and should not always be on the Altar; and still less should they

be of one piece with it.

32. Nails, etc., should not be driven for purposes of decoration. Provision should be made for this in building. The same can be said of wardrobes, hatracks and the like.

Reading, Pa.

EDWARD T. HORN.

THE BIDDING PRAYER, LITANY, AND SUFFRAGES.

THE historical continuity of the Church of the Augsburg Confession with the Evangelical Christianity of the ages has long been one of her boasts. Her right to this distinction was obtained through the conservative principle which governed the Lutheran Reformers, i. e., Things which are not forbidden by God's Word and which serve as aids to devotion and life shall not be rejected.* The proof of the justice of our claim to an unbroken stream of Christianity is seen not alone in the doctrines of our Church but as well in her life as expressed in practice, worship and environment.

How the Order of Common Service now recommended to our Churches in America and used so largely by them supports the contentions of the preceding statements has been discussed in some of the papers which form part of the Association's MEM

OIRS.

We purpose to take up another phase of the subject in the following discussion, viz., "The Responsive Church Prayers." Of these our Liturgy possesses great ancient treasures in the Litany, the General Suffrages, the Morning and Evening Suf frages, and the Bidding Prayer.†

Here again the Lutheran Church demonstrates her ecumen ical Character. The Litany in its specific form is an early prod uct of the Western Church; her Canonical Hours furnish the material for the Suffrages; while the Eastern Church, from a still earlier and primitive age, supplies the Diaconal Prayer.

Aug. Conf. Art. VII and XV.

+ Church Book, pp. 132-149; Book of Worship, (G. S.) pp. 165-206; Book of Worship, (U. S. S.) pp. 94-107. (cxxi)

The question arises whether our pastors know sufficient of the history and sources of these prayers, or have studied their inner harmony, beauty and power closely enough to have a desire or an ability to recommend and encourage their use in the public Services of our Churches. To know and use these Common Prayers wherein pastor and people unite antiphonally in supplication before the Throne of Grace, cannot but impress upon the people the reality of the common Christian life, and infuse the spirit of largehearted Christian consciousness and sympathy. emphasizes also the evangelical priesthood of all believers in a way that a long, unbroken, personally extemporized string of petitions on the part of the pastor can never do. It helps to keep uppermost in the minds of the members the fact that they are praying; and gives a personal touch and sense of participation otherwise unobtainable. As our people take part in the other divisions of the Service by their responses, so also in these

prayers.

It

We take them up in what is, roughly speaking, their chronological order.

I. THE BIDDING, OR DIACONAL PRAYER.

The immediate source of the Bidding Prayer in our own Liturgy is the Schwäbisch-Hall KO (1526). From Horn's' Liturgics, we infer that a large number of similar formularies of an admonitory character exist in Lutheran Liturgies. We were, however, unable to procure a copy of Höfling's Urkundenbuch for a comparative study of these forms. Löhet has the heading, "The Bidding or Diaconal Prayers of the Lutheran Church." He also calls it a "Union of Exhortation and Prayer." After treating of the ancient prayers of this character, he continues, "A beautiful, quickening and not altogether dissimilar form has found its way into many Lutheran Liturgies." He proceeds to

give two forms: one especially adapted for use on Good Friday (a form "used for many years in Neuendettelsau") and the other "for the Lord's Day." The former parallels our own Bidding Prayer up to the fifth Collect, the Collect "for all in authority" preceding that "for our catechumens." Löhe's form then contains an Exhortation to pray for schismatics, the Collect being the one numbered nineteen in our collection.† The next Exhortation deals with the Jews with the use of Collect twenty-three; and the following admonition mentions the heathen,* using Collect twenty-four with some slight variations. The rubric in our book calls attention to these Collects but gives no bidding form for the several estates of men mentioned. Throughout the prayer the bidding sections are delegated to the deacon, then the minister says, "Let us pray;" the deacon, "Let us humbly kneel;" and then the minister offers the prayer, the people responding "Amen." The direction, however, is that no exhortation to kneel be given before the Collect for the Jews. Whether the people stood during the reading of each exhortation and knelt for each Collect we have no means of knowing. Perhaps the "Let us humbly kneel" was more a spiritual than a physical direction. The final exhortation is given by the minister as follows: "Finally let us pray for all those things for which our Lord would have us ask, saying: 'Our Father,' etc." In the second form: "For the Lord's Day" both exhortation and Collect are taken by the minister. There is also an introductory exhortation. The order is as follows: (a) For the whole Church; (b) for governments; (c) for deliverance from error, etc.; (d) for peace; (e) for enemies; (f) for all in perils of child-birth; (g) for the fruits of the earth; (h) the Lord's Prayer.

From this we can see that the form now printed in our Liturgy is a combination of these two, one Collect being omitted.

* Liturgy, transl. by LONGAKER,

+ Ch. Bk. p. 114, p. 115 and p. 116.

This Collect is said standing.

But our contention has been that our Church had preserved in its Bidding Prayer an ancient, eastern form of prayer and this must be substantiated.

A study of the ancient Liturgies shows us that the beginnings of this form of prayer are found in the earliest orders of public worship. It was the custom in the Early Church that the deacons should be "monitors and directors to the people in the exercise of their public devotions in the Church.”’* To accomplish this they had certain set phrases which they used to announce the different parts of the Service, to notify the various orders of worshippers when to take their part in the Service, and to call upon each order to pray, directing the burden of their prayers. This custom it has seemed to me, although I have no authority to quote, must have been necessitated by the lack of printed forms by means of which the people could follow the Service. Successive deliveries of the call to prayer were addressed to a) the catechumens, b) the energumens, c) the baptized, d) the penitents, and e) the faithful, and were styled duá προσφονέσεις (bidding prayers).

After each class had been thus exhorted to prayer and guided in devotion, it was dismissed. The order for the catechumens will serve as an example:†

Deacon. "Pray ye catechumens." "Let all the faithful pray for them saying, 'Lord have mercy upon them.'" The deacon then directs the prayers of the faithful in a series of thirteen or fourteen suggested petitions. To each of these the people, and particularly the children respond as above. The deacon then bids the catechumens arise and bids them to offer several petitions for themselves. To these also the response is "Lord have mercy upon them." Then the deacon bids them bow for the bishop's benediction which is a prayer summing up briefly, though not specifically, the petitions concerning which the above * BINGHAM, Antiquities of the Christian Church.

Apos. Const. Bk. VIII.