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* PRAYER. 351 PRAYER-BOOK. Prayer (New York, 1874) ; Romanes, Christian I'rutjcr uiid General Law (London, 1874). PRAYER, Week of. A season marked by special devotional meetings among Christians of many denominations throughout the world at the beginning of each new year. It originated in the Presb-terian mission of Lodiana, India, in 1858. Reports of the remarkable religious awakening in the United States the year before having reached India (see Revivals, Religiou.s), the members of this mission, at their annual meeting in November, issued an invitation for a universal eoncert of prayer, to be held yearly, beginning with the first week in January, 1800. The re- quest met with a hearty response, and the week of prayer has been regularly observed ever since. PRAYER-BOOK, Commox. The name com- monly given to the service-books used in public worship by the churches of the An- glican communion, designated on the title page as "■The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church." As the only official liturgical book of these churches, it thus contains in small compass all that was left by the reformers of what in the Roman Catholic Church is spread out into the missal, breviary, pontifical, and ritual. The purpose of the compilers was explicitly, in addi- tion to substituting English for Latin and re- moving all that they considered 'superstitious or ungodly' in the pre-Reformation books, to sim- plify and abridge the service so that the laity might take an intelligent part in it. The process began in the reign of Henry VIII.. but the earliest complete book was that published in 1549, and known as the first prayer-book of Edward VI. It was drawn up with great pru- dence, altering as little as possible what had been familiar to the people. This book was compiled by Cranmer and Ridley, assisted by eleven other divines, and revised by Convocation. The matins, lauds, and prime of the breviary were combined into the "order for morning prayer," while the evening prayer was made up from vespers and compline. The communion service was largely based on the old English missals, especially that of Salisbury, which had been the one most used. The ordination services were added in 1550. The influence of the more radical and especially the Continental reformers (such as Bueer and Peter JIartyr I was exerted in favor of a more thorough-going change, and a revised book, the second prayer-book of Edward VI., appeared in 1552, marking the furthest point of departure from the older ways, ilany of the ancient cere- monies which had been retained in the first book were now omitted: the surplice for priests and deacons, and the rochet for bishops, were pre- scribed as the authorized vestments, whereas it is to the standard of the first book that the rit- ualistic party in modern times appeals for sanc- tion (see Orx.^jiext.s Rubric. The) ; prayers for the dead were omitted, and the formula used in the communion of the people was made- to satisfy a Virtualist or even a Zwinglian view of the sacrament. (See Lord's Supper.) In 1.559. how- ever, under Elizabeth, who had little sympatliy with the extreme and aggressive reformers, such changes as were made were in the nature of a return to the first book; and some further changes made by James I. in 1604, after the Hampton Court Conference, had a not dissimilar bearing. After the use of the prayer-book had been absolutely prohibited by law under the Com- monwealth, and restored with the monarchy, the question of revision came up once more, and was discussed in the lengthy sittings of the Savoy Conference; but such changes as were made in 1G62, when the English book practically assumed its final form, were not of a nature to conciliate the defeated Puritans. An attempt to reopen the matter with this end in view was made in 1(589, after the Revolution, but nothing came of it except the report of a commission. In Scot- land the Episcopal Church uses the English book, with the exception of a permissive use, under certain circumstances, of a different com- munion office, based upon Laud's proposed book for Scotland. The disestablished Church of Ire- land made a thorough revision in 1878, in a more strongly Protestant sense than any other of the current books. The history of the American Book of Common Prayer has distinct and interesting' features of its own. When the separate Episcopal Church in the United States was organized, a book was compiled in 1783. now known as 'the Proposed Book,' which had only a qualified and informal acceptance. The changes of this book were too sweeping to commend themselves to the temper of that day, though several important ones were adopted at the recent revision. The book actually adopted by the General Convention of 1789 disclaims in its preface the intention of de])arting from the Church of England in any essential point of doctrine, discipline, or worship. Its variations, accordingly, are chiefly those re- quired by local circumstances or made for the purpose of removing archaisms in the language, though more serious things were either done or contemplated, as in the omission of the Ath- anasian Creed. The influence of the Scottish bishops from whom Seabury obtained his con- secration was felt in the restoration, following their own use, of the invocation of the Holy Ghost in the central prayer of the eucharistie office, after primitive models. In the middle of the nineteenth century the far-seeing Dr. Muhlen- berg made a plea for liturgical flexibility and enrichment, which was taken up thirty years later and carried to a successful conclusion in regard to both of these advantages. Minute, careful, and deliberate processes of revision, last- ing over nine years, resulted in the publication in 1892 of a prayer-book which probably will remain materially unchanged for many a year. While both flexibility of use and enrichment by the addition of liturgical forms were sought, a return to a nearer approaich to conformity with the English book was a natural outcome of the increasingly close and friendly relations between the mother and daughter churches. Consult: Maskell. Tlie Ancient Liturgy of the Church of England (3d ed., London, 1882) ; Blunt, Anno- tated Book of Common Prayer (ib., 1392) ; Proc- ter, History of the Book of Common Prayer (ib., 1855) ; Luckock. Studies in the History of the Book of Common Prayer (ib., 1881); Gasquet and Bishop, Edward VI. and the Book of Com- mon Prayer (ib.. 1890) ; Barry, Teacher's Praner- Book (ib., 1884) ; Huntington, Short History of the Book of Common Prayer (New York, 1893), specially full on the American revisions; Dix,