thy servants according to thy word."

So far as concerns precedent, it ought to be enough to say that
the words are our Lord's words, and that they were thrown by him
into a form which readily lends itself to antiphonal use. The very
same characteristics of parallelism and antithesis, that make the
Psalms so amenable to the purposes of worship, are conspicuous in
the BEATITUDES. If the Church of England, for three hundred years,
has been willing to give place in her devotions to the Curses of
the Old Testament,[73] we of America need not to be afraid,
precedent or no precedent, to make room among our formularies for
the Blessings of the New.

Those who allow themselves to characterize the liturgical use of
these memorable sayings of the Son of Man as "fancy ritual" and
"sentimentalism" may well pause to ask themselves what manner of
spirit they are of. The BEATITUDES are the charter of the kingdom
of heaven. If they are "sentimental," the kingdom is "sentimental";
but if, on the other hand, they constitute the organic law of the
People of God, they have at least as fair a right as the Ten
Commandments to be published from the altar, and answered by the
great congregation.

But is the complaint of "no precedent" a valid one, even supposing
considerations of intrinsic fitness to have been ruled out?

The Liturgy of St. Chrysostom provides that the Beatitudes shall
be sung on Sundays in room of the third antiphon.[74]

The learned Bishop of Haiti, in a paper warmly commending the
liturgical use of the BEATITUDES,[75] calls attention to the
further fact that the Eight Sayings have a place in some of the
service-books of the Eastern Church in the Office for the Sixth and
Ninth Hours, and notes the suggestive and touching circumstances
that, as there used, they have for a response the words of the
penitent thief upon the cross. We might all of us well pray to be
"remembered" in that kingdom to which these Blessings give the law.

In _The Primer set forth by the King's Majesty and his Clergy_ in
1545, a sort of stepping-stone to the later "Book of Common Prayer,"
we find the BEATITUDES very ingeniously worked into the Office of
The Hours, as anthems; beginning with Prime and ending with
Evensong. Appropriate Collects are interwoven, some of them so
beautiful as to be well worth preserving.[76]

But the most interesting precedent of all remains still to be
studied. In the first year of the reign of William and Mary, a