Day the first words uttered by the priest are, "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord" (St. Luke ii. 10, 11); for Easter the Sentence is, "He is risen. The Lord is risen indeed" (St. Mark xvi. 6; St. Luke xxiv. 34); for Good Friday, "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me" (Lam. i. 12); for Ascension, "Seeing that we have a great High Priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews iv. 14, 16). These examples may suffice to show, in a general way, how this new feature presents itself in the American Prayer Book.* * Of more questionable merit is the permissive rubric in the American Prayer Book: "On any day when the Holy Communion is immediately to follow, the Minister may, at his discretion, pass at once from the Sentences to the Lord's Prayer, first pronouncing, The Lord be with you. Answer. And with thy spirit. Minister. Let us pray." When this permission is acted upon, it is true we have the beginning of Matins brought back almost exactly to the form of Matins in the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. But when we go still further back to the office for Prime in the Sarum Breviary, which contributed several features to our Morning Prayer, we find that Edward's first Book had failed to reproduce the element of the Confiteor, Misereatur, and Absolutio; and we may well believe that, quite apart from the supposed influence of the foreign Reformers, a recognition of the deficiency suggested the restoration of a Confession and Absolution in Edward's second Book, although both the language of the forms employed and the position assigned to them in the service were novel. The exhortations and addresses to the people to be found in the Order for the Holy Communion are excellent examples of simple, direct, and vigorous prose. And the original prayers of the same service, dating from the sixteenth century, are marked by a dignity and tender grace that place them among the most precious of the Church's possessions. IT CHAPTER XIX. ARCHAISMS AND OBSOLETE WORDS. can hardly be questioned that the fact of the smallness of the number of words in the Prayer Book that have become obsolete (in the sense of being unintelligible or misleading) is largely due to the constant public use of the forms therein contained. The same remark applies to the language of the Authorised Version of the Bible, and its justice is confirmed by the very considerable proportion of obsolete words that we find in the chapter-headings and marginal readings, which were not customarily read aloud.* There are certainly a very large number of words and phrases in the Prayer Book (including the Psalter) that no longer have currency in literature or the language of daily converse, but the great majority * Thousands of habitual and well-instructed Bible-readers are unaware that the word "whirlpool," meaning a large fish or other large sea-animal, appears at Job xli. 1 (margin); that the provincialism (still used in Scotland) of "chesting" (for putting into a coffin) may be found in the chapter-heading of the fiftieth chapter of Genesis, where we read that Joseph "dieth and is chested," or, that "monarchy" (2 Kings xv. 1, margin) is used of Jeroboam's sole rule as distinguished from his partnership in the kingdom with his father. This last example, it may be added, appears for the first time, according to Dr. W. Aldis Wright, towards the close of the seventeenth century. of these are perfectly intelligible. The admirable and delightful Bible Word-Book of Dr. W. "Aldis Wright and the no less entertaining Bible English of Mr. T. L. O. Davies should be in the hands of all students of the Prayer Book; and to them the reader may be referred for detailed proofs of what appears in brief in the following pages. The slight change in form serves no more as an effective disguise of the meaning than the variations of fashion in dress prevent the recognition of familiar features. Some of the words have a quaint air about them, but we make no doubt as to their sense. None needs to be informed that an "inhabiter" is an "inhabitant," that "ensample" is "example," that "estate" is "state," that "domination" is "dominion," that "governance" is only antique for "government," "alway" for "always," "many one" for "many a one," and so forth. Similarly, the inflection of verbs and the construction of sentences are often such as have passed out of ordinary use; but it is highly exceptional when any obscurity as to sense is caused by the retention of the old forms. Even in the case of words which have certainly shifted in sense, the context is frequently such as to make the meaning plain. There is no one, probably, who could hesitate as to the sense of "how amiable are thy dwellings." Nor will what is intended by "a moth fretting a garment" cause any perplexity. There are, however, a few words that are, it is to be feared, positively misleading to the uninstructed, and of these, one or two, which even persons generally well informed are likely enough to take in a wrong sense. Thus, when the minister declares, in the service for the Public Baptism of Infants, that God "favourably alloweth this charitable work of ours in bringing this infant to his holy baptism," it is not only poor and ignorant people who understand this as an assertion only of God's permitting infant baptism, while in truth it is much more than this, being an assertion of His commendation. The word, as here used, is from the Latin allaudare, "to praise." In the Psalter, "The Lord alloweth the righteous (xi. 6) may puzzle us; but in the passage in the Service for Baptism "alloweth now conveys a sense too weak-it misleads. Illustrations of this use of allow may be found in the Authorised Version of the Bible at Rom. xiv. 22: 66 Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth," where the Revised Version reads “approveth"; and at I Thess. ii. 4: "But as we were allowed of God," etc., where the Revised Version reads "approved." * "Prevent," because, I suppose, it occurs in some very familiar prayers, is more generally understood. It puzzles and suggests inquiry; yet there must be thousands of our less-instructed people who take the word in a wrong sense. Lover of old English as I am, I feel that there are higher claims than those of the linguistic and literary antiquarian. And I am convinced that it would be a plain duty, when an opportunity occurs, to make the necessary changes in the Collect, "Prevent us, O Lord," and in the Collect for Easter, as well as in the Psalms (xviii. 18, * Compare also Luke xi. 48; Acts xxiv. 15; and Rom. vii. 15. Р |