A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer Part 11

Of a more serious character would be the omission, which some urge, of the words "Protestant Episcopal" from the t.i.tle-page.

Should anything of this sort be done, which is most unlikely, Dr.

Egar's suggestion to drop the words, "of the Protestant Episcopal Church," leaving it to read, "according to the use in the United States of America," would carry the better note of catholicity.

But, after all, the remonstrants have only to turn the page to find the obnoxious "Protestant Episcopal" so fast riveted into the _Ratification_ that nothing short of an act of violence done to history could accomplish the excision of it.[63]

RESOLUTION II.

_The Introductory Portion_.

(a) _Table of Contents_.--The suggestion[64] that all entries after "The Psalter" should be printed in italics, is a good one.

(b) _Concerning the Service of the Church_.--This subst.i.tute for the present "Order how the Psalter is appointed to be read" and "Order how the rest of the Holy Scripture is appointed to be read"

is largely based on the provisions of the so-called "Shortened Services Act" of 1872. The second paragraph relating to the use of the Litany appears to be superfluous.

The enlarged Table of Proper Psalms and the Table of Selections of Psalms, which come under this same general heading, would be a very great gain. Why the Maryland Committee should have p.r.o.nounced the latter Table "practically useless, since the psalms are not to be printed," it is hard, in the face of the existing usage with respect to "Proper Psalms," to understand; nor is there any special felicity in the proposal emanating from the same source that the number of the Selections be cut down to three, one for feasts and one for fasts and one for an extra service on Sunday nights.

On the other hand, the Maryland Committee does well in recommending that permission be given to the minister to shorten the Lessons at his discretion, though the hard and fast condition, "provided he read not less than fifteen consecutive verses," apart from the questionable English in which it is phrased, smacks more of the drill-room than of the sanctuary. Far better would it be (if the suggestion may be ventured) to allow no liberty of abridgment whatever in the case of Proper Lessons, while giving entire freedom of choice on all occasions for which no proper lessons have been appointed. So far as "ferial" days are concerned, it would be much wiser to let the Table of Lessons be regarded as suggestive and not mandatory. The half-way recognition of this principle in the new Lectionary, in which such a freedom is allowed, _provided_ the Lesson taken be one of those appointed for "some day in the same week," seems open to a suspicion of childishness.

The rubrical direction ent.i.tled "Hymns and Anthems" requires verbal correction, but embodies a wholesome principle.

Under this same general head of "The Introductory Portion" come the new Lectionary and the new Tables for finding Easter. Of these, the former is law already, except so far as respects the Lessons appointed for the proposed Feast of the Transfiguration. The Easter Tables are a monument to the erudition and accuracy of the late Dr. Francis Harison. The Tables in our present Standard run to the year 1899. Perhaps a "wholesome conservatism" ought to discover a tincture of impiety in any proposal to disturb them before the century has expired.

RESOLUTION III.

_The Morning Prayer_.

(a) _The First Rubric_.--The Maryland Committee is quite right in remarking that the language of this important rubric, as set forth by the Convention of 1883, is "inelegant and inaccurate,"

but another diocese has called attention to the fact that the subst.i.tute which Maryland offers would, if adopted, enable any rector who might be so minded to withhold entirely from the non-communicating portion of his flock all opportunity for _public_ confession and absolution from year's end to year's end. It is not for a moment to be supposed that there was any covert intention here, but the incident ill.u.s.trates the value to rubric-makers of the Horatian warning--_Brevis esse labor o, obscurus fio_.

Pa.s.sing by the Proper Sentences for special Days and Seasons, against which no serious complaint has been entered,[65] we come to the proposed short alternative for the Declaration of Absolution.

As it stood in the Sarum Use this Absolution ran as follows:

"The Almighty and Merciful Lord grant you Absolution and Remission of all your sins, s.p.a.ce for true penitence, amendment of life, and the grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit. Amen."[66]

With the single change of the word "penitence" to "repentance" this is the form in which the Absolution stood in the original _Book Annexed_. The Convention thought that it detected a "Romanizing germ" in the place a.s.signed to "penitence," and an archaism in the temporal sense a.s.signed to "s.p.a.ce," and accordingly rearranged the whole sentence. But in their effort to mend the language, our legislators a.s.suredly marred the music.[67]

(e) _The Benedictus es, Domine_.--The insertion of this Canticle as an alternate to the _Te Deum_ was in the interest of shortened services for week-day use, as has been already explained. The same purpose could be served equally well, and the always objectionable expedient of a second alternate avoided, by s.p.a.cing off the last six verses of the _Benedicite_, which have an integrity of their own, and prefixing a rubric similar to those that stand before the _Venite_ and the _Benedictus_ in "_The Book Annexed_"; e. g.:

_On week-days, it shall suffice if only the latter portion of this Canticle be said or sung_.

(n) _The Benedictus_.--With reference to the restoration of the last portion of this Hymn, it has been very properly remarked by one of the critics of _The Book Annexed_, that the line of division between the required and the optional portions would more properly come after the eighth than after the fourth verse. This would make the portion reserved for Advent begin with the reference to John the Baptist, as undoubtedly it ought to do: "And thou, child, shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest."

(o) _De Profundis_.--There will probably be general consent to the omission of this alternate, as being what the Maryland Committee _naively_ call it, "too mournful a psalm" for this purpose.[68]

RESOLUTION IV.

_Daily Evening Prayer_.

(c) The proposed words, "Let us humbly confess our sins unto Almighty G.o.d," are justly thought by many to be inferior both in rhythm and in dignity to "Let us make humble confession to Almighty G.o.d."

(i)-(l) There seems to be absolute unanimity in the judgment that _Magnificat_ and _Nunc Dimittis_ ought, as Gospel Hymns, to have the prior places after the Lessons which they follow. In the interest of simplicity of arrangement a like general consent to omit altogether _Bonum est confiteri_ and _Benedic anima mea_ would be most fortunate, but this point has been already enlarged upon in a previous paper.[69]

The "Notes," permitting the use of Psalms xlii. and xliii. after the Lessons during Lent, seem to have found no favor in any quarter, and ought undoubtedly to be dropped.

(n) If the lost versicles are to be restored after the Creed, as all who have learned to love them in the service of the Church of England must earnestly desire, some better subst.i.tute for "G.o.d save the queen," than "O Lord, save our rulers," ought surely to be found.[70] Moreover, the order of the versicles, as Prof. Gold has clearly pointed out,[71] is open to improvement.

RESOLUTION V.

_The Beat.i.tudes of the Gospel_.

This is the one feature of _The Book Annexed_ against which the fire of hostile criticism has been the most persistently directed.

Whether the strictures pa.s.sed upon the Office have been in all cases as intelligent as they have been severe, may be open to question, but there can be no doubt whatever that, in its present form, Resolution V. would, if put to the vote, be rejected.

Pa.s.sing by the more violent utterances of those whose language almost suggests that they find something objectionable in the very BEAt.i.tUDES themselves,[72] it will suffice to consider and weigh what has been said in various quarters, first, about the unprecedented character of the Office, and secondly, concerning the infelicity of the appointed response, "Lord, have mercy upon us, and be it unto thy servants according to thy word."

So far as concerns precedent, it ought to be enough to say that the words are our Lord's words, and that they were thrown by him into a form which readily lends itself to antiphonal use. The very same characteristics of parallelism and ant.i.thesis, that make the Psalms so amenable to the purposes of worship, are conspicuous in the BEAt.i.tUDES. If the Church of England, for three hundred years, has been willing to give place in her devotions to the Curses of the Old Testament,[73] we of America need not to be afraid, precedent or no precedent, to make room among our formularies for the Blessings of the New.

Those who allow themselves to characterize the liturgical use of these memorable sayings of the Son of Man as "fancy ritual" and "sentimentalism" may well pause to ask themselves what manner of spirit they are of. The BEAt.i.tUDES are the charter of the kingdom of heaven. If they are "sentimental," the kingdom is "sentimental"; but if, on the other hand, they const.i.tute the organic law of the People of G.o.d, they have at least as fair a right as the Ten Commandments to be published from the altar, and answered by the great congregation.

But is the complaint of "no precedent" a valid one, even supposing considerations of intrinsic fitness to have been ruled out?

The Liturgy of St. Chrysostom provides that the Beat.i.tudes shall be sung on Sundays in room of the third antiphon.[74]

The learned Bishop of Haiti, in a paper warmly commending the liturgical use of the BEAt.i.tUDES,[75] calls attention to the further fact that the Eight Sayings have a place in some of the service-books of the Eastern Church in the Office for the Sixth and Ninth Hours, and notes the suggestive and touching circ.u.mstances that, as there used, they have for a response the words of the penitent thief upon the cross. We might all of us well pray to be "remembered" in that kingdom to which these Blessings give the law.

In _The Primer set forth by the King's Majesty and his Clergy_ in 1545, a sort of stepping-stone to the later "Book of Common Prayer,"

we find the BEAt.i.tUDES very ingeniously worked into the Office of The Hours, as anthems; beginning with Prime and ending with Evensong. Appropriate Collects are interwoven, some of them so beautiful as to be well worth preserving.[76]

But the most interesting precedent of all remains still to be studied. In the first year of the reign of William and Mary, a Royal Commission was appointed to revise the Book of Common Prayer.

The most eminent Anglican divines of the day, including Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Patrick, and Beveridge, were among the members. To all outward appearance the movement came to naught; for the proposed revision was not even put into print, until in 1854, the House of Commons, in response to a motion of Mr. Heywood, ordered it to be published as a Blue-book. And yet in some way our American revisers of 1789 must have found access to the original volume as it lay hidden in the archbishop's library at Lambeth; for not only does their work show probable evidence of such consultation, but in their Preface they distinctly refer to the effort of King William's Commission as a "great and good work,"[77] a thing they would scarcely have done had they possessed no real knowledge of the facts. Macaulay's sneering reference to the work of the Commission is well known, but, strangely enough, the justice which a Whig reviewer withholds, a high Anglican divine concedes, for no less exacting a critic than Dr. Neale, while manifesting, as was to be expected, a general dislike of the Commissioners of 1689, and of their work, does yet find something to praise in what they recommended.[78]

Among the real improvements suggested by the Commission was the liturgical use of the BEAt.i.tUDES, and this in two places, once in "The Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper," as an alternate to the Ten Commandments; and again in the Commination Office as a proper balance to the Anathemas of the Law.

But the Commission, like the late Joint Committee on the Book of Common Prayer, was unfortunate in its choice of a response; and no wonder, for the task of finding the proper one is difficult.[79]