JEWISH COMMON PRAYER.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—Your reviewer, in his article on the book of Jewish Common Prayer, makes two rather surprising statements. He says : "It is strange to meet, in a book of Hebrew devotion, with suggestions of doctrines we had thought wholly Christian. Vicarious sacrifice is at least once suggested, and even imputed righteousness." Upon what idea, if not that of vicarious sacrifice, is the whole Jewish ritual of sacrifice and atonement founded ? Also your reviewer says : " Ethically, too, we find several prayers of a distinctly Christian character. Guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking guile, and to such as curse inc let my soul be dumb. " Nobody familiar with the thirty-fourth Psalm and the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah could call this "distinctly Christian" or be surprised at finding such a prayer in a book of Hebrew devotion.—I am, Sir, &c., D. AUSTEN LEIGH. 2 Southcote Road, Reading.
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