A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer Part 8

The judgment that must be p.r.o.nounced on the work as a whole is precisely that which has been pa.s.sed on the Revised New Testament, that there are doubtless some few changes for the better, so obvious and so demanded beforehand by all educated opinion that to have neglected them would at once have stamped the revisers as blockheads and dunces; but that the set-off in the way of petty and meddlesome changes for the worse, neglect of really desirable improvements, bad English, failure in the very matter of pure scholars.h.i.+p just where it was least to be expected, and general departure from the terms of the Commission a.s.signed to them (notably by their introduction of confusion instead of flexibility into the services, so that the congregation can seldom know what is going to happen) has so entirely outweighed the merits of the work that it cannot possibly be adopted by the Church, and must be dismissed as a dismal fiasco, to be dealt with anew in some more adequate fas.h.i.+on.

This paragraph is not reproduced for the purpose of discrediting the writer of it as a judge of English prose, for there are various pa.s.sages in the course of the six articles that would more readily lend themselves to such a use. The object in quoting it is simply to put the reader into possession, in a compact form, of the most angry, even if not the most formidable, of the various indictments yet brought against _The Book Annexed_.

Moreover, the last words of the extract supply a good text for certain didactic remarks that ought to be made, with respect to what is possible and what is not possible in the line of liturgical revision in America.

Worthless as the result of the Joint Committee's labors has turned out to be, their motive, we are a.s.sured, was a good one. The critic's contention is not that the work they undertook is a work that ought not to be done, but rather that when done it should be better done. The revision as presented must be "dismissed as a dismal fiasco," but only dismissed "in order to be dealt with anew in some more adequate fas.h.i.+on." But on what ground can we rest this sanguine expectation of better things to come? Whence is to originate and how is to be appointed the commission of "experts"

which is to give us at last the "Ideal Liturgy"?

Cardinal Newman in one of his lesser controversial tracts remarks:

If the English people lodge power in the many, not in the few, what wonder that its operation is roundabout, clumsy, slow, intermittent, and disappointing? You cannot eat your cake and have it; you cannot be at once a self-governing nation and have a strong government.[43]

Similarly it may be said that, however great the difficulties that beset liturgical revision by legislative process at the hands of some five hundred men, nevertheless the fact remains that the body known in law as The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America has provided in its Const.i.tution that change in its formularies shall be so effected and not otherwise. It may turn out that we must give up in despair the whole movement for a better adaptation of our manual of wors.h.i.+p to the needs of our land and of our time; it may be found that the obstacles in the way are absolutely insuperable; but let us dream no dreams of seeing this thing handed over, "with power," to a "commission of experts," for that is something which will never come to pa.s.s.

Whether "experts" in liturgies are any more likely to furnish us with good prayers than "experts" in prosody are likely to give us the best poetry is a tempting question, but one that must be left, for the present, on one side. Perhaps, if the inquiry were to be pushed, we might find ourselves shut up to the curious conclusion that the framers of the very earliest liturgies, the authors of the old sacramentaries, were either verbally inspired or else were lacking in the qualifications which alone could fit them to do worthily the work they worthily did, for clearly "experts" they were not.

But the question that immediately concerns us is one of simple fact. a.s.suming the present laborious effort at betterment to have been proved a "fiasco," how is the General Convention to set in motion any more promising enginery of revision? "Summon in," say our English advisers, "competent scholars, and give them _carte blanche_ to do what they will." But the Convention, which is by law the final arbiter, has no power to invite to a share in its councils men who have no const.i.tutional right to a seat upon its floor. How thankfully should we welcome as partic.i.p.ants in our debates and as allies in our legislation the eminent liturgical scholars who give l.u.s.tre to the clergy list of the Church of England; but we are as powerless to make them members of the General Convention as we should be to force them into the House of Commons. The same holds true at home. If the several dioceses fail to discover their own "inglorious Miltons," and will not send them up to General Convention, General Convention may, and doubtless does, lament the blindness of the const.i.tuencies, but it cannot correct their blunder. The dioceses in which the "experts"

canonically reside had had full warning that important liturgical interests were to be discussed and acted upon in the General Convention of 1883; why were the "experts" left at home? And if they were not returned in 1883, is there sufficient reason to believe that they will ever be returned in any coming year of grace? It must be either that the American Church is bereft of "experts," or else that the const.i.tuencies, influenced possibly by the hard sense of the laity, have learned hopelessly to confound the "expert" with the doctrinaire.

Of "expert testimony," in the shape of the liturgical material gathered, mainly by English writers, during the last fifty years, the Joint Committee had no lack. That this material was carefully sifted and conscientiously used, _The Book Annexed_ will itself one day be acknowledged to be the sufficient evidence.

There is still another point that must be taken into account in this connection, to wit, the att.i.tude which the Episcopate has a right to take with respect to any proposed work of liturgical revision. Bishops have probably become inured to the hard measure habitually dealt out to them in the columns of the _Church Times_, and are unlikely to allow charges of ignorance and incompetency so far to disturb their composure as to make them afraid to prosecute a work which, from time immemorial, has been held to lie peculiarly within their province. It may be affirmed, with some confidence, that no revision of the American Offices will ever be ratified, in the conduct of which the Bishops of the Church have not been allowed the leaders.h.i.+p which belongs to them of right. Then it is for the General Convention carefully to consider whether any House of Bishops destined to be convened in our time is likely to have on its roll the names of any prelates more competent, whether on the score of learning or of practical experience, to deal with a work of liturgical revision than were the seven prelates elected by the free voice of their brethren to represent the Episcopal Order on the Joint Committee of Twenty-one.

Coming to details the reviewer of the _Church Times_ regrets, first of all, the failure of the Convention to change the name of the Church. He goes on to express a disapproval, more or less qualified, of the discretionary power given to bishops to set forth forms of prayer for special occasions, and of the continued permission to use Selections of Psalms instead of the psalms for the day. It is not quite clear whether he approves the expansion of the Table of Proper Psalms or not, though he thinks it "abstractedly desirable"

that provision be made in this connection for "Corpus Christi and All Souls."

He condemns the lat.i.tude allowed in the choice of lessons under the rules of the new lectionary, fearing that a clergyman who happens to dislike any given chapter because of its contents may be tempted habitually to suppress it by subst.i.tuting another, but in the very next paragraph he gravely questions the expediency of limiting congregations to such hymns as have been "duly set forth and allowed by authority." Yet most observers, at least on this side of the water, are of opinion that liberty of choice within the limits of the Bible is a far safer freedom, so far as the breeding of heresy goes, than liberty of choice beyond the limits of the Hymnal has proved itself to be. The reviewer is pleased with the addition of the Feast of the Transfiguration to the Calendar, but "desiderates more," and would gladly welcome the introduction into the Prayer Book of commemorations of eminent saints, from Ignatius down,[44] but of this, mention has already been made, and it is unnecessary to revert to it.

There follows next a protest against the selection of proper Sentences prefixed to Morning and Evening Prayer.

The revisers seem to have a glimmering of what was the right thing to do . . . but they should have swept away the undevotional and unliturgical plan of beginning with certain detached texts, which has no fitness whatever, and has never even seemed to answer any useful end.

This is stronger language than most of us are likely to approve. A Church that directly takes issue with Rome, as ours does, with respect to the true source of authority in religion has an excellent reason for letting the voice of Holy Scripture sound the key-note of her daily wors.h.i.+p, whether there be ancient precedent for such a use or not. At the same time, the reviewer's averment that "the only proper opening is the Invocation of the Holy Trinity" is ent.i.tled to attention; and it is worth considering whether the latter portion of the nineteenth verse of the twenty-eighth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel might not be advantageously added to the list of opening Sentences, for optional use.

In speaking of the new alternate to the Declaration of Absolution, the reviewer suggests most happily that it would be well to revive the form of mutual confession of priest and people found in the old service-books.[45] This proposal would probably not be entertained in connection with the regular Orders for Morning and Evening Prayer, but room for such a feature might perhaps be found in some optional office.

After a grudging commendation of the steps taken in _The Book Annexed_ to restore the Gospel Canticles, the reviewer next puts in a strong plea for a larger allowance of versicles and responses after the Creed, contending that this is "just one of the places where enrichment, much beyond that of replacing the English versicles and responses now missing, is feasible and easy," to which the answer is that we, who love these missing versicles, shall think ourselves fortunate if we succeed in regaining only so much as we have lost. Even this will be accomplished with difficulty. It is most interesting, however, to notice that this stout defender of all that is English acknowledges the coupling together of the versicle, "Give peace in our time, O Lord," and the response, "Because there is none other that fighteth for us, but only thou, O G.o.d," to be "a very infelicitous _non-sequitur_." For correcting this palpable incongruity, the authors of _The Book Annexed_ have been sharply criticised here at home. What were they that they should have presumed to disturb ancient Anglican precedent in such a point? If we could not understand why the G.o.d of battles, as the G.o.d of battles, should be implored to "give peace in our time,"

so much the worse for our intelligence. But here comes the most acrid of all our critics, and shows how the collocation of sentences in the English Book has, from the beginning, been due to a palpable blunder in condensing an office of the Sarum Breviary. Of the American subst.i.tute for this "unhappy response" the best he can say, however, is that it is "well intentioned."

Of the "Office of the Beat.i.tudes" the reviewer declares that it "needs thorough recasting before it can stand," and in this we agree with him, as will hereafter appear, though wholly unable to concur in his sweeping condemnation, in this connection, of one of the most beautiful of Canon Bright's liturgical compositions, the Collect beginning, "O G.o.d, by whom the meek are guided in judgment and light riseth up in darkness for the G.o.dly." Of this exquisite piece of idiomatic English, the reviewer allows himself to speak as being "a very poor composition, defective in rhythm."

The criticism of the eucharistic portions of _The Book Annexed_ is mainly in the line of complaint that more has not been added in the way of new collects and proper prefaces, but upon this point it is unnecessary to dwell, the reasons having been already given why the Joint Committee and the Convention left the liturgy proper almost untouched. Neither is there anything that specially calls for notice or serious reply in what is said about the Occasional Offices.

The Office for the Burial of Children is acknowledged to be a needed addition, but as it stands "is pitched in an entirely wrong key. The cognate offices in the _Rituale Romanun_ and the _Priest's Prayer Book_ ought to have shown the Committee, were it not for their peculiar unteachableness, a better way." To one who can read between the lines, this arraignment of the Americans for their lack of docility to the teachings of the Priest's Prayer Book is not devoid of drollery.

It will happily ill.u.s.trate the peculiar difficulties that beset liturgical revision to close this resume of the censures of _The Church Times_ by printing, side by side, the reviewer's estimate of the changes proposed in the Confirmation Office and the independent judgment of a learned evangelical divine of our own Church upon the same point.

The Confirmation Service, as one of the very poorest in the Anglican rites, stood particularly in need of amendment and enrichment, especially by the removal of the ambiguous word "confirm" applied to the acts of the candidates, whereby the erroneous opinion that they came merely to confirm and ratify their baptismal promises, and not to be confirmed and strengthened in virtue of something bestowed upon them, has gained currency.

Thus far the English Ritualist. Here follows the American Evangelical:

I still hope you will see your way clear to modify the present draft of the proposed Confirmation Office, as it gives a much higher Sacramentarian idea of it than the present, a concession which will greatly please the Sacerdotalists, to which they are by no means ent.i.tled.

The critic of _The Guardian_ is a writer of different make, and ent.i.tled every way to the most respectful attention. His fault-finding, which is invariably courteous, is mainly confined to the deficiencies of _The Book Annexed_.

He would have had more done rather than less; but at the same time clearly points out that under the restrictions which controlled the Committee more could not fairly have been expected. He regrets that in restoring the lost portions of _Venite_ and _Benedictus_ the Convention did not make the use of the complete form in every case obligatory; and of the eight concluding verses of the latter canticle, which under the rubric of _The Book Annexed_ are only obligatory during Advent, he says, "Imagine their omission on Christmas Day!"

To this criticism there are several answers, any one of which may be held to be sufficient. In the first place, it should be remembered that into the Committee's plan of enrichment there entered the element of differentiation. The closing portion of the _Venite_ has a special appropriateness to Lent; the closing portion of the _Benedictus_ a special appropriateness to Advent. Moreover, if any congregations desire the whole of these two canticles throughout the year, there is nothing in the rubrics of _The Book Annexed_ to forbid such an enjoyment of them. They may be sung in full always; but only in Lent in the one case, and in Advent in the other, mast they be so sung. The revision Committee was informed, on what was considered the highest authority, that in the Church of England the _Benedictus_, on account of its length, had been very generally disused. But, however this may be, there can be little doubt that the effort after restoration would have failed completely in the late Convention had the use of these two canticles in full been insisted upon by the promoters of revision.

There is less of verbal criticism in _The Guardian's_ review than could have been wished, for any suggestions with respect to inaccuracies of style or rhythmical shortcomings would have been most welcome from the pen of so competent a censor. Attention is called to the unmusical flow of language in the alternate Confession provided for the Evening Office; the figurative features of the proposed Collect for Maundy-Thursday are characterized as infelicitous; and the Collect provided for the Feast of the Transfiguration is declared to be inferior to the corresponding one in the Sarum Breviary.

Of this sort of criticism, at the hands of men who know their craft, _The Book Annexed_ cannot have too much. In fact, of such immeasurable importance is good English in this connection, that it would be no hards.h.i.+p were every separate clause of whatever formulary it may be proposed to engraft upon the Prayer Book to be subjected to the most searching tests.

Let an epoch be agreed upon, if necessary, that shall serve as the criterion of admissibility for words and phrases. Let it be decided, for instance, that no word that cannot prove an Elizabethan parentage, or, if this be too severe a standard, then no word of post-Caroline origin, shall be admitted within the sacred precincts. Probably there are words in _The Book Annexed_ which such a canon would eject; but let us have them pointed out, and their merits and demerits discussed. Such criticism would be of infinitely more value to the real interests of revision than those vague and general charges of "crudeness"

and "want of finish" which it is always so easy to make and sometimes so difficult to ill.u.s.trate.

The writer in _The Guardian_ closes an only too brief commentary upon what the Convention has laid before the Church with the following words:

Many of the proposals now in question are excellent; but others will be improved by reconsideration in the light of fuller ritual study, such as will be seen to produce a more exact and cultured ritual _aesthesis_, perhaps we may, without offence, add, a more delicate appreciation of rhythm. What _The Book Annexed_ presents to us in the way of emendation is, on the whole, good; but, if subjected to a deliberate recension, it would, we predict, become still better. If thus improved by the Convention of 1886, it might be finally adopted by the Convention of 1889.

This conspectus of English critical opinion would be incomplete were no account to be made of the utterances of the various writers and speakers who dealt with the general subject of liturgical revision at the recent Church Congress at Portsmouth.

_The Book Annexed_ could scarcely ask a more complete justification than is supplied by these testimonies of men who at least may be supposed to be acquainted with the needs of the Church of England.

The following catena, made up from three of the four Papers[46]

read upon the Prayer Book, gives a fair notion of the general tone of the discussion. It will be worth anyone's while to collate it with the thirty Resolutions that make up the "Notification to the Dioceses."

Can it be seriously doubted that there are requirements of this age which are not satisfied by the provision for public wors.h.i.+p made in the sixteenth century? Can any really suppose that the compilers of that brief manual, the Prayer Book, however proud we may rightly be of their work, were so gifted with inspired foresight as to save the Church of future ages the responsibilities of considering and supplying the devotional wants of successive generations?

Who has not felt the scantiness of holy a.s.sociation in our Sunday and week-day wors.h.i.+p? . . . Much, I know, has been supplied by our hymnology, which has progressed n.o.bly in proportion as the meagreness of our liturgical provision has been realized. But beyond hymns we need actual forms of service, which shall strike the ear and touch the heart by fresh and vivid adaptations of G.o.d's Word to the great mysteries of the Gospel faith . . . After-services on Sunday evenings have of late grown common; for them we need also the aid of regular and elastic forms.

Most deplorably have we felt the need of intercessory services for Home and Foreign Missions; and, though there are beautiful metrical litanies which bear directly on these and other objects, yet these are not sufficient, and of course are limited to times when a good and strong choir can be secured; . . . and further we want very simple forms of prayer to accompany addresses given in homes and mission rooms.[47]

I declare it as my conviction, after many years of (I hope) a not indolent ministry, and of many opportunities of observation and experiment, that the Church stands in pressing and immediate need of a few rearrangements and adaptations of some of her Offices; also of an enormous number of supplementary Offices or services--some for frequent use, others for occasional purposes within the consecrated buildings; and that besides these there is need of a supply of special Offices for the use of a recognized lay agency outside of the church edifices.

Why limit our introductory sentences to seven deprecatory texts? . . .

Why can we not introduce the anthem used on Easter-day, instead of the _Venite_, throughout the Octave; or at least on Easter Monday and Tuesday? Would not spiritual life be deepened and intensified, and, best of all, be strengthened, by the use in the same manner of a suitable anthem instead of the _Venite_ on Advent Sundays, on Christmas-day, at Epiphany, on Ash-Wednesday, on Good Friday, during Rogation days, at Ascension-tide, and on harvest festivals and the special annual Church festival of the year?

I submit that an enrichment of the Book of Common Prayer is also required. For although, as already suggested, this may be provided to some extent by a Collect for occasional use before the final prayer of Morning Prayer or Evensong, the needs of the Church will not be fully supplied without some complete additional offices.

Certainly an additional service for Sunday afternoon and evening . . .

The times are very solemn, and we must wait no longer . . . We have talked for nearly twenty-five years--not vainly, I believe--but let us "go and do" not a little in the next five years . . . Prove yourself to be of the Church of G.o.d by doing all the work of the Church, and in the proper way. Proclaim before our G.o.d by your actions and your activities, and by providing all that is needed, not only for Churchmen, but for earnest Christians who are not Churchmen, and for the poor, weary sinners who are living as if there were neither Church nor Saviour, such services for the one, and such means for drawing the others to Christ, that they all may become one in him. And for all this you must have (as I think):

1. Possibly a small rearrangement of existing services.

2. Variety and additions in some of these services.

3. Enrichment by many services supplementary.