Baptism and Holy Communion . . . . . . . . 58

CHAPTER VII. PRAISE III.

  Hymns in the Daily Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
  The Day Hour Hymns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . —
  The Canticles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
  Map of the Lessons and their Canticles . . . . . . . . . 64

CHAPTER VIII. PRAISE IV.

  Te Deum Laudamus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
  The Latin original. Its three stanzas . . . . . . . . . . 66
  Notes on the words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
  Note on the Doxology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

CHAPTER IX. PRAISE V.

  The Canticles, continued . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
  Magnificat, Benedicite, Cantate Domino . . . . . . . . . . 77
  Canticles which follow the Second Lesson: . . . . . . . . 82
  Benedictus, Nunc dimittis, Jubilate Deo, Deus misereatur . 83

CHAPTER X. PRAISE VI.

  The Creeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
  The Apostles' Creed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
  Uses of Creeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
  History of the Apostles' Creed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
  Creeds in the Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
  Primitive Creeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
  Close of the Praise Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

CHAPTER XI.

  Reason, History, and Revelation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
  I. About God, a. What Reason has to say . . . . . . . . 101
                b. What the Bible Revelation has to say . 104
  II. About Jesus Christ, a. What the outside world said . 106
                          b. What the Bible says . . . . . 107
  III. About the Holy Ghost. What the Bible says . . . . . . 111

CHAPTER XII.

Excursus on The 'Athanasian' Creed . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

CHAPTER XIII.

  The Service of Prayer. I. Preces and Collects . . . . . . 127
  Worship-Forms in the Prayer Service . . . . . . . . . . . 128
  The Prayer Service Rubrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
  A. Preces, 132; B. Collects, 134; C. The other Prayers . . 142

CHAPTER XIV.

  The Service of Prayer. II. Anthems . . . . . . . . . . . 146
  a. Simple Anthems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
     Example. Advent setting of Venite . . . . . . . . . . —
  b. Compound Anthems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
     Example. The Easter Anthems in their original form . . —
  Praise and Prayer Anthems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
  Hymns as Anthems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

CHAPTER XV.

  The Service of Prayer. III. The Litany . . . . . . . . . 153
  Ancient Litanies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
  Rogation Litanies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
  Structure of the Litany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
    i. Our cry to Christ, 159. ii. Our cry to the Father, 170.
    iii. Appeal for help, 171. iv. Pressing anxieties of
    the moment, 172. v. Final Commendation of our
    prayers to Christ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Appendix C. Lessons in the Day Hours . . . . . . . . . . 173 Appendix D. Pliny's Letter to Trajan . . . . . . . . . . 174 Appendix E. The addition of Filioque . . . . . . . . . 176 Appendix F. Greek origin of Litanies . . . . . . . . . . 177 Tables of Dates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

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CHAPTER I.

EXTEMPORE WORSHIP AND FORMS OF WORSHIP.

There is no such special merit in monotony as to require that the worship of God should be conducted wholly in one method rather than in several. Rather it must be acknowledged that there is merit in variety if it be subjected to dignity and order. For a certain measure of variety arrests and engages the attention of the worshippers and sustains their interest.

VARIATIONS OF WORDS AND PHRASES. Much has been said from time to time concerning Extempore Prayers and Extempore Praise, as opposed to those which are more carefully prepared and agreed upon.

The discussion has been somewhat confused by the misuse of the word Extempore. Prior to the invention of Printing every one who had to conduct Services was required to know them by heart, so as to be able to say them without book. The fact that he used no book did not make the prayers extempore. In like manner one who is about to conduct the prayers of a Congregation may carefully prepare his subjects, phrases, and words, so as to avoid disorder in the subjects and unfitness in the words. His prayers in that case are not strictly extempore.

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If however he determines to leave the order of subjects and the choice of words and phrases to the impulse of the moment, his thoughts may travel too fast, or too slowly, or too irregularly for the essential result: for the blessing which Christ promised is to those who unite in worship. (S. Matth. xviii. 19, 20.)

When a few people gather together with the same difficulties, temptations, dangers, sins, successes, a truly extempore prayer may be made by one of them without creating any discord of desire amongst the rest: but as soon as the congregation begins to include men and women of different occupations, tempers, ideas, talents—if moreover the persons for whom intercessions should be made are widely scattered and very variously employed—it becomes necessary to supplement by careful preparation the impulses of any one who leads the worship of a congregation. There is also great advantage in choosing the best phrases for expressing and including the worship of all.

We cannot doubt that the earliest prayers of the Collect form had local colouring; but those which have survived for our use are so expressed as to include many local applications, and a very great variety of circumstances.

Further, it will be clear that an extempore prayer may be part of a form of Service, just as much as a printed prayer. If the Service is composed of, The short Prayer, a Lesson, the long Prayer, the Sermon and several Hymns at fixed, or unfixed, places, the Service is a form. The description of the Holy Communion in the time immediately after the death of S. John the Evangelist (Justin Martyr, Apology i. 65-67, {3} see p. 58) shows us a form which provided for the essentials of such a service, with prayers, praises, lessons, offertory, Consecration, Communion, in order, although he who conducted the Service had a certain amount of liberty in using parts of it.

We may assume then that forms are good, and that it is good to have preparation and order