A Short History of the Book of Common PrayerHuntington, William Reed
Religion
A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer
Huntington, William Reed
Episcopal Church. Book of common prayer
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 quantity 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 Title-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 title-page as superfluous, and (_b _) that a general title,
"THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER," be printed on the first page of the
leaf preceding the title-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 title-page.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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