A SELECTION OF PRAYERS, FOR THE USE OF FAMILIES, FOR EVERY MORNING AND EVENING OF THE WEEK. ARRANGED AND COMPILED CHIEFLY From the Book of Common Prayer. BY ALLEN COOPER, M.A. PERPETUAL CURATE OF ST. MARK'S, NORTH AUDLEY STREET, AND CHAPLAIN TO THE MOST NOBLE THE MARQUIS OF EXETER. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.-HEB. X. 25. SECOND EDITION. LONDON: FRANCIS & JOHN RIVINGTON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE. PREFACE. THE arrangement of the following Prayers for family worship, was first undertaken in consequence of a suggestion which appeared in an article in the First Number of the Quarterly Theological Review'. It was there hinted, that a selection of Prayers from our admirable Liturgy, might with great advantage be made for the purpose of family devotion: and in answer to the objections which have sometimes been made to the use of our Liturgy in private, on the score of its liability to lose its efficacy by frequent repetition; it was suggested 1 Quart. Theol. Review, No. I., page 84. that these objections might be easily obviated, by selecting from the Offices, the Collects, and the Psalms, distinct portions for every morning and evening during the week. Agreeing cordially with the sentiments of this writer, I have endeavoured to act upon the suggestion: but finding more difficulty than might at first be supposed, in arranging the Prayers in such a manner that no single Prayer should occur twice during the same week; I have, in a very few instances, so far deviated from the principle laid down, as to avail myself of four or five Prayers from other manuals, in which, however, the spirit of our Liturgy appears to be preserved. There is a difference of opinion as to which is best adapted for private worship, one continued Form of Prayer, in which the master, or father of a family, is uninterrupted until he is joined by the family in the Lord's Prayer: or a succession of shorter Prayers, at the end of each of which the assent of the rest of the family is given, by the repetition of Amen. The latter appears to me not only to be more in accordance with the spirit of our own Church, but more calculated to fix the attention; because the act of demanding the assent of the mind at the end of each Prayer, presents, at least, the opportunity of calling back the attention (should it have wandered) to what is going forward. With these views the following Prayers have been selected. With regard to the plan adopted in their arrangement, it has been my endeavour to embrace the three great branches of devotion, Con |