BOOK I.

INTRODUCTORY.

CHAPTER I.

ON THE EXCELLENCES OF THE

COLLECTS.

Golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.

REV. v. 8.

THE Collects of the English Prayer Book have received various eulogies from authors of note. Bishop Sanderson called them "the most passionate, proper, and most elegant expressions "1 (of devotional feeling) "that any language ever afforded; and that there was in them such piety, and so interwoven with instructions, that they taught us to know the power, the wisdom, the majesty, and mercy of God, and much of our duty both to Him and our neighbour." Alexander Knox said of them that "for twelve hundred years they had been as the manna in the wilderness to devout spirits, and are, next to Scripture itself, the clearest standard whereby genuine piety may be discerned; the surest guidance by which its progress may be directed; the highest mark to which its wishes would aspire."2 Lord Macaulay, hitting in few

1 Walton's "Lives," p. 412. [London, 1825.] It was in a conversation with Walton "near to Little Britain," in "a cleanly house," where the two friends had been driven to take shelter by the rain, that Sanderson said the above words.

2 "Remains of Alexander Knox, Esq.," vol. ii. p. 857. [London, 1836.] VOL. I.

B

words their chief characteristics, commends them for "their unity of sentiment and severity of style." Archdeacon Freeman speaks of them as "prayers of matchless profundity, which comprehend all the spiritual needs of man."2 But, at the outset of our exposition of them, it will be interesting and edifying to consider the language in which Holy Scripture itself describes "the prayers of saints," and to note how exactly the Collects in their main features correspond with this description. This, then, is the symbol under which, in the sublime opening vision of the Revelation, "the prayers of saints" are set forth— 'golden vials full of odours." The word "odours is translated "incense" in a later passage of this book, where it is observable that "the prayers of saints" are spoken of, not as being themselves incense, but as requiring incense to be put to them. "And another angel

[London, 1854.]

"The

1 Essay on Milton, " Essays," pp. 28, 60. unity of sentiment and severity of style which characterise these little pieces" (Milton's Sonnets") "remind us of the Greek Anthology, or perhaps still more of the Collects of the English Liturgy. The noble poem on the Massacres of Piedmont is strictly a Collect in verse." We may add to this that most of the Collects have what Lord Macaulay says the sonnets of Milton have not-epigrammatic point. While the sonnet which Lord Macaulay calls a collect in verse, is quite kindred to the Collects in respect of "unity of sentiment and severity of style," it by no means resembles them in terseness and compression. There are, in fact, three petitions, all ringing the changes upon one idea, "Avenge,' Forget not," "Record their groans," as well as an aspiration appended to the last of them.

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2" While the East soars to God in exclamations of angelic self-forgetfulness, the West comprehends all the spiritual needs of man in Collects of matchless profundity; reminding us of the alleged distinction between the Seraphim, who love most, and the Cherubim, who know most.' Freeman's "Principles of Divine Service," vol. i. p. 274. [Ed. ii., Oxford and London, 1863.]

I am indebted for the above references, as also for much help in this work generally, to Canon Bright's admirable and very valuable volume on "Ancient Collects."

came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand."1

Prayer has an outward and an inward part. The outward part is the expression or language in which it is couched; the inward part is the sentiment expressed. It may perhaps be said that in ejaculatory, as distinct from set prayer, the expression is not of so much moment, though even here, if the heart of the petitioner is duly impressed with the presence and majesty of Him to whom he addresses himself, the language will always be simple and chastised, however little studied. But let no one think

that in set forms of prayer the language chosen to be the vehicle of devotion need not be, and ought not to be, studied. The symbol employed in Holy Scripture to denote the outward part of a prayer is a "golden vial," or, as the word might be more properly rendered, a golden cup, vase, or urn. The material, the costliest metal—gold; the form graceful, as were all the household implements of the ancients. The words employed in prayer should be sound, sterling words; and the method of their arrangement felicitous and elegant. Is not this exactly the case with our Collects? Are not the words employed in them the purest and best English known-representing to us our language, when it was in full vigour, and just about reaching its prime? Is there not abundant evidence in the translated Collects, that both the original composers and the translators have bestowed much study and pains on the words used? And in the arrangement of these words, the balancing of clauses, and the giving unity to 1 Rev. viii. 3, 4.

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the whole composition, they have been as happy as in their choice of words. Let any one try to write (say) an epitaph with as much unity of design, as much point, as much elegance, and as much brevity as the Collects are written with, and, in proportion to the difficulty which he finds in achieving such a task, will the elaborate skill with which these prayers have been constructed rise in his estimation. Nor let it be thought that elaborate skill bestowed on the wording of set prayers is out of place. The Psalms are the Church's inspired Prayer

1 In a criticism of the First Edition of this work, which appeared in "The Literary Churchman" of October 15, 1880, the reviewer, with some justice, objects to this chapter, that it is "too general.” "The differentia of a Collect," he says, "is its terseness." I must admit that he has hit a blot; but in extenuation of the omission, I must plead my dislike to repeat myself in print. In my work on "the Communion Office," [Rivingtons, 1875], there is a chapter on the Collects, headed by the text, Eccles. v. 2, “God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few," in which the terseness of the Collects, and the closeness of their resemblance in this respect to the model of the Lord's Prayer is the great thought of the chapter. "It is the great praise of the Collects that they seem to have been framed upon the precept of our Blessed Lord" (against "vain repetitions "), "and upon the model which He proposed; and most candid judges will be of opinion that they approximate more closely to this model than any other prayers framed, as these are, by uninspired "Observe how no single word in them is superfluous, how each contributes its quota of meaning to the general effect, how the ideas of a single Collect might be expanded into a prayer of considerable length. These prayers are like those small fragments of gold, which lie about in the goldbeater's laboratory. They are but grains in size; yet they admit of being beaten out so as to cover a large surface of religious thought." The Collect for the Epiphany is analysed as an illustration of this feature of terseness; and it is shown how there is in it "the outline of a long and profitable discourse upon that text, 'Now we see through a glass darkly,' etc. But the outline is compressed into the smallest possible compass, the compass of a prayer, which may be written in three lines, and recited in less than sixty seconds. And exactly the same terseness and comprehensiveness of meaning is found in other Collects" (Sixth Edition, Part II. chap. ii. pp. 79, 80, 82, 83). I must request that this chapter in an earlier work may be regarded as supplying what is certainly 2 defect in this.

men.