by the healthy realism characteristic even of those corrupt forms of devotion which Cranmer and his colleagues had before them as working models in their task of reconstruction. Superstitious as many of the old formularies were, they could not be charged with indifference to things in the concrete. Hence we find throughout the Book of Common Prayer a careful avoidance of figurative speech, and a jealous clinging to what is substantive and real. An exception should be made with respect to such imagery as has the sanction of the Bible writers,-though even this is very sparingly employed; but of metaphors not Scriptural, there are, in the most ancient and best-beloved portions of the book, very few indeed. The Litany, which a justly honored and beloved Presbyterian divine, the late learned Dr. Shedd, once told me he regarded as the most wonderful compend of intercessory prayer to be found in the whole range of devotional literature, the Litany is devoid of figurative language altogether. It might seem, at first, as if this banishment of trope and figure, simile and metaphor, must involve a costly sacrifice of beauty,— but no, that does not follow. Massiveness has a beauty of its own. The interior of Durham Cathedral is severe, profoundly so; nothing could be further removed from those tremendous pillars and those solemn Norman arches than the airy grace of the churches which exemplify the deco

rated Gothic of a later period; and yet it never occurs to anybody to speak of Durham as lacking the element of beauty. It is a grave and serious beauty which reveals itself under that high vault, but it is beauty. A liturgy which is to live on, from generation to generation, must possess the sort of beauty which wears. What is fascinating upon occasion does not necessarily meet our everyday need. Eloquent prayers, tense with imaginative thought and vibrant, in a good sense, with poetic feeling, are, as a rule, eloquent only for once. Try to repeat them and they pall. The most marvelous burst of eloquence I ever listened to in my life was the extemporaneous prayer made by Phillips Brooks at the Harvard Commemoration in 1865. Even the splendors of Lowell's Ode paled, for the moment, in the presence of that flame. It was the very utterance for which the great occasion called. But it, or any adaptation or paraphrase of it, would be simply preposterous in a liturgy. You may reply that if this be so, its being so is the condemnation of liturgies. Yes, perhaps so, if the conditions which made that prayer possible could be counted upon to reproduce themselves every Sunday of the fifty-two that punctuate a year, and you were sure of having a poet-orator in every pulpit.

I spoke of majesty of speech as characterizing more particularly those portions of the Common Prayer in which we are invited to draw near to

God for purposes of adoration. I had especially in mind the usage which there obtains, of linking some attribute with the name of Deity in the opening sentence of every prayer, and thus imparting a certain sublimity to the very act of crossing the threshold of worship. "O God, who showest to them that are in error the light of Thy truth; " "O Almighty God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men;" "O God, who never failest to help and govern those whom Thou dost bring up in Thy steadfast fear and love;" "O God, who hast prepared for those who love Thee such good things as pass man's understanding,"-these are illustrations of what I mean. We shall all of us agree that there is a quiet dignity about this method of approaching the Most High in worship which, without argument, commends itself to a reverential mind. But not only in the prayers,-majesty is the distinguishing mark of the praises as well. The Te Deum is majestic: "We praise Thee, O God, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord." The Gloria in excelsis is majestic: "O Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us." The Ter sanctus is majestic: "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts, heaven and earth are full of Thy glory. Glory be to Thee, O Lord, Most High."

The other characteristic named was tender

ness.

The tone of the Prayer Book in its ap

proaches to the human soul is gentle, winning, compassionate. There is nothing anywhere between the covers that even remotely resembles gush. There is no shilly-shallying with the awful fact of sin. In the office for the visitation of the sick there is no suggestion that opiates are a good substitute for a quiet conscience, and in the office for the visitation of prisoners the words addressed to criminals under sentence of death are in refreshing contrast to the maudlin sentimentalism which, with a strange perversity, too often seeks to divert sympathy from the person wronged and to transfer it to the unrepentant doer of the wrong. For tenderness of this morbid type, the Prayer Book has no indulgence; but towards all who sorrow, and for all who "suffer according to the will of God," its tone is everywhere gentle, sympathetic, pitiful, compassionate. It not only asks that the merciful Lord will strengthen those who do stand, it pleads with Him to comfort the weak-hearted and to raise up those who fall; it remembers all who are in danger, necessity, and tribulation, all sick persons and young children, the prisoners and the captives, the fatherless and the widowed, and all who are desolate and oppressed. Simplicity, majesty, tenderness, yes, these are certainly the features that we should wish to see looking out upon us from a manual of worship, a book purporting to teach us how to pray.

Having discussed style, we pass next to the more difficult question of doctrine. What is the theology of the Book of Common Prayer? Pray observe that this is a matter quite apart from the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion. The Thirty-nine Articles bear an important doctrinal relation to the Church of England and to the American Episcopal Church; but we are not discussing these Churches, we are discussing the Prayer Book, and the Articles are no part of the Prayer Book, they make a book of themselves. The theology of the Prayer Book must be gathered from within its own covers. If we look there to find a system of theology thoroughly well bolted and riveted, we shall look in vain; but this is by no means an admission that the language of the formularies is that invertebrate and undogmatic thing which some would like to see it made. Far from it; for not only are the ancient creeds, in one or other of their authenticated forms, made a frequent feature of worship, the very prayers themselves are redolent of dogma. And yet it is rare indeed to hear anybody, except an extreme liberal, complain of the dogmatic feature of the Prayer Book worship as a grievance. And why? Simply because the dogma has been, if I may be allowed to coin a word, devotionalized. In liturgies, as elsewhere, much depends upon the way of putting things. By way of illustration, suppose we take some