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Meaning popularly attached to " Rosaries.”

V. "By encouraging the use of rosaries and crucifixes."

I very much regret that which also the devotions to this statement was made the Blessed Virgin predowithout explanation, because minated over those to God, the idea which persons ordi- as we hear of "1505 Avenarily attach to "rosaries" Marias and 15 Paters;" and is, probably, mumbling over Shakespeare so speaks, "to carelessly certain formal number Ave-Maries on his prayers, without much mind- beades 6.” ing how they are said, so I need not say to your that a certain number are Lordship, that the devotions said; and "crucifixes are which I recommended were thought of only as objects of nothing of this sort, and worship. Tyndall complains that such devotions were of those who "patter [i.e. excluded. My object in the say Pater Nosters] all day devotions which I edited in with lips only, that which the Paradise, was wholly of the heart understandeth a different kind. Every one not." "How blinde are who has experienced great they which think prayers to weakness, (such as illness, be the pattering of many or long fever, or sleeplesswordes." Beads and rosa-ness will produce,) or when ries are also in their minds suffering under distractions, connected with devotions to or in walking, will know the Blessed Virgin; as Fox how much easier it is to say speaks of "the rosarie of the same prayers over again Ladie's Psalter," in and again, than different

our

4 Fox, Acts, p. 667.

5 Brevint, Saul and Samuel, c. 8. 6 Mr. Dodsworth, of course, did not intend to convey any impression of this sort. He doubtless, simply meant the devotions in the Paradise, and forgot that his words, unexplained, might, even naturally, be understood of the devotions which usually, although not always, form part of the Rosary in the Roman Church. Those in the "Rosarium, SS. Trinitatis a præclaris Theologis usitatum et commendatum," in the Paradisus P. 1, are exclusively addressed to the Holy Trinity.

To repeat a prayer often helps devotion.

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prayers. The fewer words their inmost souls, the last or thoughts, the better suited time that they said it. Would for those in weakness or that all our peasantry said suffering. Even a complex the Lord's Prayer many thought, or two thoughts times in the day! There occurring in the same sen- would be much less of sin, tence, or two images of God's and much more of devotion nearness in trouble (as in to God and their Saviour. Is. xliii. 2), are too much at "We instruct," say our once for a weakened brain. ecclesiastical laws under It is a rule as to those in King Canute, "that every sickness, that prayers should Christian man learn so that contain as much as possible he may at least be able to in as few words as possible. understand aright orthodox The Name of JESUS itself, faith, and to learn the Pateroften repeated, is a volume noster and Creed: because of prayer. But it is a relief with the one, every Christian also to the mind to have man shall pray to God, and some measure of its devo- with the other, manifest ortion. Most use this in health. thodox faith. Christ HimThey pray, as it may be, in self first sang Pater-noster, the morning for half an hour, and taught that prayer to or for some definite time, His disciples. And in that longer or shorter. They do Divine prayer there are seven not leave this to chance or prayers. Therewith, who to the devotion of the mo- inwardly sings it, he ever ment. If they do, they sends to God Himself a mesmostly pray less. They sage regarding every need a have, more or less, a rule man may have, either for this for their devotion. This life, or for that to come. was, I suppose, the origin But how, then, can any man of the repetition of the ever inwardly pray to God, Lord's Prayer. It was the unless he have inward true poor man's only prayer. love for, and right belief in, And so he said it again and God?" The Lord's Prayer again, and those who have is the Prayer Book of those said it earnestly again and who cannot read or rememagain, have found that they ber prayers which man has said it most deeply, and from written. It contains, as the

7 In Thorpe's Ancient Laws, i. p. 373,

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80 The Lord's Prayer conveys to God every need of man. Bishops under King Canute joyous or plaintive, or flow so beautifully said, a mes- forth stilly and equably. It sage to God regarding every may run through the whole need a man may have, either compass of human feeling. for this life or for that to The petitions for the hallowcome." It may be made to ing of God's Name, the bear on the Mysteries of the Coming of His kingdom, Passion, by being said in the doing of His will, supply thought of them, and pray- of our needs, forgiveness for ing by virtue of them. It failures, strength propormay be a prayer for Holy tioned to our trial, deliverCommunion, or for our daily ance from evil in every cirfood; for personal confor- cumstance of man's long mity to the will of God, in shifting being, express the every accident of life, or for one universal cry of the grace and strength to per- rational creature to the form it; for deliverance from Creator, of the redeemed to temptation, or for persever- the Redeemer. He Who ance to the end, and final prepares the heart, and His deliverance from evil and ear hearkeneth thereto, Who the Evil one; for the well-knoweth our needs before being of the Church, or for we ask Him, Whose Ear is the conversion of the Hea- to our secret heart more then. The different para- than to our voice, will well phrases of it, such as Bishop discern the meaning of our Wilson's or St. Augustine's, longings, as they ascend to draw only single draughts Him in that His Divine of living water out of its prayer. He Who heareth deep well. Whatever long- the raven's one cry for all ing be in the mind, all the its wants, will not fail to words accord with it, and understand the heart's voice, express it more deeply than if it ask that what it longs for should be according to any other. His Will.

In all and each, the soul speaks to the Father in the Son's own words; and how, says St. Cyprian, should it be sooner heard?

This main, earnest, longing of the heart becomes, as it were, the key note to the whole prayer. As is the key note, so will be the whole harmony. The melody made to God will be the same; but it may be mechanical in saying the

There is nothing more

To repeat the same prayer part of human nature. 81 Lord's Prayer seven times Again, human poetry, it consecutively, than in say- may well be supposed, aping it seven times in the peals to fixed principles of course of the public Service. human feelings, which it They who have said it most calls out. Yet in every devotionally would most sort of human poetry, which miss it, the seventh or the aims at encouraging, rouseighth time. The mental ing, kindling man's energy, application of the Lord's or which appeals to his tenPrayer may be as varied as derer feelings, war-songs, our wants. Our Lord Him-boat-songs, ballads, political self taught us, by His own (such as the Jacobite) songs, Example, in that most bit- (I need not mention more), ter hour of His Agony for no more forcible way, is us, that, in trouble which found, than to repeat as the overwhelms the soul, we" burden" of the song some need not look about for few simple, pathetic, or enmany words in which to ergetic words. Yet this tell our Heavenly Father our very poetry (it is the more sufferings and our needs. to be observed) is intended "He left them, and went to act mainly upon minds away again, and prayed the of the very same class, the third time, saying the same simple and uninstructed. words." Some of us may still recollect the effect of some such tender cadence on our boyish or youthful hearts.

Or if, again, one may on such a subject refer to the simplicity of childhood, since our Lord sets it forth to us Again, how, in the Psalms, as a pattern, they, when which have always been so they would plead most large a part of the prayers earnestly with their parents, of the Church, is the same repeat the same words. It thought expressed, accordis not then, at least, arti- ing to the very structure of ficial to do so. We have the verse, in the two diviall felt how touching, or sions of it, on the very how hard to refuse, the sim- ground that the petition ple earnestness was, which becomes more earnest by used no argument, save that being repeated. It is the of love, and the anxious re- very structure of devotion, petition of its wish in the as used by sacred poets same simple words. speaking as they

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82 The same thoughts and words repeated in the Psalms

moved by the Holy Ghost." substance of the thought is It is used alike in joy and the same.

in sorrow, in penitence and And this, we may obthanksgiving, in earnest ap- serve, is especially the chapeals to God, or in over-racter of the very deepest flowing gladness. It is this Psalms, if one may so speak, very principle, which gives Psalms which touch or stir the deep pathos to the struc- the very deepest depths of ture of the Psalms. At our hearts. Such are, e. g. times, the words are the the penitential Psalms; the very same; more commonly rhythm of which is often, the thought is varied slightly in this very respect, much in words, so as to give va- more striking in the Heriety to the mind, yet the brew :—

"Do not in Thine anger rebuke me,

And not in Thy wrath chasten me;

Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for weak am I;
Heal me,
O Lord, for troubled are my bones."

Or in Psalm xxxviii. :

"For Thine arrows sink down in me,

And thine Hand sinketh down upon me.

my sin.

No health in my flesh from the presence of Thy wrath;
No soundness in my bones from the presence of
For my wickednesses are gone over my head
Like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me."

It would be to transcribe if some word were slightly the Psalter to give in- altered. But perhaps, it stances. So extensive is might be true to say, that this principle of what is this repetition of the thought called "Hebrew parallel- is most close when the deepism," that critics who allow est feelings are uttered, whethemselves liberties as to ther of sorrow, suffering, or the sacred text, have not of peace. It occurs alike

unfrequently proposed to in Ps. vi. xxii. xxiii. xxv. alter it, when the two lxxxviii. lxxxxix. xcii. xcvi., members of the sentence in the deep penitence of do not seem to express the Ps. li., the trusting oversame thought, but would, whelmed sorrow of Ps. cii.,

8 Lowth gives instances under the head "Synonymous Parallelism." Prelim. Diss. to Isaiah, p. xv. sqq.