Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1892-12-11
THE NEW EPISCOPAL PRAYER
BOOK.

cisco the APPEAL is in possession of
the new Prayer Book of the Episco-
pal Church, as revised by its last con-
vention
The sight of prayer book with the
familiar autograph OF DR.. Spaulding
on the fly leaf calls back with a rush
of happy memorys the good old days
of college life at Racine, Wisconsin.
where the donor of the book worked
like Trojan for four years trying
to pump Latin and Greek into the
writer, with such Indifferent success
that he once remarked III our hear
ing. Zone might as well try to ir-
rigate the moon with a garden hose,
as to get the dead language into that
chap"
We shall never be able to forget
as long as we live the impression that
remark made on US. 1t impressed
US that DIR. Spaulding had more ma
tural sense than all the rest of the
faculty put together.
But speaking of the new prayer
book, it has many changes since those
days and most of them for the bet
ter. At that time we grew to re
gard the Book of Common Prayer,
which we almost knew by heart,
as something which, like the laws of
the Modes and Persians, or the
courses of the stars, as changeless.
But now we note many digressions
from the old familiar text, although
the changes are by no means radical,
and the addition Of many new
prayers in the occasional offices. The
new edition permits of much greater
f1exibility in the arrangements of the
services providing greater adaptability
for different occasions, This is a
great step for both Church and
Clergy and the latter will rejoice
that many of the rubrics are now
more optional than obligatory.
With all due respect to the learn
ed ami good people who compiled
the old original Episcopal prayer
book, there is no getting round the
fact that the old plan of services was
awfully long winded and tiresome
But the Hymnal most of all has been
immeasureably benefited by the
revision.
The old Hymnal was numbered up
with dead loads of canting, worthless
rhymes generally set to some dron-
ing monotone which, sawed out Of an
old wheezy melodian in white clap
board meeting house, full of yellow
headed wasps and the thermometer
at 1O2, were enough to make the
most devout minded worshiper curse
the memory of his ancestor for ever
having been born.
Many of these old hymns, most of
them in fact, were full of piety and
false metaphor, but they had no
noetry or sentiment and were as des-
titute of exalted thought and grace
of versifcation as a Mother Goose
melody, which they considerably re-
sembled.
In the new edition the best of the
cid Hymns are to be found; the grand
lines from Popes' Messiah beginning
with:
Rise crowned with light Imperial
Salam rise!
Exalt thy towering head, and lift
thine eyes" are retained.
And the sweet vesper hymn, we'd
ded to the saddles. minor music ever
written:
"Softly nov, the light of day,
"Fades upon my sight away. :"
Turning the pages, our eyes fall
upon verse which brings up like a
dream the interior of the college
chapel with its gothic windows of
stained glass, flooding the altar with
the last glows of the fading autumn
nal sunset, the long line of surpliced
choristers threading the dim aisle,
headed by DR.. DeKoven, and little
Ed. Larrabee perched at the organ,
a pale>faced, shrinking boy who,
though scarcely any account at foot
ball or cricket, plays the organ with
the touch and inspiration of an
angel as the golden throated choir
chants:
"Abide with me, fast falls the even
tide;
The darkness deepens, Lord with me
abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts
flee,