A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer Part 10

The end we ought to have in view is the publication, in the year 1890, of a standard Book of Common Prayer, such as shall embody the ripe results of what will then have been a period of ten years of continuous labor in the work of liturgical revision. To this reckoning of ten years should properly be added the seventeen years that intervened between the presentation of "The Memorial" in 1853 and the pa.s.sing of the "Enrichment Resolutions" in 1880: so that really our Revision would look back for its historical beginnings, not across a decade merely, but over almost the lifetime of a generation. No single one of the various revisions of the English Book has observed anything like so leisurely a movement.

But by what methods of legislative procedure could such a result as the one indicated be reached? The precedent of the last century does not help us very much. The American Book of Common Prayer was set forth on the sixteenth day of October in the year of our Lord 1789; but with an express statutory provision that the "use" of the book, as so set forth, should not become obligatory till the first day of October, 1790. We cannot copy this line of procedure, for the simple reason that no such undertaking as that of 1789 is in hand. It is not now proposed to legislate into existence a new Liturgy. The task before us is the far humbler one of pa.s.sing judgment upon certain propositions of change, almost every one of which admits of segregation, has an independent ident.i.ty of its own, and may be accepted or rejected wholly without reference to what is likely to happen to the other propositions that accompany it.

_The Book Annexed as Modified_ is in no proper sense a _Proposed Book_, nor can it without misrepresentation be called such; it is simply a sample publication[56] ill.u.s.trative of what the Book of Common Prayer would be, were all the Resolutions of Revision that pa.s.sed their first stage of approval in 1883 carried into final effect; a result most unlikely to occur.

THE MEANS TO THE END.

The most expeditious and every way satisfactory means to the end that has now been defined would be the appointment, at an early stage of the session in October, of a Joint Committee of Conference.

To this committee should be referred:

(_a_) The question: How many of the Resolutions of 1883, or of the "several recommendations therein contained," is it either practicable or desirable to approve at once?

(_b_) The question: How may such of the Resolutions of 1883 as are too good to be lost, but not in their present form good enough to satisfy the Church, be so remoulded as to make their adoption probable in 1889?

(_c_) All new propositions of improvement that may from time to time during the session be brought to the notice of the Convention, either by individual members or by memorials from Diocesan Conventions. Such a Committee of Conference, holding daily sessions of three or four hours each, would be able in due time to report a carefully digested scheme which could then be intelligently discussed. By this method a flood of frivolous and aimless talk would be cut off without in the slightest degree infringing or limiting the real liberty of debate.

But even if the Convention were to show itself reluctant to give to a select committee so large a power as this of preparing an _agenda_ paper, it still would be possible to refer to such a committee the subject-matter of so many of the resolutions as might chance, when put upon their pa.s.sage, to fail by a narrow vote.

It is to be remembered that the various recommendations contained in the resolutions of 1883 are to be voted upon _in ipsissimis verbis_. There will be no opportunity for the familiar cry: "Mr.

President, I rise to propose an amendment." The resolution, or the section of a resolution, as the case may be, will either be approved just as it stands or condemned just as it stands. In this respect there will be an immense saving of time. Most of the tediousness of debate grows out of the natural disposition of legislators to try each his own hand at bettering the thing proposed; hence "amendments," "amendments to amendments," and subst.i.tutes for the amendment to the amendment. Even the makers of parliamentary law (much enduring creatures) lose their patience at this point, and peremptorily lay it down that confusion shall no further go.

But to return to the supposed case of a proposition lost because of some slight defect, which, if only our Medo-Persian law had permitted an amendment, could easily have been remedied. Surely the sensible course in such a case as that would be to refer the subject-matter of the lost resolution to the Committee of Conference, with instructions to report a new resolution to be finally acted upon three years hence. So then, whether there be given to the Committee of Conference either the large power to recommend a carefully thought out way of dealing with all the material _en bloc_, or the lesser function of sitting in judgment on new propositions, and of remoulding rejected ones, in either case there could scarcely fail to result from the appointment of such a committee large and substantial gains.

IMPROVEMENTS.

It follows, from what has been said, that if there are features that admit of improvement in the proposals which the Convention has laid before the Church for scrutiny, now is emphatically the time for suggesting the better thing that might be done. Even the bitterest opponents of _The Book Annexed_ can scarcely be so sanguine as to imagine that nothing at all is coming from this labored movement for revision. A measure which was so far forth acceptable to the accredited representatives of the Church, in council a.s.sembled, as to pa.s.s its first stage three years ago almost by acclamation, is not destined to experience total collapse.

The law of probabilities forbids the supposition. The personal make-up of the next General Convention will be to a great extent identical with that of the last, and of the one before the last.

Sober-minded men familiar with the work of legislation are not accustomed to reverse their own well considered decisions without weighty cause. The strong probability is that something in the line of emendation, precisely how much or how little no one can say, will, as a matter of fact, be done. In view of this likelihood, would not those who are dissatisfied with _The Book Annexed_ as it stands be taking the wiser course were they to subst.i.tute co-operative for vituperative criticism? So far as the present writer is in any sense authorized to speak for the friends of revision, he can a.s.sure the dissidents that such co-operation would be most welcome.

A. B., a scholar thoroughly familiar, we will suppose, with the sources of liturgical material, is dissatisfied with the collects proposed for the successive days of Holy Week. Very well, he has a perfect right to his dissatisfaction and to the expression of it in the strongest terms at his command. He does only his plain duty in seeking to exclude from the Prayer Book anything that seems to him unworthy of a place in it. But seeing that he must needs, as a "liturgical expert," acknowledge that the deficiency which the Joint Committee sought to make good is a real and not a merely fancied deficiency, would not A. B. approve himself a more judicious counsellor if, instead of bending all his energy to the disparagement of the collects proposed, he should devote a portion of it to the discovery and suggestion of prayers more happily worded?

And this remark holds good with reference to whatever new feature is to be found between the covers of The Book Annexed. If betterment be possible, these six months now lying before us afford the time of all times in which to show how, with the least of loss and most of gain, it may be brought about.

The Diocese of Maryland is first in the field with an adequate contribution of this sort. A thoroughly competent committee, appointed in October, 1884, has recently printed its Report, and whether the Diocesan Convention adopt, amend, or reject what is presented to it, there can be little doubt that the mind of the Church at large will be perceptibly affected by what these representative men of Maryland have said.[57] Apart from a certain aroma of omniscience pervading it (with which, by the way, sundry infelicities of language in the text of the Report, only indifferently consort), the doc.u.ment, is a forcible one, and of great practical value.

The Committee have gone over the entire field covered by the "Notification to the Dioceses," taking up the Resolutions one by one, and not only noting in connection with each whatever is in itself objectionable, but also (a far more difficult task) suggesting in what respect this or that proposition might be better put. The _apparatus criticus_ thus provided, while not infallible, is eminently helpful, sets a wholesome pattern, and if supplemented by others of like tenor and scope, will go far to lighten the labor of whatever committee may have the final recension of the whole work put into its hands.[58]

It would be a poor self-conceit in the framers of _The Book Annexed_, that should prompt them to resent as intrusive any criticism whatsoever. What we all have at heart is the bringing of our manual of worship as nearly as possible to such a pitch of perfectness as the nature of things human will allow. The thing we seek is a Liturgy which shall draw to itself everything that is best and most devout within our national borders, a Common Prayer suited to the common wants of all Americans. Whatever truly makes for this end, it will be our wisdom to welcome, whether those who bring it forward are popularly labelled as belonging to this, that, or the other school of Churchmanship. To allow party jealousies to mar the symmetry and fulness of a work in which all Churchmen ought to have an equal inheritance would be the worst of blunders. By all means let the raiment of needlework and the clothing of wrought gold be what they should be for such sacred uses as hers who is the daughter of the great King, but let us not fall to wrangling about the vats in which the thread was dyed or the river bed from which the gold was gathered.

In a later paper the present writer intends to venture upon a task similar to that undertaken by the Maryland Committee. He will do this largely in the hope of encouraging by example other and more competent critics to busy themselves in the same way. Meanwhile a few observations may not be amiss with respect to the sources of liturgical material, and the methods by which they can be drawn upon to the best advantage.

There has been, first and last, a deal of ill considered talk about the boundlessness of the liturgical treasures lying unused in the pre-Reformation formularies of the English Church, as well as in the old sacramentaries and office-books of the East and the West. Wonder is expressed that with such limitless wealth at its command, an "Enrichment Committee" should have brought in so poverty-stricken a Report. Have we not Muratori and Mabillon? it is asked: Daniel and a.s.semani, Renaudot and Goar? Are there not Missals Roman, Ambrosian, and Mozarabic? Breviaries Anglican, Gallican, and Quignonian? Has Maskell delved and Neale translated and Littledale compiled in vain? To all of which there are two replies, namely: first, It is inexpedient to overload a Prayer Book, even if the material be of the best; and secondly, This best material is by no means so abundant as the volume of our resources would seem to suggest. It was for the very purpose of escaping redundancy and getting rid of surplusage that the Anglican Reformers condensed Missal, Breviary, and Rituale into the one small and handy volume known as the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. It was a bold stroke, doubtless denounced as perilously radical at the time; but experience has justified Cranmer and his friends. In the whole history of liturgies there is no record of a wiser step. It is scarcely possible so grievously to sin against a people's Prayer Book as by making it more complicated in arrangement and more bulky in volume than need actually requires. It was ground of justifiable pride with the "Enrichment Committee" that the Book which they brought in, despite the many additions it contained, was no thicker by a single page than the Prayer Book as it is. To be sure, the General Convention spoiled all this by insisting on retaining certain duplicated formularies which the Committee had very properly dropped in order to find room for fresh material. But of the Book as first presented, it was possible to say that in no degree was it more c.u.mbrous than that to which the people were already accustomed. Doubtless it would have been still more to the Committee's credit could they have brought in an enriched Book smaller by a third than the Book in use; but this their conservatism forbade.

Of even greater moment is the other point, which concerns the quality of the available material. It is the greatest mistake in the world to suppose that simply because a given prayer exists, say in an Oriental liturgy, and has been translated into English by an eminent scholar, it is therefore proper material to be worked into our services. As a matter of fact, a great deal of devotional language of which the Oriental liturgies is made up is prolix and tedious to a degree simply insufferable. Moreover in the case of prayers in themselves admirable in the original tongue in which they were composed, all is often lost through lack of a verbal felicity in the translation. If anyone questions this judgment, let him toil through Neale's and Littledale's _Translations of the Primitive Liturgies_ and see whether he can find six, nay, three, consecutive lines which he would be willing to see introduced into our own Communion Office. Or, as respects translations from the Latin office-books of the Church of England, let him scrupulously search the pages of the "Sarum Hours," as done into the vernacular by the Recorder of Salisbury, and see how many of the Collects strike him as good enough to be transplanted into the Book of Common Prayer. The result of this latter voyage of discovery will be an increased wonder at the affluence of the mediaeval devotions, combined with amazement at the poverty and unsatisfactoriness of the existing translations. It is with a Latin collect as with a Greek ode or an Italian sonnet: no matter how wonderful the diction, the charm of it is as a locked secret until the thing has been Englished by genius akin to his who first made it out of his own heart. Of others besides the many brave men who lived before Agamemnon might it be written:

sed omnes illacrumabiles Urgentur, ignotique larga Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.

It was the peculiar felicity of Schiller that he had Coleridge for a translator, and the shades of Gregory and Leo owe it to a living Anglican divine that we English-speaking Christians can think their thoughts after them, and pray their prayers.

Such being the facts in the case, it is evident that the range of choice open to American revisers is far narrower than half-informed persons imagine it to be.

The very best sources of liturgical material are the following:

(_a_) King James's Bible, including the Apocrypha, and supplemented by the Prayer Book version of the Psalms;

(_b_) The old Sacramentaries, Leonine, Gregorian, and Gelasian, chiefly as ill.u.s.trated by the genius of Dr. Bright;

(_c_) The Breviary in its various forms;

(_d_) The Primers and other like _fragmenta_ of the era of the English Reformation;[59]

(_e_) The devotional writings of the great Anglican divines of the school of Andrews, Ken, and Taylor;[60] and last and least,

(_f_) The various manuals of prayer, of which the past twenty years have shown themselves so prolific.[61]

Of the Anglican writers, Jeremy Taylor would be by far the most helpful, were it not for the efflorescence of his style. As it is, the best use that can be made of his exuberant devotions is to cull from them here and there a telling phrase or a musical cadence.

The "General Intercession," for example, on page 50 of _The Book Annexed_, is a cento to which Taylor is the chief contributor.

That the Enrichment Committee made the best possible use of the various quarries to which they had access is unlikely. Even if they credited themselves with having done so, it would be immodest of them to say it. Better material than any that their researches brought to light may still be lying near the surface, somewhere close at hand, waiting to be unearthed. Certainly this paper will not have been written in vain if it serves the purpose of provoking to the good work of discovery some of those who on the score both of quality and of quant.i.ty account what has been thus far done in the line of revision inadequate and meagre.

III.

It is next proposed to take up the Philadelphia Resolutions of Revision (1883) one by one, and to consider in what measure, if in any, the subject-matter of each of them lies open to improvement.

Should the method of procedure recommended in the previous paper, or any method resembling it, find favor at the approaching Convention, and a Conference Committee of the two Houses be appointed to remould the work with reference to final action three years hence, criticism of this sort, even though inadequate, can scarcely fail of being in some measure helpful.

RESOLUTION I.

_The t.i.tle-page _.

The proposals under this head are two in number: (_a _) that the words, "together with the Psalter or Psalms of David," be dropped from the t.i.tle-page as superfluous, and (_b _) that a general t.i.tle, "THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER," be printed on the first page of the leaf preceding the t.i.tle-page.

Neither of these suggestions is of any great importance, and the interest attaching to them is mainly bibliographical. Whenever any addition has been made to the Prayer Book of the Church of England, the rule has been to note it invariably in the Table of Contents, and sometimes also on the t.i.tle-page.

Until 1662 the Psalter formed no part of the Prayer Book; it was a volume by itself, and was cited as such. In fact, it was a sort of "Hymnal Companion to the Book of Common Prayer." In the revision of 1662 the Psalter was incorporated, and immediately there appeared upon the t.i.tle-page of the Common Prayer, in addition to what had been there before, the words, "together with the Psalter or Psalms of David printed as they are to be sung or read in the churches."

The present t.i.tle-page of the English Book has a singularly crowded and awkward look, contrasting most unfavorably in this regard with those of 1559, 1552, and 1549.[62] But if the needless mention of the Psalter on our present t.i.tle-page gives pleasure to any considerable number of people, it would be foolish to press the suggestion of a change. Let it pa.s.s.