These, with their phrases made
unspeakably precious with immemorial association, with their subtle
fitting of phrase to insight, of expression to need, born of long
centuries of experiment and aspiration, can do for a congregation what
no man alone can ever hope to accomplish. The well of human needs and
desires is so deep that, without these aids, we have not much to draw
with, no plummet wherewith to sound its dark and hidden depths.
I doubt if we can overestimate the importance of giving this sense of
continuity in petitions, of linking up the prayer of the moment and
the worship of the day with the whole ageless process so that it seems
a part of that volume of human life forever ascending unto the eternal
spirit, just as the gray plume of smoke from the sacrifice ever curled
upward morning by morning and night by night from the altar of the
temple under the blue Syrian sky. We cannot easily give this sense of
continuity, this prestige of antiquity, this resting back on a great
body of experience, unless we know and use the language and the
phrases of our fathers. It is to the God who hath been our dwelling
place in all generations, that we pray; to Him who in days of old
was a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night to His faithful
children; to the One who is the Ancient of Days, Infinite Watcher of
the sons of men.
Pages:
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241