PRAYER BEADS 



PKKA( IlINO 



all consecration*, ordinations, nml synods the form 

 in the r'n_ r li-li prayer Ixmk is required in In- used. 

 The Scottish Communion otlice is Imsed mi tlie 

 corresponding service in Laud's prayer-book, hut 

 many im|>ortant changes have l>een made. Among 

 the most noteworthy are (1) the bWMMNltioM of 



the place of the prayer of consecratii i relation 



to tlie prayer for ' the whole state of Christ's 

 rhurrh;' (i!) the omission of the wonlti ' militant 

 here in earth;' (3) the alteration in the order of 

 the parti* of the prayer nf con-ci-ration, so that it 

 runs, (a) wonls of 'institution, (A) ohlation, (c) 

 invocation; (4) the Riilistitution, in the invoca- 

 tion, of the words, 'that they may become the 

 l*xly and blood, ' &C-, for ' that they may be unto 

 n- the body,' &c. This last change is for ite 

 abruptness without parallel or precedent. 



For the materials from which the prayer-book has been 

 mainly constructed, consult Maskell's Mimumeitta Itilunlia 

 Eeciesia- Anglican* (2d ed. 1882), and The Ancient 

 Uturyy of the Chunk of Ktuiland (3d ed. 1882) ; Miiuult 

 ad uwm Sarum ( BnrntuUnd ed. 1861 ->7 ) ; Breriarinm 

 ad tiram Santm, edited by F. Procter and C. Wordsworth 

 (1879-86); Brrriarium Romaaum Quiynonianum, edited 

 by J. \V. IA-IK (1888). Tbe successive changes made in 

 the English Prayer-book and the Scottish Prayer-book 

 (1637) are admirably exhibited in parallel columns in 

 Reeling's Lituryia Britannia* (2ded. 1S51); they may 

 also be studied in J. Parker's The Firit Prayer-bimk of 

 Edrard VI., compared with the succesritt Rcrifion* of 

 the Boot of Common Prayer ( 1877 ). For the history of 

 the prayer-book and a commentary on its contents, see 

 Procter s History nf the Book of Common Prayer, with a 

 Rationale of iti Offices (18th ed. 1889); J. ft. Blunt's 

 Annotated Snot of Common Prayer (revised ed. 1884); 

 Carrlwell's History of Conference* . . . connected with the 

 Revision of the Book of Common Prayer (2d ed. 1841). 

 Parker's introduction to the History of the successive 

 Revision* of the Book of Common Prayer ( 1877 ) is in- 

 valuable. Cranmer's attempts at a revision of the 

 Breviary is exhibited in Edward VI. and the Book of 

 Common Prnyrr (1890), by F. A. Uasquet and K. 

 Bishop, iliich curious information on the mediajval 

 liturgies of England, more particularly that of York, 

 will be found in the Lay Folk's ifau Bonk, edited for 

 the Early English Text Society by T. F. Simmons 

 (1879). Among commentaries on particular parts of 

 the prayer-book, Scndamore's Jfotitia Eueharistica (2d 

 ed. 1876) and Bulley's Variation* in the Communion and 

 Baptismal Office* ( 1842 ) are of much value. The Fac- 

 simile of the oriiiinai Manuscript of the Book of Common 

 Prayer attached to the Act of Uniformity, ISGt, was pro- 

 duced in photo-lithograph in 1890. On the history of 

 the Scottish and American Communion Offices, see the 

 writer's Annotated Scottish Communion Office, At. (1884), 

 and the Historical Sketch appended to Professor s. 

 Hart's edition of tieabury's Communion Office (1874). 



Prayer Beads, a name given to the polished 

 seeds of a West Indian leguminous plant, Abrus 

 precatoriwt or Wild Liquorice, formerly much used 

 for stringing into rosaries, necklaces, &c. 



Praying Wheel, an instrument for offering 

 prayers by mechanical means, used exclusively by 

 the Latnaist Buddhists, on the assumption that 

 the efficacy of prayer consists in the multiplicity 

 nf its repetition. These instruments are of various 

 sha|>es and sixes, from small cylinders turned by 

 the hand to huge ones driven by water or wind. 

 I-ong strips of pa|>r with a written or printed for- 

 mula, which translated reads 'The Jewel in the 

 Lotus, Amen,' repeated hundreds or even thou- 

 sands of times, are wrapped round these cylinders, 

 and as the cylinders revolve the paper rolls uncoil, 

 and so the prayer is said. 



Preaching, or systematic instruction in re- 

 ligion given by word of mouth, has been almost 

 from thi! lieginninc of the Christian church the 

 principal means of disseminating its doctrines, and 

 already its application to the poor is given by our 

 Lord himself as one of the significant signs of the 



new economy. It is thus distinctively Christian, 

 although it is true that it traces its ancestry to 

 part of tlie function of the ancient Israelitish pro- 

 phets, who were instructors of the people as to 

 their duties in the present, as well as foretellers of 

 tlie future. The teaching of Christ himself, so far 

 as recorded, mostly took the form of the parable, 

 and throughout we Im.l its characteristic marks 

 to lie simplicity and variety, some common fad in 

 nature or human experience being taken as the 

 basis of the sermon, and spiritualised in a free and 

 natural manner. But, as Vinetsays, .Ions himself 

 instituted little, though he inspired much. The dis- 

 courses given in the Acts also differ widely from 

 modern sermons, their main object lieing to bring the 

 person and history of Christ plainly before their 

 hearers. The facts of His life, death, and resurrec- 

 tion are everywhere put forward as the root* of 

 Christian faith and practice, and doctrine is ever in- 

 terpreted without complexity, as practically con- 

 nected with Mis person. .Ins-tin Martyr (A p. mnj. 

 chap. 67) and Tertullian (Apol. chap. 39) describe 

 the exhortations that followed the reading of Scrip- 

 ture in their time ; but Origen was the earliest 

 preacher in the modern sense of the word, although 

 lie employed largely the allegorical method of inter- 

 preting Scripture, happily now almost extinct. In 

 the early church the bishop was long responsible 

 for the preaching, although presbyters and deacons 

 came to be employee!, as Origen was before his 

 ordination, and Constantino frequently. Monks 

 were not allowed to preach until the special preach- 

 ing-orders were organised in the middle ages, nor yet 

 women, although the Montanist heretics permitted 

 them. Sermons were usually delivered on Sundays, 

 as part of the regular religious service, and appro- 

 bation was expressed by stamping of feet and clap- 

 Sing of hands, a practice which ChiyMWtOBB con- 

 emned. After the 9th century preaching appears 

 to have declined, and indeed it never seems to have 

 flourished much at Rome. The meduvval sermon 

 gradually took the form of a short address after 

 mass ; but, with the rise of the Franciscan and 

 Dominican orders, we find a great revival of preach- 

 ing, in form popular, racy, the anecdotes told and 

 spiritualised perforce ( Exempla ) often anything but 

 edifying in themselves. Among the most famous 

 of the mediaeval preachers were Antony of Padua, 

 Bernard of Clairvanx, Bonaventura, Berthold 

 the Franciscan of Regensburg, John of Monte 

 Corvino, Savonarola, John Tauler of Strasburg, 

 and Francis Coster (1531-1619). The Reformers 

 were preachers to a man, and the swift progress of 

 the new doctrines was in great measure due to the 

 power with which they were given forth from the 

 pulpit. As sacramentarianism lost hold of men's 

 consciences, the higher appeared the value of the 

 new met hod of learning oy what means to draw 

 near to God. Wyclif and his 1'oor Priests, and 

 after him the Lollards, established an evangelical 

 tradition of the supremacy of the pulpit as a means 

 of urace, which we find at its greatest strength in 

 Puritanism. Seventeenth-century preaching was 

 very scriptural, and put prominent in the fore- 

 ground the cardinal evangelical facts of the fall of 

 man, the doom of sin, the redemption of Christ, 

 the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. Its 

 strength lay in the reality and vigour with which 

 it realised these truths ; its weakness was a tend- 

 ency to be over-alwtract, and to become theo- 

 logical rather than religions. In the unspirilual 

 barrenness of the 18th century preaching became 

 mainly ethical and apologetic preaching about 

 Christianity rather than preaching Christ ; but, as 

 Dr Johnson says, men at last got tired of hearing 

 the apostles tried once a week for the crime ol 

 forgery, and turned for relief to listen to the earnest 

 direct harangues of a Wesley and a Whitelicld. 



