Untitled - Electric Scotland

1863-67] PRAYERS FOR THE DEPARTED 507
" MY
DEAR SIR, Some little time ago I received from the
author your pamphlet called -. Probably with my many
engagements it might have remained unread, had not my atten
tion been within the last few days pointedly called to its con
tents. I regret for your sake that you should have written it.
I regret also that any necessity should have arisen for calling my
attention to it. ... As I have been asked to read the pamphlet
I have done so, and I should not be acting consistently with the
respect and regard which I entertain for you if I did not address
to you a few words of advice. These will I trust be as kindly
received by you as they are kindly intended by me.
" The style of your pamphlet is, as you appear to acknow
ledge, somewhat rhetorical ; and this makes it difficult to ascer
tain what the exact doctrinal statements are on which you wish
to insist. I gather, however, from the pamphlet two things :
"
I. That you are not satisfied with that reverent silence which
the Church of England, following the example of Holy Scrip
ture, has observed respecting the state of the souls departed,
while they are- waiting between death and judgment ; that you
consider what you call the duty of prayers for the dead to be
*
one of the duties most incumbent on the Christian heart and
mind. Indeed you seem almost to say that that man can scarcely
be called a Christian who differs from you in this matter. Now
it must, I think, strike every one that if this view of yours were
correct, the formularies of the Church of England would be a
very poor production, and very unfaithful to the truth, from the
way in which they have treated this subject. You have shown by
a few very strained interpretations that our Prayer Book might
possibly in some prayers, by a perverse ingenuity, be understood
as praying for the dead. But your reasoning on this point will, I
think, satisfy no candid person. I can scarcely conceive that they
fully satisfy yourself. If the view you take of this doctrine be
correct, it follows as a necessary consequence that you are right
in circulating amongst your people a form of prayer for the dead,
and equally that the Church of England has been very unfaithful
in providing no such form. Our Prayer Book has indeed pointed
out, in the prayer for the Church Militant, how we may keep
alive the thought of our fellowship with those who have gone to
the unseen world by blessing Clod s Holy Name for all His
servants departed this life in His faith and fear. You will act
rightly in directing the minds of your people to the full meaning