WE

Psalm xcvi, 9.

I Chron. xxix, 1.

E have traced the stream of the Apostolic Liturgy as it issues with its four rivers, Judæan, Ephesine, Egyptian, Roman, from the one great spring and source of all Divine Worship in the Upper Room, until we find it today in the British Isles, in North America, Australia, in every land where the English tongue is spoken, and among races of men for whom it has been translated into more than one hundred other tongues.1 Thus with all its original elements unchanged and undiminished, and with new features and enrichments added, it is yet the same great vehicle by means of which, as in a censer, the worship of one of the most powerful and gifted of "the nations" gathered into the kingdom of Christ has offered, and still offers, to God the worship which He has commanded. Many strains have entered into it in its passage through the centuries. It has been enriched by the gathered experiences of many souls in many lands, by their penitence, their longings after God, their sense of need, their gratitude, their ador

1 Besides Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Irish, Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, French, Spanish, German, Scandinavian, Italian, Portuguese, the English or American Book has been translated into many of the languages of Eastern Europe, India, the Far East, Australia, the Pacific Islands, Africa, Madagascar, and the Amerinds (American Indians) North and South. See Muss-Arnoldt, The Book of Common Prayer among the Nations, S. P. C. K.,

1910.

ing love. Jerusalem, Syria, Gaul, Rome, Milan, Celt, Saxon, Norman, have each brought their gifts. Martyrs, Confessors, Saints, holy men and women through nigh two thousand years have all had part in making the Book what it is today. It has had many revisers, Basil, Chrysostom, Leo, Gelasius, Gregory, Osmund, Cranmer, Cosin, and many another whose name has not come down to us, but whose impress has been left on the thought and language of its devotion.

Of Cranmer's part in the great work one can scarcely speak too highly. His difficulties were enormous, for unlike former revisions, this of the English Book was wrought out in the midst of enemies of many kinds, political, social, and ecclesiastical; fanatical adherents of Rome on one side, and equally fanatical Protestants on the other. Nevertheless, by the mercy and goodness of God the result was one for which to be most thankful. And to Archbishop Cranmer, with his mixture of great qualities and infirmities, more than to any other man, just as in earlier days. in other national Churches, to Basil, and Chrysostom, and Gregory, the English-speaking world owes, under God, the rich heritage of its purified Offices of Prayer and Sacrament. A stronger man would have fallen before the domineering power of Henry, as Wolsey, Cromwell, and More fell. A weaker, less learned, and less conscientious man would have failed as Wicliffe failed.

To quote the well balanced language of Canon Mason: - "Cranmer's large mind and temper, while essentially conservative, was capable of taking in the new, and of going great lengths with it, and yet of coördinating it with the old, instead of substituting the one for the other. In this way he was able to preserve, by means of the Prayer Book, the Ordinal, and the Articles, a truly Catholic foot

ing for the Church of England. If, instead of an ever narrowing sect of adherents to the Papacy, confronted by a Protestantism which drifts further and further away from the faith of the ancient Fathers, our country possesses a Church of unbroken lineage, true to the age-long inheritance in its framework of government, doctrine, and worship, yet open to every form of progress, and comprehensive enough to embrace every human being who confesses Christ, the thanks are due, under God, to the sagacity, the courage, the suppleness combined with firmness, of Archbishop Cranmer. The unparalleled splendour of his dying actions secured for ever to the Church of England what his life. had gained." 1

It may be well to sum up here in conclusion the many benefits we have seen in this latest revision of those Offices of Catholic worship which are the inheritance of a race whose numbers and extent of dominion already exceed that of every other in the history of the world. Besides the restoration of primitive usage in regard to "a tongue understanded of the people," many manifest abuses in doctrine and practice were corrected. Ceremonies had abounded beyond measure. The rubrics for the general govern

1 Thomas Cranmer, p. 202. Something may be gathered concerning the vast extent of Cranmer's theological and liturgical learning from the partial list of MSS. and printed books of his private library, now in the British Museum and elsewhere. See Burbidge, Liturgies and Offices of the Church, pp. xvii-xxxvi.

2 Green the historian may not be over bold when he ventures the prediction that "English institutions [he is speaking of North America as well] English speech, English thoughts will become the main features of the political, the social, the intellectual life of mankind."

The first rubric in the Office for the Consecration of a Bishop in the Sarum Use provided for no less than thirty-five separate articles necessary for the function!

ment of the services, which were contained in the Ordinale or Pie, had become so multiplied that the Revisers say of it: -"The number and hardness of the Rules called the Pie, and the manifold changings of the Service, was a cause, that to turn the Book only was so hard and intricate a matter, that many times there was more business to find out what should be read, than to read it when it was found out." 1

Serious errors in doctrine also had crept into the medieval Offices, especially in regard to the central act of worship. The true sacrificial aspect of the Holy Eucharist had become so distorted and exaggerated as to drive completely into the background its other equally important aspect as a Communion. For not only was the cup denied to the people contrary to our Lord's specific and prophetic command that "all" should drink of it, but actual reception of this Divine Food of the soul was restricted in the practice of the people to a single Communion in the year. Auricular confession to a Priest as an obligatory condition of Communion; the "Romish" (Romanensium) doctrine of a Purgatory of quasi material torment after death, and the related offering of the Holy Eucharist and prayers for the abbreviation of this suffering, which was a gross perversion of the undoubted primitive custom of Eucharistic prayers for the rest, and peace, and complete sanctification of the faithful departed; and prayers addressed directly or indirectly to the Blessed Virgin and other great saints, were all corruptions swept away in the new revision.

One other glory of the revised Prayer Book is the return to primitive usage in the large place it gives to the reading of Holy Scripture. In the medieval Church the Lessons from the Bible were reduced to very small proportions,

1 Preface to the English Book, Concerning the Service of the Church.

and in many cases, as stated in the Preface "Concerning the Service of the Church" in the English Book, their place was taken by "uncertain stories and legends"; while of the Psalms, which were from the beginning the very core of the Daily Offices of worship, "a few of them were daily said, and the rest utterly omitted." On the other hand an examination of the revised Book will show that three fifths of it is taken directly from Holy Scripture; one fifth consists of prayers, creeds, and canticles more than 800 years old, some reaching even to Apostolic times; and only one fifth consists of prayers and exhortations newly composed by the revisers.

Dr. Döllinger, the learned German Old-Catholic professor and historian, has said concerning this prominence given to Holy Scripture in modern England, due largely to the Prayer Book: "I believe we may credit one great superiority in England over other countries to the circumstance that there the Holy Scripture is found in every house, as is the case nowhere else in the world." Puritans, in spite of all their defects in other ways, deserve credit along with Churchmen of that day for their zeal for "an open Bible." Strange to say, however, they attached such exaggerated importance to what they called "the preaching of the Word," that is, their own novel and strained interpretation of the Gospel of Christ, that the reading of the Bible in their services was reduced to almost mediæval proportions.1 But it is not only the contents, and the character, and the venerable associations of the Prayer Book that make it

1 See Hooker, Ecc. Pol., V. xxi. On the other hand, in a single service of Morning Prayer, with Holy Communion, in part or whole, at least four times as much of God's Word is read or sung (Psalms, Canticles, Old and New Testament Lessons, Epistle and Gospel) as is read in an ordinary service among our separated brethren even today.