A HISTORY OF THE COLLECTS.*

Wa can well imagine a devout Churchman saying that a book con- taining the Collects and a commentary upon the Collects is a book

tee much. They are in the Prayer Book, and those who want to study them can study them there. He would not of course apply these words to a long and learned treatise on the subject, but the volume before us is short-and intentionally of a simple and popular nature. After an historical Preface of some thirty small pages, Mr. Armitage has printed the Collects as they_oome in, the Prayer Book, one to each page, with notes appended. For our own part, we think the book will interest very many people. The Collects themselves, apart from their history, are less familiar than they were. Church-going is no longer universal, and the Collects are no longer used to exercise the memories of small children totally incapable of appreciating their devotional and literary worth. Many of the phrases they contain have of course passed into the language, but regarded as an anthology Mr. Arnaitage's book will, we are sure, find many readers to whom at least part of his matter is unfamiliar and delightful.

" Almighty God, whiche doest make the myndes of all faythfull men to be of one wil." This is the original opening of the Collect for the Fourth Sunday after Easter, and it breathes the spirit of all the Collects. Their effect is to unite men's wills in prayer and to sink their differences of opinion. They represent man in an attitude of prayer and not of argumentation. A thousand years have gone to their making. Some which were already old in the fifth century, and others which were new in the sixteenth, are printed here before us. All of course bear the splendid stamp of the period of their translation or composition, and are thus outwardly rendered alike. But essentially as well as outwardly they have a likeness. They are prayers, not creeds, or didactic exhortations, or ecclesiastical pronouncements. Consequently they have not become antiquated. Even those which are appointed for special occasions, and make special mention of specific Church dogma, breathe an atmosphere so devotional that the dogmas become symbols, and no more provoke theological affirmation or dissent than does the cross upon a church tower. Even the writer of the Collect for the First Sunday in Advent, while obviously taking literally the Christian hope of a Second Coming, does not force the now-vexed question upon tho minds of his hearers. He longs for " grace " to " cast away the works of darkness," now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility " ; so that " in the last day, when he shall come again," we may " rise to the

life immortal." The First is, we think, by no means the finest of the Advent Collects, though it is in a sense the most verbally im-

pressive: An older one coming from the fifth-century collection of Pope Gelasius is more full of emotion. The intensity of the com- piler's desire for what we call " Revival," and what the New Testa.

meat calls a " time of refreshing," far outweighs any desire for a

sign. " 0 Lord; raise up thy power, and come among 116, •and with great might succour us," he cries. The Church to-day can use

his words without considering her changed theology. Again, the Collect for Ascension Day strangely foreshadows the attitude towards dogma which Churchmen now call " Modernism." Who- ever- wrote it had not his thoughts fixed upon any marvellous breach of natural law, neither did he conceive of Heaven as the sky. This is evident, for he prays that we may " in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell."

There are a few of the Collects of which it may be said as truly as of some of Milton's poetry that their literary grandeur detracts from their religious effect. The Collect for Trinity Sunday is, we think, a case in point. It strikes upon the ear like church music, and ie less fitted than the ot'.ers for private use. It suggests a voluntary upon the organ pealing forth to delight those who " acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity," while striving in the power of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity."

We have quoted one Collect- which seemed to us to have been altered for the worse before it was incorporated in our present

Prayer Book. Here is another which strikes the present writer

as having been unduly worked over. After. pleading our human position in the midst of " so many and great dangers " as an excuse for the feet that " we cannot always stand upright," the original compiler of the prayer wrote thus : " Graunt to us the health of body and souls that al those thingee which we suffer for sumo-,

by thy helpe we may wel passe and ouercome." This form was altered to its present-day reading in Elizabeth's reign and now runs : " Grant to us such strength and. protection, as may sum: us in all dangers, and carry us through all- temptations." original is surely the finer version. There is something less spen-

taueous about the revision, and the acknowledgment that bodily health is of spiritual oonsequenee is eminently human and un-

ecalesiastical. The older Collects are, generally speaking, the. shorter. Those which date back to the fifth century have an • A Hrotory of thy Collette. By Frederick Armitage. London.: Wears sad Co. Ira. 6d. add extraordinary conciseness and *sincerity. The Collect for the Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity, which comes from the collection of Pope Gelasius, and was translated by Creamer, is perhaps the most beautiful of all. It is eminently suited for public worship, and at the same time it has the human touch which takes it out of the ecclesiastical atmosphere altogether. We mean the prayer for " pardon and peace, that " we " may be cleansed from all " our " sins, and serve Thee with a quiet mind."

At the end of his book Mr. Armitage has appended a short list of Collects taken from the Sarum Missal and not to be found in our Prayer Book. Two among them strike us as specially remark- able. The first is the prayer for All Souls' Day, interceding for those in purgatory that " they may obtain the forgiveness which they have so long desired." The second is appointed to be said on the Second Sunday after Easter, and begins : " 0 God, who by thy son's humiliation host lifted up the world which lay prostrate." This opening sentence is worthy to stand beside any in the Prayer Book.