayer. – Long psalms to be split up.  No section to exceed 20 verses.  Lessons similarly to be shortened.  Provision to be made for a Saturday night service in preparation for Sunday.

      Baptism and Confirmation. – More stress to be laid in the Baptism of Infants on the completion of the contract when years of discretion are reached.  When that happens, those baptized in infancy to enter the class of catechumens and undergo the same instruction.  The vows of renunciation, faith and obedience to be taken separately, perhaps on three consecutive Sundays.  Baptism to follow after an interval, and Confirmation after another interval.  A primitive people cannot be expected to take in more than one idea at once.

      Visitation of the Sick. – Exorcism of the spirit of fear, and of the demons that are supposed to be causing the sickness, is required.  Unction is of great value.  Communion by means of the Reserved Sacrament is clearly necessary.  The interior of a native hut is begrimed with wood smoke; except under the ridgepole it is impossible to stand up.

      No survey, however rapid, of the subject can avoid mentioning the work of the S.P.C.K., which as early as 1701 began to consider translations of the Prayer Book.  By 1914 the number of languages in which it had published the Prayer Book had risen to 114. [The number given by the officials of the Society to Dr. Muss-Arnolt.]  Since then many new versions have been added.  An exact computation is impossible, since some pioneer books have been issued in the mission field by the Society’s local representatives without the cognizance of its Home Office, and languages bearing different names may be for all practical purposes one and the same language.  About 150 languages would be a fair estimate.  These translations are controlled by a Foreign Literature Committee, appointed not by the members of S.P.C.K. but directly by the Archbishop of Canterbury.  Until recently the Archbishop sanctioned the publication by the Society of no version unless he was satisfied with the answers given to a somewhat formidable schedule of questions.  Many difficulties arose in early days in connection with translation problems.  These have now virtually solved themselves.  The greater part of every Prayer Book is taken from the Bible, the text of which in most areas is settled by an interdenominational Committee; and technical words, for which equivalents are hard to find, are nearly always transliterated.  But the watchful care of a succession of Archbishops has been an incalculable help to missionaries cut off from the centers of theological learning.  In 1920 Archbishop Davidson informed the Society that he need no longer be consulted about new versions which had provincial sanction.

      The desire of the Society and its President has not been to insist on literal translations of the 1662 Book for their own sake, but to ensure that a book professing to be a translation should accurately represent the original.  The contents of a Prayer Book are the concern primarily of the Bishop responsible for it, not of any Society, however venerable.  This leads us to consider the attitude taken up by successive Lambeth Conferences.  In 1867 Resolution 8 declared that “each Province should have the right to make such adaptations and additions to the services of the Church as its peculiar circumstances may require.  Provided, that no change or addition be made inconsistent with the spirit and principles of the Book of Common Prayer, and that all such changes be liable to revision by any Synod of the Anglican Communion in which the said Province shall be represented.”  In 1878 the Encyclical Letter included a Report which recommended the setting up of a Board in England and another in America, to which liturgical changes should be submitted; if the country concerned were under English rule, then only the English Board should be consulted.  The 1908 Conference laid down principles – avoidance of redundancies, the provision of additions and alternatives, the seeking of greater elasticity, etc. – which should be observed in Prayer Book Revision.  In 1920 the Conference maintained the authority of the Book of Common Prayer as a standard, but considered that “liturgical uniformity should not be regarded as a necessity throughout the Churches of the Anglican Communion” (Res. 36).  Resolution 37 ran: “Although the inherent right of a Diocesan Bishop to put forth or sanction liturgical forms is subject to such limitations as may be imposed by higher synodical authority, it is desirable that such authority should not be too rigidly exercised so long as those features are retained which are essential to the safeguarding of the unity of the Anglican Communion.”  The Archbishop of Canterbury was requested to appoint a Consultative Committee of liturgical students who would advise any diocese or province.

      The 1930 Conference agreed that the Committee of Students of Liturgical Questions need not be reappointed; its work would be taken over by the Consultative Body, which, it was recommended, should at its discretion call in expert advisers.  The Committee on the Anglican Communion reaffirmed two of the 1920 Resolutions dealing with the Prayer Book, but the 1930 Encyclical Letter and Resolutions were silent on this subject.

      The importance of the whole question will be readily recognized.  The Roman Catholic Church takes the Latin Mass everywhere.  Protestant Missions are at present little interested in liturgical questions.  The provision of Liturgies in the vernacular is largely an Anglican problem.  The ideal of uniformity has been abandoned and we now have a family of Anglican Liturgies and Offices, many of which are sufficiently established to have the forces of conservatism behind them.  No body of men are more tenacious of the forms of prayer to which they are accustomed than the priests of a young Church.  Far more than the foreign missionary they will cling to the present Prayer Books; they are inclined to resent any apparent concession to outworn heathen ways.  The 1662 Book in all essentials has a long life ahead of it in the Mission Field.  Eventually better services may supersede it, but not for many years to come in most places.  The English Book of 1928 will be used as a quarry by revisers overseas, but it is unlikely to be required as a whole.  Meanwhile supporters of missions in England will continue to help Churches in which many liturgical forms other than those of the Home Church are used.  A realization of this may help to soften English controversy.  It would seem reasonable that the Mother Church, which cares for Provinces and dioceses overseas with so great a variety of liturgical practice, should herself tolerate a measure of divergence which might be inappropriate in a small self-contained Province.

      Authorities. – Up to 1913 Dr. Muss-Arnolt’s The Book of Common Prayer among the Nations of the World (S.P.C.K., 1914) is exhaustive.  For information about current movements the writer was indebted to many correspondents, especially Archbishop Hutson (Antigua); Bishops Azariah (Dornakal), Embling (Korea), Foss (formerly of Osaka), Harden (Tuam – for Ireland, Spain and Portugal), O’Ferrall (Madagascar), Palmer (formerly of Bombay); Canon Spanton, for the Central African Dioceses; and Fr. Winslow.

The Services of the Eastern Orthodox Church

[Other than the Eucharist, for which see Art. “The Eucharist in East and West.”]

By R. French

      It is a commonplace to say that the Eastern Orthodox have a genius for public worship.  Orthodox means “right believing,” but it is significant that the corresponding adjective used to describe the Orthodox Church by its Slavonic-speaking members (who are enormously predominant numerically) means “right praising” (Pravoslavny).

      “Worship,” says Evelyn Underhill, “is the little human spirit’s humble adoring acknowledgment of the measureless glory of God.”  It is this that the Orthodox spirit understands so well.  It is this that the Greek or Russian peasant “goes to church” for.  The strength of Orthodox Christianity lies in its sense of worship; worship which is offered with dignity and splendour but without fuss or regimentation, worship which is a vehicle for devotion but without sentimentality.  It is in the Liturgy that the worshipping instinct of the Orthodox finds its preeminent and most characteristic expression.  But the Liturgy lies outside the scope of this present article.  An attempt will here be made to give some account of other Orthodox services of public worship, that is to say, of the Daily Offices and some of the Occasional Services.

The Daily Office.

      The Hours of Prayer are in number the same as in the West: Vespers, Compline, Midnight Service, Mattins, Prime, Terce, Sext, None.  Theoretically they are spread out throughout the day to form a ceaseless round of prayer and praise.  But for practical convenience they are, at any rate in parish churches, recited in groups.  None, Vespers and Compline form the evening service: the Midnight Service, Mattins and Prime, are said together as the morning service, while Terce and Sext are combined with the Liturgy at, say, about ten o’clock.  On the eves of Sundays and Great Festivals the grouping of Offices differs to some extent, Vespers, Mattins and Prime being said together about six o’clock in the evening as the All-Night Vigil Service (Little Vespers and Compline having been said earlier).

      In Monasteries, where everything is sung at length and slowly, this Service may literally last all night, but as said in parish churches it takes about a couple of hours.

      Many English people who are quite at home in the Liturgy find themselves at a loss in the Orthodox Daily Office.  The congregation does not “stand to sing, sit to hear, and kneel to pray”; no directions are given or announcements of what is happening made by the officiant; the structure and shape of the Service are difficult to grasp.  Even with a translation before him the reader is daunted by a bewildering variety of rubrics and subtitles of portions of the Service.  Certain details strike him at once as curious.  The Magnificat is a morning canticle, for instance, and the Te Deum does not appear at all in the regular sequence of liturgical services.  The Gloria in excelsis is said at Mattins and at Compline, and the Nicene Creed at the Midnight Service and Compline.  There is also a richness, variety and flexibility about the Orthodox Offices in the highest degree contrasted with the sober regularity of our own.

      The Anglican Office of Morning and Evening Prayer is built up round the orderly recital of the Psalter and the orderly reading of Holy Scripture.  Let us take this as a starting point in our examination of the Orthodox Office.

The Psalter.

      The Psalter is used in three ways:

      1.  There are certain fixed Psalms said at each Office daily.  Thus at the Midnight Office 51 and 119 (or on Saturdays 65–70 instead of 119), and later in the service 121 and 134.  Mattins has 20 and 21, and later the “Six Psalms,” 3, 38, 63, 88, 103, 143.  Prime, Terce, Sext and None have three invariable Psalms each.

      2.  The whole Psalter is divided into twenty sections called Cathismata, and each Cathisma again into three staseis.  The Gloria is said at the end of each stasis, not at the end of each Psalm.  Thus arranged the Psalter is used at Mattins and Vespers, in addition to their fixed Psalms.  For the greater part of the year two cathismata are said at Mattins and one at Vespers, so that the whole Psalter is recited in each week.  At certain times the number of cathismata used is different.  In Lent the Psalter is read through twice a week.  From Maundy Thursday to the eve of Low Sunday the Psalms are omitted altogether.

      3.  Detached verses of Psalms, singly or in groups, are a frequently used element in the Offices.  For instance, a prokeimenon is an example of such use.  The prokeimenon consists of two verses (hardly ever consecutive) of a Psalm.  It belongs properly to the Liturgy, where it is said before the Epistle, but the prokeimenon of the day is repeated in the Office also.

      Holy Scripture.

      Beside the Psalter and certain other portions of the Old Testament, the New Testament is of course read in the services of the Orthodox Church.  The books of the “Apostle” and the “Gospel” are essential for the conduct of worship.  The four Gospels are included in the latter, while the former contains the Acts of the Apostles as well as the Epistles.  The Epistle and Gospel of the day are read at the Liturgy according to a fixed order, the Gospel is also read at Mattins.  In addition to the usual division into chapters and verses the books are also portioned out into sections (in Russian zachala), and the order in which these sections are to be read is given at the end of the book.  For each day of each week in the year, beginning at Easter, the proper section is shown Special lections are provided for Feasts of our Lord and the great Saints’ Days, as well as for use at occasional services.

      Such then roughly is the use of the Psalms and Lessons.  The actual prayers in the narrower sense of the word, which are used in the Office, are many of them very beautiful.  They are often long and couched in poetic phraseology, quite different in form from the concise and regular Western Collect.  Frequently they are said secretly by the Priest while the choir are singing their part.  Thus while the reader reads the six Psalms at Mattins, the Priest recites the twelve Morning Prayers, the first three within the Altar (i.e. in Western phraseology, the Sanctuary), and the remainder outside the Ikonostas, facing the Royal Doors.  The same is true of the Seven Prayers of Light at Vespers.  The following, which is said at all the Hours, may be given as an example:

      O thou who at all times and seasons in heaven and earth art worshipped and glorified, Christ our God, long-suffering, pitiful and all-compassionate, who lovest the righteous and pitiest sinners, who callest all to salvation through the gospel of thy coming kingdom, do thou, O Lord, receive our prayers at this time, and guide our lives in thy statutes.  Sanctify our souls, cleanse our bodies, correct our thoughts, purify our hearts, and deliver us from all affliction, evil and pain.  Defend us by thy holy angels, that, being guarded and guided by their ranks, we may come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of thine unapproachable glory, who art blessed to ages of ages.  Amen.

      But the bulk of the Orthodox Services consists of ecclesiastical poetry.  It has been computed that poetry comprises 80 percent of the vast contents of the service books, and it is made up for the most part of short hymns.  The word “hymn” is not here used in the modern and Western sense with its implication of meter and perhaps rhyme.  They are rhythmical compositions in poetical language – hymns in the sense that the Gloria in excelsis may be so called.  A general name which covers a large number of them is troparion (Slav. tropar), and the Orthodox Services are festooned with them, strung together with Glorias and broken verses from the Psalms like pearls on a string.  The number of different sorts of troparia is large and the total of all sorts must run into many thousands.  The deacon Romanus, who lived about A.D. 500, is credited with the composition of over a thousand kontakia.  A kontakion is one of these short “hymns” summing up the life of a Saint or giving the gist of the occasion for which it is used.  This is the kontakion of Easter Day: “Thou, O Immortal, thou didst descend into the tomb, yet didst thou overthrow the might of Hades, O Christ our God; and thou didst arise as Victor, saying to the Ointment-bearers – Hail!  Thou didst give peace to thine Apostles, who dost cause them that are fallen to arise.”  A Theotokion is a hymn about or addressed to our Lady: “Formed wert thou to be the dwelling of light, pure and most holy Mother and Virgin, who didst give birth to Christ the King of all and the Enlightener of them that sit in darkness: whence with faith we bless thee.”  A Stauro-theotokion is the same, but contains also a reference to the Cross: “Standing by the Cross of thy Son and the Son of God, and beholding his long- suffering, with tears, pure Mother, thou saidst, Woe is me!  Why sufferest thou thus unjustly, my Son, Word of God, for the race of men?”

      These must suffice as illustrations of the three or four dozen different varieties of troparia.  Many of them are of great beauty.  A few have been translated, put into modern dress, and become favourites in our hymn books.  Thus the original of “Hail, gladdening Light” is the troparion which occupies in the Orthodox Vespers the position which Magnificat holds in the West.  “Joyful Light of the holy glory of the Father, Immortal, Heavenly, Holy, Blessed, O Jesu Christ; we, having come to the setting of the sun and beholding the evening light, hymn God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost.  It is meet at all times that thou shouldst be hymned with auspicious voices, Son of God, Giver of Life: wherefore the world glorifieth thee.”  It has been sung at Vespers at least since the time of St. Basil, who ascribes it to the martyr Athenogenes, about A.D. 175.  “The day is past and over,” “Stars of the morning,” “The Day of Resurrection,” “Come, ye faithful, raise the strain,” “Fierce raged the tempest,” and others are all examples of modern renderings of Orthodox troparia.

      I have likened troparia to pearls on a string.  One might also think of them as pieces of mosaic fitted together into an intricate pattern which can itself be picked up as a whole and placed here or there as required.  Such is that very important element in Orthodox worship known as a Kanon, some rough and generalized description of which is necessary in even this brief survey.  There are kanons of the great festivals, most Saints’ Days have their kanons, and some have more than one, and there are kanons in some of the Occasional Offices.  One of the best-known composers of kanons is St. John Damascene, another is Anatolius, Patriarch of Constantinople in the fifth century, and many kanons are of great antiquity.  Their structure is as follows: three, four, five or more troparia (the number varies) form an ode, and nine odes make a kanon.  But in addition to their own subject matter the odes are supposed to conform to, or contain some allusion to, their scriptural prototypes.

      These are—

(1)  The Song of Israel (Ex. 15:1–21).

(2)  The Song of Moses (Deut. 32:1–44).

(3)  The Song of Hannah (1 Sam. 2:1–11).

(4)  The Prayer of Habakkuk (3:1–19).

(5)  The Prayer of Isaiah (26:9–21).

(6)  The Prayer of Jonah (2:2–10).

(7)  The Prayer of the Three Children.                  From the Apocryphal addition

(8)  The Benedicite.                                                 to the third chapter of the

                                                                                    Book of Daniel.

(9)  The Magnificat and Benedictus.

      These scriptural odes are taken as covering the whole field of religious emotional experience, and whatever be the occasion for which the kanon is written, its odes are skillfully constructed to carry the mind back to the corresponding scriptural ode, especially the second and the last three.  It is to be noted that Ode 2, because of its denunciatory character, is always omitted except in Lenten kanons.

      Further, each ode begins with a special sort of verse called a heirmos and ends with a theotokion (see above).  Various other sorts of troparia are inserted at fixed places as the kanon progresses, and after Ode 6 there may be a whole group of them, beginning with a kontakion; and even a litany and a lection.

      The Ectine or Litany is another element which enters freely into the composition of Orthodox Services.  There are four forms of Litany used both in the Liturgy and the Offices: the Great Litany, the Little Litany, the Increased Litany (so called from its triple response) and the Petitioning Litany.  To these may be added the Litany of the Catechumens which belongs to the Liturgy alone, and the Litany of the Faithful Departed which is said on occasion at the Liturgy, and in the Office for the Dead.  The Litanies are said by the Deacon standing before the Royal Gates.  He holds the end of his stole in his right hand and crosses himself with it before he bows at the end of each petition.  The Litany ends with an “exclamation” by the Priest, which is the concluding phrases of the prayer which he has been saying secretly during the singing of the Litany.  As an example the Petitioning Litany is here given (from King’s translation of Vespers):

      Deacon.  Let us complete our evening supplication to the Lord.

      Choir.  Lord, have mercy upon us.

      Deacon.  Protect us, save us, be merciful unto us, and preserve us by thy grace, O God.

      Choir.  Lord, have mercy upon us.

      Deacon.  Let us beseech the Lord that we may finish this evening in holiness, peace, and innocence.

      Choir.  Grant this, O Lord.

      Deacon.  Let us beseech the Lord for the angel of peace, the faithful guide and keeper of our souls and bodies.

      Choir.  Grant this, O Lord.

      Deacon.  Let us beseech the Lord for pardon and remission of our sins and offences.

      Choir.  Grant this, O Lord.

      Deacon.  Let us beseech the Lord for all things good and profitable for our souls and for the peace of the world.

      Choir.  Grant this, O Lord.

      Deacon.  Let us beseech the Lord that we may end the rest of our days in peace and repentance.

      Choir.  Grant this, O Lord.

      Deacon.  Let us beseech the Lord that the last period of our lives may be suitable to our Christian profession, without pain and confusion of face; that we may give a good answer at the dreadful tribunal of Christ.

      Choir.  Grant this, O Lord.

      Deacon.  In remembrance of our most holy, most pure, most blessed and glorious Lady, the Mother of God, and ever-virgin Mary, with all Saints, we commend ourselves and each other, and our whole life to Christ our God.

      Choir.  To thee, O Lord.

Exclamation.

      Priest.  For thou art the blessed God, the Lover of mankind, and to thee, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, we offer our praise, now and for ever, even unto ages of ages.

      Choir.  Amen.

The Trisagion.

      This has its place at the beginning of the Daily Offices and of many other services also.  In its extended form it runs as follows:

      O Holy God, O Holy Mighty, O Holy Immortal, have mercy upon us (thrice).

      Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Christ, both now and for ever, even unto ages of ages.  Amen.

      O Most Holy Trinity, have mercy upon us; O Lord, purify us from our sins, and forgive us our transgressions, O Lord: O Holy, look down upon us, and heal our infirmities for thy Name’s sake.

      Lord, have mercy upon us (thrice).

      Gloria.

      Our Father.

      It is not proposed to give here a list of the service books of the Orthodox Church.  But some idea of their complexity may be gained from the following facts.  Beside the Liturgy, the Psalter, and the books of the Epistles and Gospels, some seven or eight other books are required.  The Priest’s part at Mattins and Vespers will be in one of them, the invariable choir parts at the Hours in another.  The hymns, kanons, stikhera, etc., of the Daily Services will be found in one of three other books according to whether the season be Lent, Eastertide, or an ordinary day in the rest of the year.  Proper of Saints has its own book, and another is devoted to the rubrics, tables of concurrence, and so on.  It must be remembered that there are frequently two or three Saints commemorated on the same day, and the ecclesiastical season must, of course, be taken into account.

      When these facts are borne in mind it will be appreciated that the fitting together of the variable parts of a Service for a particular day must often be a task compared with which the number and hardness of the rules called the Pie would seem trivial.

      Some of the technical terms having been explained above, it may be of service now to give a rough outline of the structure of one of the Orthodox Offices.  The following is such an outline of Mattins, no attempt being made to show the variation of the Service with the seasons of the Church year.

Mattins.

      The Trisagion (in its extended form).

      Psalms 20 and 21.

      The Trisagion (repeated).

      Prayers for Rulers of Church and State.

      [The whole of the foregoing is omitted if Mattins be said in conjunction with Vespers and Prime, as the All Night Vigil Service.]

            The Six Psalms.

      [While these are chanted by the Reader, the Priest says the Twelve Morning Prayers secretly.]

      The Great Litany.

      Versicles.

      The Troparion of the Day.

      The First Part of the Proper Kathisma of Psalms.

      The Little Litany.

      The Second Part of the Kathisma.

      The Little Litany.

      [The Kathisma and Little Litany are omitted in some churches.]

      The Royal Doors are now opened and the Priest and Deacon cense the Sanctuary, Ikons, Choir and people, and the whole church.  The lamps at the shrines are lit during the singing of:

      The Polieley (Psalms 135 and 136).

      Troparia (on Sundays).

      Hymn to the Trinity.

      “Let us worship the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, the Holy Trinity in one Substance, crying with the Seraphim Holy, Holy, Holy art thou, O Lord.  Both now and ever and unto ages of ages.”

            Hymn to our Lady.

      “In bringing forth the Life-Giver, thou hast, O Virgin, ransomed from sin and given joy to Eve instead of sadness; for the God and Man incarnate of thee has restored to life them that had fallen therefrom.  Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Glory to thee, O Lord.”

      The Little Litany.

      Versicles.

      The Prokeimenon of the Day.

      The Gospel for the Day.

      Hymn of the Resurrection (on Sundays).

      “Having seen the resurrection of Christ, let us bow down before the Holy Lord Jesus who alone is sinless.  We worship thy Cross, O Christ, and laud and glorify thy holy resurrection.  For thou art our God and we know none other beside thee.  We call upon thy Name.  Come, all ye faithful, let us adore Christ’s Holy Resurrection; for behold through the Cross joy is come unto all the world.  Blessing the Lord continuously we hymn his Resurrection; for having endured the Cross for us he hath by death destroyed Death.”

            The Kanon of the Day.

      [After the 3rd, 6th and 9th Odes, the Little Litany is sung.  After the 8th Ode, the Magnificat and Benedictus, the former with a Refrain after each verse, i.e.:]

      “More honourable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim, who undefiled barest God the Word, verily the Bearer of God, thee we magnify.”

      Little Litany.

      Verses from Psalms 148–150.

      Stikhera of the Day (or another short hymn to our Lady).

      The Gloria in excelsis.

      A few detached Verses of Psalms.

      Trisagion.

      The Increased Litany (i.e. with threefold responses).

      The Petitioning Litany (i.e. with response, “Grant, O Lord”).

      After a few more verses and short hymns the Service closes with the Blessing.

      Such a rough outline can give but little idea of the beauty of the Service and the richness of its symbolism in word and ceremony.  For this and detailed explanation the reader may be referred to the more extended descriptions by Birkbeck, Shann and others, which are easily accessible.

      We pass to a brief consideration of some of the Occasional Services.

      Holy Baptism is not the first occasion on which a child of Orthodox parents will be brought into contact with the Church of which he is in due course to become a member.  On the day following the birth the Priest comes to say prayers over the mother and child, and again a week later when the child is given his name.  On the fortieth day from its birth the mother brings the child to church, when prayers are said first for the child, then for the mother, and then again for the child, and, if Holy Baptism has meanwhile been administered, the Priest carries the child through the church and (in the case of a male child) into the Sanctuary, reciting the Nunc Dimittis.  But unless the child has been baptized at home, which is not infrequently the case, the latter ceremony will follow Baptism.  And the prayers of the eighth day are now combined with those of the first day.

      The rite of Baptism is preceded by exorcism and a short catechism of renunciation of Satan and acceptance of Christ, which concludes with the recitation of the Nicene Creed.  In the case of converts from non-Christian religions, the catechumen will be required also to repudiate in explicit terms the particular errors of his previous religion.

      The administration of the Sacrament itself begins with a Litany said by the Deacon while the Priest prays secretly for himself and for the person about to be baptized.  This is followed by a long prayer said aloud, in the course of which the water is blessed in words which frequently recall the phraseology of the Anglican rite ; e.g. “Grant that the person to be baptized therein may be thoroughly renewed, that he may put off the old man which is corrupt through deceitful lusts and put on the new man after the image of him that made him; that being planted in the likeness of his death by baptism, he may be partaker of his resurrection.”

      Olive oil is then blessed, the surface of the water signed with it, and the child is anointed. [It is to be noted that this is entirely distinct from the anointing with chrisom, which follows Baptism.]  With his fingers dipped in the oil, the Priest signs the child on the brow, saying, “The servant of God, N., is anointed with the oil of gladness in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen.  Unto the healing of soul and body” (here the sign is made on the breast and back).  “Unto hearing the faith” (on the ears).  “Thy hands have made me and fashioned me” (on the palms).  “That he may walk in the way of thy commandments” (on the feet).

      The child is then baptized with threefold immersion and the words, “The Servant of God, N., is baptized in the Name of the Father, Amen.  And of the Son.  Amen.  And of the Holy Ghost.  Amen.”

      Psalm 32 follows; and the child is clothed while this troparion is sung: “Grant me the garment of light, O thou who clothest thyself with light as with a garment, O most merciful Christ, our God.”

      The Baptism ended, Chrisom, which corresponds with the western Confirmation, follows immediately.  It begins with an ascription of praise and thanksgiving for the baptismal gift, merging into a prayer for “the seal of the gift of thy holy, and almighty, and adorable Spirit.”  The child is then anointed in the sign of the cross on the brow, eyes, nostrils, lips, ears, breast, hands and feet; and at each anointing the Priest says, “The seal of the Gift of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.”

      A triple circuit of the font is then made with lighted tapers by the clergy and the sponsors carrying the child.  The circle thus made symbolizes unbroken and eternal union with Christ.

      After some versicles and responses, the Epistle (Rom. 6:3–11) is read, and the Gospel (St. Matt. 28:16–20).

      The Service usually ends here, though a Litany and Blessing may follow.

      Although this Sacrament (Confirmation) is in the Orthodox Church administered by the Priest, the Chrisom which is used in it is prepared by the OEcumenical Patriarch with elaborate ceremonial during Holy Week once in every few years as required.  He distributes it to the Orthodox world, and it thus becomes a symbol both of the primatial dignity of the OEcumenical Throne and of the unity of faith and love which binds the Orthodox Churches together.  The OEcumenical Patriarch can, however, and does (e.g. in the case of Russia) concede the right to consecrate the Chrisom for their own use to the chief bishops of other Orthodox Churches.

      In early times the newly-baptized person was brought to church again eight days later for Ablution (i.e. sprinkling with water and washing of the places where he had been anointed) and the Cutting of the Hair (in the form of a cross, as a symbol of service).  But these ceremonies are now performed at the same time as the Baptism; the Reception of the Catechumen, the Baptism and Chrisom, the Ablution, etc., all forming one long service.

      The Order for the Sacrament of Penance as given in the service books contains the Trisagion, the 51st Psalm, a number of troparia and some long prayers said by the Priest as well as an explanatory exhortation to the penitent and an interrogation upon his faith (in reply to which he says the Nicene Creed) before the detailed confession of sins is made in answer to questions put by the Priest.  In practice, all this is, of course, much shortened.  At the end the Priest prays for the forgiveness of the penitent, but expressly on the ground of the commission, “Whosesoever sins thou dost remit they are remitted unto them,” etc.  And in the Slavonic rite a definite Absolution of the Western form is added: “By his authority committed unto me, I absolve thee,” etc.

      In the Orthodox rite of Marriage the distinction between the ceremony of betrothal and the marriage proper is very clear, although both are now performed continuously as one service.

      The Betrothal Service opens with a litany of petition for the bridal pair, followed by a prayer that they may be blessed as Isaac and Rebekah were blessed.

      Both bridegroom and bride have rings, and at this point in the Service the rings are blessed and exchanged, the Priest saying to the bridegroom, “The servant of God, N., is betrothed to the handmaid of God, N., in the Name,” etc., and corresponding words to the bride, and then adding a long prayer referring to the purpose of marriage and the use of rings in Holy Scripture.

      Then follows the actual marriage, called the “crowning,” for the Orthodox Church has retained the custom of crowning the bridal pair, which goes back at least to the time of St. Chrysostom (end of the fourth century).  Metal crowns for the purpose are kept in the church.

      After Psalm 128, with the response, “Glory to thee, our God,” after each verse, and the sermon (if there be one), the Priest addresses the bridegroom, thus: “N., hast thou a good, free and unrestrained will and firm intention to take unto thyself to wife this woman, N., whom thou seest here before thee?” and “Thou hast not promised thyself to any other bride?”

      Similar questions are put to the bride.  A litany of appropriate petitions follows, and three prayers full of scriptural references, after which the Priest crowns the bridegroom with the words, “The servant of God, N., is crowned for the handmaid of God, N., in the Name,” etc.  The bride is then crowned with the corresponding formula.

      The Reader reads the Epistle (Eph. 5:20–33) and the Deacon the Gospel (St. John 2:1–12).

      Here follows another Litany for the bride and bridegroom concluded by a prayer, and the Petitioning Litany (see above), followed by the Lord’s Prayer.

      The common cup, containing wine (and sometimes pieces of bread as well), is brought and blessed and the bridal pair are given to drink from it, after which with their attendants they follow the clergy in procession in a circle, which symbolizes their unbroken union.

      Two more prayers and the Blessing bring this part of the Service to an end.

      The crowns are removed while a special prayer is said, a ceremony which used to take place on the eighth day afterwards, but is now performed at the close of the Marriage Service.

      The Orthodox sanction second and third marriages reluctantly; but a special form is provided for a second marriage.

      The Sacrament of Holy Unction is administered for both bodily and spiritual healing to those who are seriously ill but not necessarily at the point of death.  If the sick person is able to leave his bed it will take place in church, but more usually the Service is held at his own home.  It is very long, and the Unction should properly be administered by seven priests, but, if necessary, and indeed usually, one priest only is present. The Service begins with the Trisagion, followed by Psalms 143 and 51, between which come the Little Litany and certain troparia.  Then the kanon and another Litany, after which the oil is blessed as follows: “O Lord, who by thy grace and bounty dost heal the infirmities of both our souls and bodies, sanctify this oil to the healing of him who is to be anointed therewith, to the laying low of all passions and impurities of the flesh and spirit and of all other evil, that by him thy most Holy Name may be glorified, in the Name,” etc.

      There follow seven Epistles and seven Gospels, i.e.:

1.  St. James v. 10–16.         St. Luke 10:25 ff.

2.  Romans xv. 1–8.              St. Luke 19:1–11.

3.  1 Cor. 12:27–13:8.         St. Matthew 10:1–9.

4.  2 Cor. 6:16–7:2.              St. Matthew 8:14–24.

5.  2 Cor. 1:8–11                  St. Matthew 25:1–14.

6.  Gal. 5:22–6:3.                  St. Matthew 15:21–29.

7.  1 Thess. 5:14–24.            St. Matthew 9:9–14.

      After each Gospel there is a different prayer, read (in theory) by a different priest, who then anoints the sick person on the brow, nostrils, lips, breast and both sides of the hands, while he repeats a prayer beginning, “O Holy Father, Physician of our souls and bodies, who didst send thine only begotten Son Our Lord Jesus Christ to cure all diseases and to deliver us from death; heal this thy servant, N., from the bodily infirmity under which he now labours and raise him up by the grace of thy Christ. ...”  When the seven anointings are ended, the other priests lay the Book of the Gospels on the head of the recipient of the Sacrament, while the principal Priest says this prayer: “O Holy King, the merciful and gracious Lord, Jesus Christ the Son and Word of the Living God who wouldest not the death of a sinner but rather that he should be converted and live, I lay not my sinful hand upon the head of this sinner now returning to thee and begging by us forgiveness of his sins; but do thou stretch forth thy powerful and mighty hand through this thy holy Gospel held upon the head of this thy servant by my fellow ministers.  With them I implore thy goodness, which leadeth thee to remember our sins no more, O thou who art our God and Saviour; who didst grant repentance to David by thy Prophet Nathan, and didst forgive his sins; and didst receive the penitence of Manasseh; accept this thy servant with thy wonted goodness, who repenteth of his sins, and look not upon his iniquities.  For thou art our God, who didst command that we should forgive those who offend until seventy times seven; for as thy greatness is, so is thy mercy; and to thee are due all honour and glory and adoration, now and for ever, even unto ages of ages.  Amen.”

      After another Litany and more troparia the Service ends with a Blessing.

      The Orthodox Order for the Burial of the Dead varies somewhat for a bishop, priest, monk, layman, laywoman or child.  There are also variations in the Service if the death takes place at Easter.  But into these space will not permit us to enter.  The general outline of the Order is as follows.  The clergy go to the house, where the body is censed, and the Trisagion sung, followed by troparia, litany and prayers.  The body is then carried to church, and Psalms 91, 119 (in practice abbreviated) and 51 are said.  The kanon follows, and eight beautiful troparia composed by St. John Damascene, a version of the first of which appears as Hymn 360 in the English Hymnal.  Then come the Beatitudes interspersed with short hymns and prayers, and a hymn to our Lady, followed by the Epistle (1 Thess. 4:13–18) and Gospel (St. John 5:24–30).

      The Deacon now repeats a short litany and the Priest says this prayer: “O God of all spirits and of all flesh, who hath destroyed death and trodden down Satan, and hast given life to thy world: grant rest, O Lord, to the soul of thy servant, N., departed this life, in pleasant, happy and peaceful places; from whence pain and grief and sighing have fled away.  Forgive every sin which he (she) hath committed by thought, word or deed, for thou art a good God and lovest mankind: for there is no man that liveth and sinneth not : thou only art without sin, thy righteousness is everlasting and thy word is truth.”

      The last kiss is given while a number of verses are sung of which the following is an example: “What is our life?  A flower, a vapour, the early dew of the morning.  Approach, therefore; with attention let us contemplate the grave!  Where now is the graceful form?  Where is youth?  Where is the brightness of the eye, the beauty of the complexion?  All, all are withered like grass, all are vanished.  Come, and let us with tears fall down before Christ.”

      Hymns to our Lady follow and the Prayer of Absolution is read.

      The body is then carried to the grave, where the Trisagion is again sung.

      Earth is cast on the body in the form of a cross, the Priest saying, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the round world and they that dwell therein.”

      Oil from a shrine lamp and ashes from the censer are poured into the grave, which is then filled in while more verses are sung.

      Prayers for the Departed occupy a prominent place in the worship of the Eastern Orthodox Church.  To the Greek or Russian it seems altogether natural and fitting both that one should continue to pray for those one loves, just as much after they have passed the veil of death as before, and that one should likewise continue to ask for their prayers.  The bonds which unite God’s family are not conceived as broken by death.  Thus the Orthodox Church has its yearly, weekly and daily commemoration of the Departed, and in addition, Services for the Dead may be held at any time, and in private houses or cemeteries as well as in church.  They are always held on the third, ninth and fortieth day after a death, and again upon its anniversary.  Such a service in Greece is called Lite for the dead.  In Russia the service is Pannykhida, and is celebrated as follows: [It is not very long, and is printed in full in an English translation and with an introduction in The Christian East, Vol. X, No. 4.]

      On a small table placed in the body of the church stands the Kolubon, i.e. a dish of boiled wheat (a symbol of the resurrection) and honey (which typifies the bliss of eternity).  A lighted candle stands in the middle of this dish.  The Priest, wearing his chasuble and holding a lighted candle, stands before the table and the Deacon is by his side with the censer.

      The service opens with the Great Litany of the Dead:

      Deacon.  In peace let us make our supplications to the Lord.

      Choir.  Lord, have mercy (and so at the end of each petition.)

      Deacon.  For the peace that is from above, and for the salvation of our souls, let us make our supplications to the Lord.

      For the remission of the sins of those of blessed memory who have departed this life, let us make our supplications to the Lord.

      For the servant of God, N., of everlasting memory, that he may grant him rest, tranquility, and a blessed memorial, let us make our supplications to the Lord.

      That he may forgive him every sin, voluntary or involuntary, which he hath committed, let us make our supplications to the Lord.

      That he may appear uncondemned before the dreadful throne of the Lord of glory, let us make our supplications to the Lord.

      For them that mourn and are in grief, and look for the comfort of Christ, let us make our supplications to the Lord.

      That he may be set free from every infirmity, and from sorrow and sighing, and that God may cause him to dwell in the light of his countenance, let us make our supplications to the Lord.

      That the Lord our God may assign unto his soul a place of light, a place of refreshment, a place of repose, where all the just do dwell, let us make our supplications to the Lord.

      That he may be numbered amongst those that are in the bosom of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, let us make our supplications to the Lord.

      That we may be preserved from all tribulation, wrath, and necessity, let us make our supplications to the Lord.

      Assist, save, pity, and protect us, O God, by thy grace.

      Having prayed for him, for God’s mercy and the kingdom of heaven and the remission of his sins let us also commend ourselves and one another, and all our life, to Christ our God.

      Choir.  To thee, O Lord.

      Priest (aloud).  For thou art the resurrection and the life, and the repose of thy servant, N., who is fallen asleep, O Christ our God; and unto thee do we render glory, with thine eternal Father, and thine all-holy, and good, and life-giving Spirit, now and ever, world without end.

      Choir.  Amen.

      Some beautiful troparia and ascription of praise follow, interspersed with appeals for the intercession of our Lady, and the Little Litany of the Dead, which is said twice.  Then comes the kontakion, which has become familiar to many English people:

      Give rest to the soul of thy servant, O Christ, with the Saints, where there is neither pain, nor sorrow, nor sighing, but life unending.

      “Thou only art immortal that didst create and fashion men: but we mortals are formed of earth, and unto the same earth shall we come: even as thou didst ordain, that didst fashion me and saidst unto me, Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.  Thither shall all we mortals go, making a lamentation over the grave, even in the song: Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.”

      There are more hymns, and another repetition of the Little Litany and then the Priest prays:

      “O God of spirits and of all flesh, who hast trodden down death and brought to naught the power of the devil, and hast bestowed life upon this world of thine: do thou thyself, O Lord, give rest to the soul of thy servant N., who is fallen asleep, in a place of light, in a place of pasture, in a place of refreshment, whence pain and sorrow and sighing have fled away.  Every sin which he hath committed in word or deed or thought, forasmuch as thou, O God, art good and lovest mankind, do thou forgive: for there is no man that liveth and sinneth not; for thou alone art without sin, thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth.

      For thou art the resurrection, the life, and the repose of thy servant N., that is fallen asleep, O Christ our God, and to thee do we render glory, with thine eternal Father, and thy all-holy, and good and life-giving Spirit, now and ever, world without end.”

      Choir.  Amen.

      The congregation hold lighted candles until the end of the kontakion.

      A very frequent act of Orthodox worship is a short service of prayer (called in Russian molyebin) which may be used at any time as an act of devotion to our Lord, or one of the Saints, and with some particular purpose.  It consists of the Trisagion, versicles and hymns, and the Little Litany with an appropriate Gospel.  Any member of the faithful may ask for such a service to be said for some special object.  It takes place at a movable lectern before the Royal Gates, usually after the Liturgy.

      And here this brief sketch of Orthodox worship must close, although the whole field is by no means covered even in outline. [For the Forms of Ordination of the various grades of Clergy (in the Slavonic rite), reference may be made to Miss Hapgood’s Service Book of the Holy Orthodox Catholic Church, where they are translated.]

      One would like to have given some description of services which belong to special occasions, such as the New Year; of the well-known Blessing of the Waters at Epiphany; of the Feet Washing on Maundy Thursday, and other intensely moving and beautiful acts of worship which belong to Holy Week and Easter: of the deeply impressive service at the Exaltation of the Holy Cross; and others.

      Moreover, space has permitted but scanty reference to the ceremonial which accompanies worship, important though that is, for the Orthodox applies himself to worship with his whole being, body as well as soul, with his eyes as well as his ears and lips.

      But enough perhaps has been said to convey an idea of both the beauty and the complexity of Orthodox worship.  It is pervaded by a sense of the transcendent majesty of God, and the insignificance of man, the object of divine compassion, “Lord, have mercy,” occurring again and again and at times in multiplied reiteration, is perhaps its most characteristic utterance.  It is also intensely dogmatic; and the great truths of our redemption, the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, above all the joy of the Resurrection from which life and gladness flow out to all creation, flash through every expression of Orthodox worship like the reappearing facets of the one flawless jewel of Christian truth.

Additional Notes

I – The Ornaments Rubric

      The Act of Uniformity of 1559 contained the following proviso: “Such ornaments of the church, and of the Ministers thereof, shall be retained, and be in vse, as was in this church of England by the authority of Parliament in the second year of the reign of King Edward the sixth, vntil other order shall be therein taken, by the authority of the Queens Majesty with the advice of her Commissioners. ...”

      The Book of 1559 contains the same direction, cleared from any possible ambiguity, in the form of a rubric; thus: “The minister at the time of the Communion, and at all other times in his ministration, shall vse such ornaments in the church as were in vse by authority of Parliament in the second year of the reign of King Edward the VI, according to the Act of Parliament set out at the beginning of this book.”

      The Book of 1661 reverts to the exact wording of the Act, as far as “King Edw. VI,” except that it attempts to make it sound more grammatical by substituting “as were in this church” for “was”.  The revisers seem to have thought that the subject of the clause was “ornaments”: MacColl, however, points out that the Latin translation has “quemadmodum mos erat,” and maintains, as against Bishop Gibson, that the translation is practically contemporary with the original, citing a document attributed to Parker and apparently anterior to the 1561 edition of the Book. [The Royal Commission and the Ornaments Rubric, c. ix.]  If this rendering stands, we might rightly paraphrase “was” by “matters stood.”

      The difficulty of interpreting the rubric of 1665 is well known, and has been aggravated by controversy.

      Five questions may be raised.

      (1)  What is the standard referred to – the Book of 1549 or the customs of the year before?

      (2)  In the former case are we limited to ornaments mentioned in the Book?

      (3)  In either case is the use of the ornaments so binding as to compel the practice of the ceremonies attaching to them?

      (4)  Was “other order” ever taken?

      (5)  If so, was it overridden by the subsequent enactment of 1661 (Convocation) and 1662 (Parliament)?

      (1) is a difficult question.  On the one hand, the “authority of Parliament” certainly suggests an Act which mentions certain ornaments, and it is difficult to see what Act can be referred to except that which authorized the Book of 1549.  The state of affairs previous to the Act was regulated by Royal Proclamation, not by Act of Parliament.  Moreover, the second Act of Uniformity refers to the first Act of Uniformity as “made” in the second year of Edward VI, which suggests that, rightly or wrongly, it was supposed that the Act was passed (i.e. received Royal assent) in that year.  On the other hand, it seems highly improbable that it was passed as early as this; and if it was not, the year referred to was completed before the Book had received any authority at all; for an Act has no authority until the Royal assent has been given.  The question therefore arises whether it is not possible that the standard referred to may be that of the period immediately preceding the 1549 Book.  It has been argued by MacColl that by 32 Henry VIII, c. 26, parliamentary authority was given to such documents as The Order of the Communion; and, further, that this Order was plainly held on contemporary evidence to be the direct result of 1 Edward VI, c. 1 (the Act for reception under both kinds). [Op. cit., pp. 144 ff.]  The Order contained a rubric forbidding the alteration of any ceremonies except the Elevation.  The same author draws a distinction between the “making” and the “passing” of an Act. [Ibid., c. viii.]  If this distinction will stand, the phrase in the second Act of Uniformity is justified; for the Bill was confessedly passed by Parliament on January 22nd, five days before the close of the second year of King Edward.  In that case the argument from the wording of the Act loses its force.  It appears, moreover, that Sandys, the Puritan leader and future Archbishop of York, believed the rubric to refer to the customs of the beginning of Edward’s reign rather than to the provisions of his first Book.  In a letter to Parker he writes as follows: “The last boke of service is gone thorowe, with a proviso to reteane the ornamentes which were used in the first and second years of K. Ed. untill yt please the quene to take other order for them.” [Lambeth Palace MS. 959 (40).]

      (2) The following are the instructions given as to ornaments of the minister in the Book of 1549.

      “In the saying or singing of Matens and Euensonge, Baptizyng and Burying, the minister, in paryshe churches and chapels annexed to the same, shall vse a Surples.  And in all Cathedrall churches and Colledges” the members of the foundation, “beinge Graduates, may vse in the quiere beside theyr Surplesses, suche hoodes as pertaineth to their seuerall degrees. ... But in all other places, euery minister shall be at libertie to vse any Surples or no.  It is also seemly that Graduates, when they dooe preache, shoulde vse ... hoodes. ...

      “And whensoeuer the Bishop shall celebrate the holye communion in the churche, or execute any other publique minystracyon: he shall haue vpon hym, besyde his rochette, a Surples or albe, and a cope or vestmente and also hys pastorall staffe in hys hande, or elles borne or holden by hys chapeleyne.”

      The celebrant at Mass is to wear “a white Albe plain” (i.e., presumably, without apparels) “with a vestement or cope”; the assistant ministers who communicate the people, Albes with tunacles.”

      The ornaments of the church actually mentioned are the following: Bible, Prayer Book, Altar, Book of the Homilies, Poor Man’s Box, Corporas, Paten, Chalice, Font, Bell, Quire Door, Pulpit.  The use of other ornaments is also implied: chrisom, Bishop’s chair, cruets, oil stock, credence, vessel for chrisom, pyx, lectern, seats for the people. [Procter and Frere, p. 367.]  No instruction is given as to the dress of a bishop who is not taking an official part in the Service. [The use of the chimere in church apparently dates from the beginning of the seventeenth century.]  Nor is there any mention of the organ or of any stand or cushion for the Altar book, of the miter, of an Altar cross, of candlesticks, of girdle and amice, of stole or maniple (unless these are included under the term “vestement”), [See above, “Reign of Edward VI”.]  of frontals for the Altar.  The Book of 1661–2 orders the use of a Reading Pew, a Flagon, two “fair linen Cloths” and a “decent Bason” for the alms.  But even with these additions this list is so manifestly incomplete that it is clear that ... the rubric ... must be held to sanction other things besides those specified by name.” [Procter and Frere, p. 367.]

      (3) If the rubric refers to the pre-1549 use, a long list may be compiled of ornaments known to have been in regular use at this period.  A full list is given in the first of the Alcuin Club Tracts, The Ornaments of the Rubric, by J. T. Micklethwaite.  Such a list includes, among ornaments of the church, images and pictures (provided they do not commemorate feigned miracles and have not been abused by superstitious practices, but are “for a memorial only”), minor altars, reredos, altar shelf, canopy, dorsal, frontals, riddels, a hanging pyx with canopy, lights before the reserved Sacrament, Altar cloths, Altar cross, candlesticks (one or two on the Altar, and others round about), gospel book, cushion or stand for the Altar book, burse, humeral veil or sudary, censer with incense boat and spoon, bason and towel for lavabo, sacring bell, processional cross and candlesticks, monstrance, pax, holy water vat and sprinkler, houselling cloth, gospel lectern, piscina, sedilia, rood with screen and loft, quire stalls, quire lectern, organ, pews, font cover, chrisom and essentials for the ceremonies of Baptism, vessels for holy water, shriving pew, pyx for carrying the Sacrament to the sick with purse, bell, and lantern for the same purpose, bier and other gear for funerals, canopy for Corpus Christi procession, lenten veil, Easter sepulchre, Tenebrae hearse, Paschal candlestick, banners.  The litany desk does not seem to be covered by the rubric, but the Commination Service implies that there is some special place where it is “accustomed to be said.”

      The only alterations which had taken place universally and legally by 1548 were the abolition of all lights burning before images and pictures, and of the images and pictures themselves, if they ministered to superstition.

      The ornaments of the ministers in use in 1548 would include the Eucharistic vestments, cope, surplice, cappa nigra, rochet, miter, pastoral staff, pallium.

      To maintain that the rubric compels the restoration of every ceremony in which any of these ornaments was employed would no doubt be too paradoxical, but if the second of the two constructions of the rubric is permissible, it is clear that under it a considerable amount of ceremonial apparatus is at least sanctioned as an accompaniment to the rites which still find a place in the Book of Common Prayer.  In particular, this interpretation would imply that the permissive substitution of cope for chasuble was not implied by the rubric.

      (4) The rubric of 1559 was certainly not obeyed. [Beza complained of chasubles in 1566.  Zurich Letters, II, ii, 77.  But this seems to be the only evidence of the use of them.]  The Puritan party never had any intention of doing so.  “Oure glose upon this text,” writes Sandys, immediately after the words quoted [above] on p. 852, “is, that we shall not be forced to use them, but that others in the meane tyme shall not convey them away, but that thei may remayne for the quene.”  The “glose” is remarkable, in view of the words of the Act of Uniformity, and, still more, of the 1559 rubric; but it seems to have been widely accepted.

      The bishops made no serious attempt to enforce the ornaments of 1549, much less those of 1548.  They were content to press for such an approximation to Catholic usage as is ordered in the Interpretations of 1560 and the Advertisements of 1566.  The latter are quoted and apparently adopted in the canons of 1604. [Canon xxiv.  “Previous canons had also quoted them, but in those published with the authority of Queen Elizabeth (1575) the quotation was cut out before publication was authorized.”  Procter and Frere, p. 364.]  It is, however, more than doubtful whether it can be validly maintained that this was a taking of other order, as contemplated by the Act and the rubric.  As we have seen, the Advertisements never received the sanction of the Crown, and therefore, whatever ecclesiastical force they may have had through being adopted in the canon law, it seems impossible to suppose that they ever had statutory authority.

      (5) In any case, so far from the Ornaments Rubric being changed to correspond with the undoubted practice of the times, it was actually reenacted not only in 1604 but also in 1662.  It seems certain, therefore, that whatever authority the Advertisements may be supposed to have had, either canonical or statutory, was overridden by the joint action of Convocation and Parliament in 1661 and 1662.  It should be noted that the Puritans in 1661 asked that the rubric should be omitted, and the bishops declined to do so.  It is true that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council has twice decided that vestments are illegal on the ground that the Advertisements were a taking of other order and that the intention of the 1661 revisers was simply to continue the contemporary usage.  But, quite apart from the fact that this court has no ecclesiastical authority, it must be pointed out that two of its members have criticized the second of these decisions [In the case of Clifton v. Ridsdale.] in the strongest language. Chief Baron Kelly described it as ‘ a judgment of policy, not of law,’ and Lord Justice Amphlett as flagitious.’ [Herbert Paul, History of Modern England, iv. 351 f.]   K.D.M.

II – The Prefaces to the Prayer Book

      The first, entitled “The Preface,” in the 1662 Book, was drafted by Bishop Sanderson, and refers to the troubles of the Commonwealth and to the recent revision and the principles on which it has been carried out.  Changes have been rejected which strike “at some established doctrine, or laudable practice of the Church of England, or indeed of the whole Catholic Church of Christ” – a phrase which recalls the words of the title page, “Rites and Ceremonies of the Church according to the Use of the Church of England.”  The Prayer Book is presented as having been “examined and approved” “by the Convocations of both Provinces”.

      The next section, “Concerning the Service of the Church,” was styled “The Preface” in 1549 and 1552.  It is based on the preface of Quignon’s Breviary, and comes from Cranmer’s pen.  The statement about the seven portions of the Psalter, each called a Nocturn, is a mistake; after fixed Psalms had been allotted to the day offices the rest were divided into seven Nocturns.  The Bishop’s reference of doubtful points to the Archbishop was added in 1552.

      “Of Ceremonies” dates from 1549, when it was put at the end of the Book.  Since it has not been altered, except in position and spelling, and some trivial details, it must be interpreted in the light of the 1549 Book, which retains unction, crossing, etc.  “In these our doings we condemn no other Nations” recalls Canon 30: it was not “the purpose of the Church of England to forsake and reject the Churches of Italy, France, Spain, Germany, or any such like churches.”

      The English 1928 Book prefixes to the others a new and ambitious Preface.  The Scottish Book omits all Prefaces, perhaps wisely.  In the Irish Book the English Prefaces are retained, a long Preface dating from 1878 is added, and a short one of 1926.  The American Book has only the American Preface of 1789; the Canadian prefixes its own Preface (dated 1918) to the English ones.

III – A Commination

      In the Commination we have a relic of the public penance of the primitive Church, the restoration of which “is much to be wished,” according to the Prayer Book; though there is general agreement that the later penitential methods of the Church are more wisely conceived. [But see the rubrics prefixed to the Communion Service and Canon 26 for the penitential system presupposed by the Prayer Book.]  The Service is prescribed to be used on Ash Wednesday and at such other times as the Ordinary shall appoint.  The Sarum Manual, besides its Ash Wednesday Service, contained a declaration of curses for use four times a year.  This, or a parallel form, is mentioned in the Paston Letters (Gairdner’s edition, No. 609): “Alas, alas! good lady, full little remember they what they do that keep us thus asunder; four times in the year are they a-cursed that let matrimony.”

      The mediaeval Ash Wednesday Service followed Sext.  A sermon was preached, if the priest so desired.  The clergy and clerks recited the seven Penitential Psalms prostrate before the altar.  After suffrages the people were absolved, ashes were blessed and distributed, and a cross was marked with them on the brows of the people, the words “Remember, O man, that thou art ashes and unto ashes shalt thou return,” being said to each. [Curiously enough, in Under the Greenwood Tree, Hardy’s villagers sing this as a Christmas Carol.]  Two Collects followed, and those under discipline during Lent were excluded by the Bishop.

      In 1549, after Mattins, the bell is to be rung and the people collected.  Then the Litany is said and the priest goes to the pulpit, where he reads the Exhortation.  The distinction between the two services is obliterated in 1662.  The Exhortation was intended for a clergy unused to preaching and may be considered unnecessary by the side of the special Lenten sermons of today.  The priest and clerks say Psalm 51, kneeling at the faldstool and around it (“in the place where they are accustomed to say the Litany”).  The suffrages and prayers follow those of the old service; the general supplication, “Turn thou us,” is based in part on the anthems sung at the distribution of the ashes in the mediaeval service.  The blessing was added in 1662, to conclude a service which up to then had no apparent conclusion, since the Holy Communion theoretically followed.

      If the Exhortation is replaced by a sermon striking the same note for the present age, the Commination makes an appropriate service to inaugurate Lent.  It would, however, be more in place in a supplementary book of non-Eucharistic devotions for the seasons than in the Book of Common Prayer, where it is the only service of its kind.

III – Forms of Prayer to Be Used at Sea

      With the Directory for Public Worship, put out by the Long Parliament in 1645, a supplement was issued, entitled “A Supply of Prayer for the Ships that want Ministers to pray with them.”  In default of such guidance the forbidden Book of Common Prayer was still being used.  The Preface of the 1662 Book calls attention to the Forms, now for the first time provided.  These, it is said, were composed by Bishop Sanderson.  The prayer for use before a battle, asking God to take the cause into His own hand and judge between us and our enemies, in its humility and moderation contrasts favourably with some utterances during the war of 1914–18, and the Thanksgiving after Victory is equally happy.  Indeed the intensity of hatred which marked the Great War seems to be a modern innovation, caused presumably by skillful propaganda.  The revisions of the 1662 Forms call for no comment.  The opinion may be ventured that in a future revision this section of the Prayer Book might be omitted.  Normally, travelers in a great liner are safer than if they were walking on a main road, and presumably sailors, when engaged in worship, do not wish to be reminded of their special calling any more than do other classes of society.

IV – The Articles of Religion

      The 39 Articles are no part of the Book of Common Prayer, as the form of clerical subscription shows: “I assent to the 39 Articles of Religion and to the Book of Common Prayer. ...”  They are, however, commonly printed at the end of the Prayer Book, with the Table of Kindred and Affinity.  In the eighteenth century the latter was sometimes printed but not the Articles.  The Scottish Prayer Book omits the Articles; the Irish and American Books print them as an Appendix, the American in the version of 1801.  The Canadian Church makes them an integral part of the Revised Book, No. 31 of the 42 sections.            W.K.L.C.