Price, $1.00.
It is pleasing to see a mind which has been long given to the duties of a severe profession, turning thus for relief and diversion into the brighter field of theological literature. Mr. Gifford has already gained a distinction in New Jersey by several legal works, which have had the patronage of our Legislature, and now we have another volume from his pen, intended, as it were, for a dutiful offering to his Church.
The design of the work is to unfold and illustrate the more profound and unapparent excellencies of that most elaborate of all productions, the Episcopal Liturgy. Although there may be a difference of opinion as to the utility of this manual of devotional formularies, yet no one can fail to admire it as an æsthetical composition. The manner in which it has been arranged and ordered is most strikingly beautiful. It is a frame filled with moveable pieces. On no two occasions of its use does it appear exactly alike, but constantly assumes new combinations with the progressive sentiment of the ecclesiastical year. These ever changing portions within this unalterable framework are wholly of a Scriptural character. For every Sunday, two chapters are selected from the Old Testament, and two from the New, called the “Lessons;” and two brief passages, chosen for their weighty and emphatic import, called the “Epistle” and the “Gospel,” are appropriately prefixed by a comprehensive and leading prayer, whose substance has been gathered out of them, called the “Collect.” But this is not merely a superficial arrangement: an aim and a principle underlies it all. Every Sunday and Holy-day has an especial subject assigned to it, either doctrinal or preceptive, which runs through and dictates all these variations of the Service. Thus in every week the Scriptures are made, by these manifold citations from them, to cluster around some central thought and flash their light upon it.
It is this which has furnished the design of Mr. Gifford’s book. The Prayer-Book has had many commentators, all of whom have alluded to the nearly-inspired wisdom of those who put it together. The further they penetrate it the more they seem to discover the long-forgotten ideal and matured plan out of which it grew. The remarkable fact of an intentional unison of its apparently diverse parts, has only been partially observed, and it has been left to Mr. Gifford to discover and prove in every case the beautiful appositeness of all to one nucleus idea. This, under the heading of each Sunday, he distinctly sets forth, and then traces its radiations first through the Collect, then through the Epistle, then through the Gospel, then through all the Lessons, to its remoter scintillations in the Catechism and the Articles of Religion.
Such is the fine conception around which the above work has grown. The service of each Sunday is analyzed and outlined—all the information that could be compressed into a small space is given, and a rich variety of association instantly suggested to the devout worshipper. Probably no one could have been found better fitted for such a task than Mr. Gifford, and his cultivated taste and wide range of study have been now so successfully called into requisition that we find here the thoughts and beauties of many different writers blended about his own design in a many-hued mosaic.
It is at once a noble eulogy upon the Liturgy, and a practical standard guide to its use. In this latter, its real purpose, it most admirably succeeds. The moral or spirit of each day being fully set forth, the attention is sustained and devotion quickened by the new colors and the defined interest thus thrown over the Service as it proceeds. A Liturgy is liable to abuse if people may go blindly and desultorily through it, but here the clue of every recurring service is seized and industriously pursued for them. One prominent topic is seen to draw its line of light round all its parts, and bind them together as with a girdle of gold.
We have been glad to devote more than usual space to the notice of this work, because it is the production of one of our townsmen. A few specimen pages appeared about a year ago, which received the approbation of many of the most distinguished men in the Episcopal Church, and the author, thus encouraged, has put forth the present handsome volume, designing to follow it by another, thus completing the circle of the year.
Newark Daily Advertiser
The work will do good in two ways: first, by furnishing valuable practical matter for private reading and instruction; and secondly, by dissipating the mist which some writers have conjured up, in their efforts to show that the Prayer Book was a piece of patch-work, with an Arminian or a Popish Liturgy, and Calvinistic Articles; than which, no fancy could be more foolish or futile.
Calendar