THE LITERARY ASPECTS OF THE PRAYER-BOOK.
[TO TUE EDITOP. OP THE " SPECTATOR." 1 SIR,—Your most interesting article in the Spectator of May 16th on "The Literary Aspects of the Prayer-Book" suggests to one's mind the consideration of how much richer our Prayer-book might have been from the picturesque and emotional point of view had the compilers borrowed more freely from those primitive liturgies from which they took but one prayer only—the so-called Prayer of St. Chrysostom—placed near the end of the Litany. Almost at random one may turn these old liturgies over, and find such a prayer as this on enter- ing the house of prayer :—
"Lord our God, of boundless might, and incomprehensible glory, and measureless compassion, and ineffable love to man, look down, 0 Lord, according to Thy tender love, on us, and on this holy house, and show to us, and to them that pray with us, the riches of Thy mercies and compassions."
At the "Great Entrance," the grandest piece of ritual of the Eastern Church, the words of the priest are as follows :—
" Honourable Joseph took Thy spotless Body from the Cross, and wrapped it in clean linen with spices, and with funeral rites laid it in a new tomb. In the grave bodily, in Hades spiritually, as God, with the thief in paradise as in a throne, wert Thou, 0 Christ, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, who art incircum- script and fillest all things. How life-giving, how more beautiful than paradise, and verily more splendid than any royal chamber, is Thy tomb, 0 Christ, the fountain of our resurrection."
Here is the Cherubic Hymn sung by the Readers :— "Let us, who mystically represent the Cherubim, and sing the thrice-holy hymn to the quickening Trinity, lay by at this time all worldly cares, that we may receive the King of Glory, in visibly attended by the angelic orders."
The Prayer of Intense Adoration is common to all the Eastern liturgies :—
" Master, Lord, and God Almighty, who sittest above the Cherubim, and art glorified by the Seraphim; who didst prepare the heaven from the waters, and didst adorn it with the choir of the stars ; who hast arranged the bodiless armies of angels in the highest to sing Thy praise everlastingly ;" &c.
The Liturgy of St. James closes thus with a Prayer of Dis- missal said by the deacon :—
. "From glory to glory advancing, we hymn Thee, the Saviour of our souls. Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. We hymn Thee, the Saviour of our souls."
Most touching of all, perhaps, are the prayers for the faithful departed found in every known liturgy, showing us how the Christians of old time prayed for their loved ones long before penal fires had been thought of :— " Bring them in and collect them into a place of greenness, by the waters of comfort in the paradise of pleasure, where grief and misery and sighing are banished, in the brightness of Thy saints." "Mercy may they obtain through Thy clemency ; rest may they be possessed of through Thy mercy." "Give them rest in Thy celestial habitations, in the tabernacles of light, in quiet dwelling places." "0 our God, Artificer of our nature, give by Thy mercy good memory to all the sons of Thy Church, who by the decree which Thy equity hath pronounced against us, drank of old time the sad cup of death, and of most bitter separation." "To the port in which the weary and tempest-tost rest together; to the feast in which martyrs and confessors exult, and to the supper prepared for all the blessed ; preserving them from fire, darkness, and the worm that dieth not ; for none hath appeared without sin excepting Thy only-begotten Son," &c.
Previous page
