Prayers to Order by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 12, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 43.

Prayers to Order.

By Editor

THE Archbishop of Canterbury has set forth some “prayers for the approaching election,” and has expressed a wish that they be used in his diocese. The Churchman commends them as excellent, “reverent and devout in spirit and in form, and perfectly appropriate to public use.” In this very adaptability, however, it finds a very valid objection to them, because they may be used with any political intention that the worshiper may cherish. “To the Conservative they will be a devout petition for the defeat of the Liberals. To the Liberal they will seem to ask for the success of his own party. Each will read into them his own party hopes and fears, and will employ them for the confusion of his adversaries.”

This is indeed a dilemma. It leads the Churchman to question whether such use of public prayer is desirable. We don’t wonder; yet we think it would hardly say that a national election in a great country like England is not worth praying about. If it is worth praying about, and if it is also necessary that people have their prayers ready made, we see no other course for the Archbishop to pursue than to write two prayers, one specially adapted to each party,—and then he cannot be accused of partiality, nor will it be necessary to make one prayer call for directly opposite things.

That is one way out, but we imagine that the Churchman would hardly think it an improvement on the first plan. Then the only alternative seems to be to allow each individual who wishes to pray to express just the desires of his heart. This is real prayer; and we are fully persuaded that the Lord will listen to such petitions, even though they be offered in uncouth language, just as readily as he will to the well-rounded, rhetorical sentences of an archbishop.