_Prayers and Thanksgivings_.
The Maryland Committee[83] have much to say in criticism of this
section, and offer many valuable suggestions, the best of them being
a recommendation to print the Prayer entitled, "For Grace to speak
the Truth in Love," in Canon Bright's own words. Some of their
comments, on the other hand, suggest canons of criticism which,
if applied to "The Prayer Book as it is," would make havoc of its
choicest treasures.[84]
The Committee of Central New York[85] go much further in the line
of destructive criticism than their brethren of Maryland, and after
excepting four of the proposed prayers, condemn all the rest to
dismissal.
Possibly this is just judgment, but those who have searched
diligently the storehouses of devotional English, will think
twice before they consent to it. No doubt the phraseology of some
of the proposed prayers might be improved. In view of the searching
criticism to which for three years it has been exposed, it would
be strange indeed if such were not found to be the case. But the
collection as a whole, instead of suffering loss, ought to receive
increment. At least three or four more prayers for the work of
missions in its various aspects ought to be added, also a Prayer
for the furtherance of Christian Education in Schools and Colleges.
As Br. Dowden shrewdly asks, in speaking of spiritual needs which
we postpone expressing for lack of language sufficiently artistic
in form, "What is the measure of our faith in the efficacy of united
prayer, when we are content to go on, year after year, and never
come together to ask God to supply those needs?"[86]
There is one consideration connected with this supply of special
prayers too frequently lost out of sight. While it is perfectly
true that the Book of Common Prayer was never designed to be a
_Treasury of Devotion_ for individuals, it is equally true that
for thousands and hundreds of thousands of our fellow-countrymen
who live remote from "Church book-stores," or lack the means of
patronizing them, the Prayer Book is, as a matter of fact, their
only devotional help. In countless households, moreover, many of
them beyond "Protestant Episcopal" borders altogether, the Prayer
Book is doing a work only less beneficent than it might do, were we
to concede a very little more to that outwardly illogical but
spiritually self-consistent policy which, breaking away, a century
ago, from the chain of precedent, inserted in the American Book
"The Forms of Prayer to be used in Families."