THE REVISION OF THE PRAYER BOOK.
A..REVISION of the Book of Common Prayer is long overdue, but the proceedings in the National Assembly this week suggest that we are still some way from a practical result. The alternative to the present Book of Common Prayer which has been drafted by an expert Committee is the result of the letters of business which were issued to the Houses of Convocation in November, 1906. The Committee has attempted to compromise between the rival schools of doctrine and practice. Like all compromises it does not satisfy anybody, but that is not, of course, a reason for saying that it will be rejected. Compromise notoriously suits the genius of the British people and it may well be that this compromise, or something like it, will ultimately be accepted for the sake of peace.
On Monday, in the National Assembly, the Archbishop of Canterbury pointed out that the draft of the proposed new Prayer Book must be considered first of all by each of the three Houses, and that it could not be submitted to the National Assembly for adoption or rejection as a whole until each of those Houses had signified "general approval." It was a sign of the confusion about pro- cedure which has prevailed that the Bishop of Durham should have thought that the draft had "already passed the stage of general approval." The Archbishop of Canterbury assured him that this was not so and declared that if the motion for general approval were rejected by any one of the three Houses the matter would necessarily be brought to an end for a year.
What is proposed is not strictly revision—for that would. most naturally mean a revision of the -present Prayer Book. The proposal is that there shall he an alternative Book:- The differences between this Book and the present Book show that the revision—so to call it—has been conservative. Perhaps the most important changes are a new wording of the exhortation in the Marriage Service and of the prayer for the gift of children ; the shortening of the Commandments ; a prayer for the dead ; the definition of the vestments admissible at the Holy Communion ; and a ruling that the consecrated Bread and Wine may be reserved for administration to the sick. We cannot go into these matters in detail. The alterations in language are governed by the fact that the methods of thinking which belonged to the Elizabethans are not the methods of to-day, and that language which was appropriate in the age that pro- duced it has in many cases ceased to be appropriate to-day. Nevertheless these revisions are never wanton; the Committee has shown reverent care for the beauties of Elizabethan expression and has suggested changes only where offence is now frequently given or mis- understanding occurs. That surely is the right way. So long as that which is reverend and beautiful is. respected we should like to see the Prayer Book modernized wherever it can be made more intelligible to the people.
Revision is no new thing. There was the first Prayer Book of Edward VI., before the second Book of Edward VI. became substantially our present Book of Common Prayer ; and this Book was revised in the reigns of both James I. and Charles II. As for the Lectionary, there was a revision in the 'seventies of last century, and last Advent yet another Lectionary came into force. Each new choice was an improvement on the preceding one. The latest Lectionary gives us more lessons from the Minor Prophets—very notable passages many of them —which formerly were never read. These have dis- placed some of the bloodthirsty episodes in Jewish history which were magnificent as literature but which when unexplained to a modern congregation could not be said to make for edification.
It is an advantage to remove from the Prayer Book language which was based on a conception of the uni- verse that is now obsolete, and an advantage again to get rid of arguments and analogies from Judaistic thought which do not appeal to us to-day and are the reverse of convincing. To be told, for example, that the ceremony of Baptism is directly associated with God's mercy as shown to Noah at the time of the Flood or as shown to the Israelites in the Red Sea does not help us. On such subjects as these, however, there will not be any insuper- able difficulty in reaching a compromise. The really troublesome issue is between the sacerdotal and non- sacerdotal conceptions of the Holy Communion and of the priestly office.
The English Church Union, the organization of the High Churchmen, has drawn up a new Prayer Book of its own. There is very little chance that this version will receive the sanction of the three Houses, but evidently the English Church Union thinks that it will somehow or other exert considerable influence. The labour expended upon it has been considerable and the learning it displays is notable.
An alternative to the present Prayer Book does not, however, exhaust the scheme. It is proposed that in addition to the permission to use the alternative, or any portion of it, at the discretion of the Minister, the House of Bishops or the Convocations of Canterbury and York may from time to time issue such supplementary forms of service as they consider desirable.
• For our F1'art we sincerely hope that for the sake of uniformity a new Book of Common Prayer may be ultimately accepted that will serve as a standard. It may be asked "Why trouble ? Do not the clergy do as they like now without waiting for the Bishop's leave ? " It is true that there is something not far removed from chaos, but an obsolescent Prayer Book has encouraged it. Let us have a standard as nearly as possible. It would be a thousand pities if a stranger coming into a church were unable to recognize the service as being unmistakably that of the Church of England. If the permissible variations which are adumbrated became very numerous it would not be of much use to carry a Prayer Book at all. It would not necessarily help one to follow the service. That we are not exaggerating the danger of confusion may be gathered from the fact that some Churchmen are advocating a period of what are called "licensed experiments." Their idea is that a fundamental reconciliation between the rival schools is at present impossible since sacerdotal feeling runs too high and that a period of experiments would show whether a Prayer Book that would be accepted by all was or was not a possible ideal.
• From our point of view by far the most important principles to keep in view are that the Church of England should remain comprehensive and that the Prayer Book should continue recognizably the work of the Reforma- tion. It may be argued that the more uses that are permitted the more people the Church would comprehend. This, of course, is true so far as it goes, but it must not be forgotten on the other hand that the truly compre- hensive spirit clings to the spirit of "live and let live," and is, therefore, willing to make sacrifices in order to obtain a result that satisfies the greatest number. Are those who to-day rather deride the Reformation willing to make those sacrifices ? In the long run all these controversies bring us back to the question whether we do or do not believe in an Established Church. For our part we do believe in it. We hold it a cardinal mistake for a Christian State officially to declare its indifference to religion. But if it wishes to declare its concern with religion, and to confess further that Chris- tianity inspires its governance, the most practical metho d available is to have a National Church. A strong party has arisen in the Church which tells us that our politics and our industries are insufficiently Christianized. No doubt it is so. Yet strangely enough many members of this party would willingly disestablish the Church. We fancy that if there had been no Establishment they would have demanded one as the obvious way of relating politics to Christian principle.
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