_Collects, Epistles, and Gospels_.
No department of liturgical revision calls for a nicer touch than
that which includes the Collects. That new collects for certain
unsupplied feasts and fasts would be a genuine enrichment of The
Book of Common Prayer, has long been generally acknowledged among
Anglican scholars. The most weighty fault to be found with the
collects added by the revisers is that in too large proportion
they are addressed to the second and third Persons of the Holy
Trinity. The Eucharist itself, as a whole, is properly conceived
of as addressed to the Eternal Father. The Collects, as forming
part of the Eucharistic Office, ought, strictly speaking, to be
also so addressed. It is true that there are exceptions to this
rule, and they are found, some of them, in the Prayer Book as it
is. But the revisers ought not to have altered the proportion so
markedly as they have done, for whereas in our present Book the
collects addressed to the Father are as eighty-three to three
compared with those not so addressed, the ratio in _The Book
Annexed_ is that of eleven to three.
Moreover, there would seem to be no good reason for reverting to
the usage of the First Book of Edward VI., which provides a second
Collect, Epistle, and Gospel for the two great feasts of Christmas
and Easter. A better way would be to take these additional collects,
which are among the most beautiful in the language, and assign them
respectively to the Sunday after Christmas, and the Monday in
Easter-week.