A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer

The opening paper of this collection was originally read as a lecture before a liturgical class, and is now published for the first time. The others have appeared in print from...

These venerable monuments seem to exclaim as we decipher them: "Even so, Lord, it is done as thou didst say." "Thy name, O Lord, endureth forever and so doth thy memorial from g...

The First Prayer Book of King Edward the Sixth, memorable as it was destined to become, proved, so far as actual use was concerned, but short-lived. It became operative, as we h...

Some slight relaxations of liturgical use on Sundays have been made legal by Act of Parliament, but in all important respects the Prayer Book of Victoria is identical with the b...

A third important lesson is that we are not to confound revision with ruin, or to suppose that because a book is marvellously good it cannot conceivably be bettered. Each accomp...

These illustrations of probable divergence in opinion, in case the field of doctrine were once entered, might be multiplied. The retranslation of the Nicene Creed and the more a...

In fact, it is just as possible, if men will only think so, to use our language with effect for any good purpose to-day as it was three hundred years ago. All that is necessary...

In connection with the Morning and Evening Service there is another important question that imperatively demands discussion, namely, a week-day worship. The movement for "shorte...

Two questions remain untouched, both of them of great practical importance. Could the Prayer Book be enriched to the extent suggested in this paper without a serious and most un...

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...

In the light of this summary of Anglican desiderata, compiled by wholly friendly hands, it is plain that whatever we may do in this country in the line of liturgical revision, a...

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 re...

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 themselve...

Against the background of this sombre fact of change, whatever there is in life that is stable stands out with a sharpness that compels notice. Just because the world is so full...

If the reproach were just it would be stinging indeed; but it is most cruelly unjust. In the devotional literature of the Anglicanism of the last fifty years, to go no further b...

1832. Origines Liturgicae, William Palmer. 1833-41. Tracts for the Times. 1840. Conferences on the Book of Common Prayer, Edward Cardwell. 1843. The Choral Service of the Church...

[84] "Strike it out," said the literalist of a certain committee on hymnody, many years ago, as he and his colleagues were sitting in judgment on Watts's noble hymn, "There is a...