hat is
to say, the men who Englished the Prayer Book, in seeking to meet
the devotional needs of the people of their own time do not seem
to have been at pains to tie themselves to the diction of a previous
generation. They dared to "call a spade a spade" whenever and
wherever the tool came into use, and they have their reward in the
permanence of their work. Sweetnesses and prettinesses they banished
altogether. Indeed, in those days it seems not to have occurred
to people that such things had anything to do with religion. It
was not that they did not know how to talk in the sweet way--never
has sentimentalism been more rife in general literature than then,
but they would not talk in that way; the stern traditions of Holy
Church throughout all the world forbade. Religion was a most
serious thing to their minds, and they would speak of it most
seriously or not at all.

Never since language began to be used have severity and tenderness
been more marvellously blended than in the older portions of the
English Prayer Book.

This effect is largely due to an almost entire abstention on the
part of the writers from figurative language, or at least from all
imagery that is not readily recognized as Scriptural. Bread and
beef are what men demand for a steady diet. Sweetmeats are well
enough, now and then, but only now and then.

It is the failure to observe this plain canon of style that has
made shipwreck of many an attempt to construct liturgies _de novo_.
Ambitious framers of forms of worship seem almost invariably to
forget that there may be such a thing as a too exquisite prayer,
an altogether too "eloquent address to the throne of grace." The
longest and fullest supplicatory portion of the Prayer Book, the
Litany, does not contain, from the first sentence to the last,[17]
one single figurative expression, it is literally plain English
from beginning to end; but could language be framed more intense,
more satisfying, more likely to endure?

Scriptural metaphor, whether because it comes to us with the stamp
of authority or on account of some subtle intrinsic excellence, it
may be difficult to say, does not pall upon the taste. And yet even
this is used sparingly in the Prayer Book, some of the most striking
exceptions to the general rule being afforded by the collects for
the first and third Sundays in Advent, the collects for the Epiphany
and Easter Even, and the opening prayer in the Baptismal Office. All
these are