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personal, broad and comprehensive. They are full of profound and varied thought, yet brief and almost epigrammatic in expression. They are always suggestive of further reflection, so as to leave scope for the action of every man's own mind. Above all, there is a tone of manly piety, equally removed from effeminate sentimentalism and mere frigid propriety, which especially fits them to the religious mind as the English Church would shape and nourish it.”*

May I, in conclusion, express the pleasure which I have felt in co-operating by this Preface with Precentor Venables in a new edition of the work of one of the greatest of Anglican Bishops, with whom we claim a kind of educational relationship in having both proceeded from the same Public School with Bishop Andrewes (Merchant Taylors') to the same College (Pembroke College, Cambridge)-a School and College which Bishop Andrewes ever remembered in his devotions?

ELY HOUSE,

May 7th, 1883.

J. R. ELIENS.

* Vide St. James Lectures. (Murray.)

Second Series. Lecture iii.

EDITOR'S NOTE.

HE present edition of the Private Devo

THE

tions of Bishop Andrewes was undertaken at the request of the publishers, who had wisely resolved to include in their series of Devotional Manuals, a work which the experience of several generations of English Christians has proved to be one of the most precious helps to devout communing with God ever given to the Church. Of this little unpretending book it has been truly said, "Pray with Bishop Andrewes for one week, and he will be thy companion for the residue of thy years." The more constantly this manual is used, the more will its value be felt. It will become a daily companion and friend, privy to the inmost secrets of the heart, whom we cannot do without. Its few simple words, taken almost exclusively from Holy Scriptures and from the primitive liturgies and fathers of the Church, will be found more

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suggestive of devout thoughts, more helpful to true humility repentance faith and thankfulness, more calculated to bring the soul into its true attitude in the presence of God, than the most exquisitely worded human compositions. The chief value of Bishop Andrewes' Devotions is that they contain little or nothing of Bishop Andrewes' own. He has but furnished the arrangement and the setting of the gems whose lustre is all divine. But it is the skilful setting that makes the jewel, and gives it its chief beauty and serviceableness.

There is no reason to believe that Bishop Andrewes ever contemplated the publication of these Devotions, as the title-page of the first English translation (that of Richard Drake in 1648, dedicated to his Highness the Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles II., a few months before his royal father's execution) states they were his "private devotions and meditations"-the “Preces Private” of the first edition of the originals in Greek and Latin in 1675— compiled by himself as helps in his own religious life. The probable history of the compilation is well given in the preface to Dean Stanhope's paraphrastic translation, or rather adaptation of these Devotions:

"By the best judgment I can make of that Book, he (Bishop Andrewes) appears to have

collected from time to time in the Course of his Reading Materials for every part of Prayer, which he wrote down, some in Greek, some in Latin. These at first were chiefly Hints; but out of them he composed several Prayers that he used privately in his Closet, and some of them publickly in the Church before sermon, having translated them into English. Many of these Prayers were completely finished, and used by him as Forms; in others he left some Hints not quite compleated, but wherein it was easy for him to supply all that was wanting as he used them. These he varied often, as Occasion and Necessity required, and improved them by degrees. Such of them as were brought nearest to Perfection he wrote in Greek, either because the New Testament, Septuagint, and most ancient Fathers and Liturgies (whence he extracted a good deal) were in that Language, or because that Language had some advantage for Devotion, as the many compound Words it contains strengthen the Ideas they convey to us, and make a more lively impression on the Mind."

An examination of the text of the Devotions confirms the conclusions thus arrived at. Of the Greek Devotions, the translation of which forms the first part of the present edition, which are by far the most finished portion, we are

happy enough to possess a transcript made from the original autograph by Samuel Wright, private secretary to Bishop Andrewes, and subsequently registrar to Bishop Wren. This precious little volume, an exquisite specimen of Greek caligraphy, was given by Wright to the Rev. Richard Drake, then Fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, Bishop Andrewes' own college, to the library of which it was presented by him, and where it is still preserved as not the least valued of its literary treasures. Wright's transcript was made from Andrewes' own autograph, which we are told was seldom out of his hands "in the evening of his life," described by Drake as "glorious in its deformity, being slubbered with his pious hands, and watered with his penitential tears." In form and arrangement the transcript evidently closely follows the original. It is a copy of Bishop Andrewes' devotional note-book. Pages are left blank, or with only one or two sentences written on them, and these not always having any connection with the matter before or after them. The purpose which evidently suggested itself by degrees to Andrewes of furnishing a manual of devotion for every day of the week, arranged under the heads of Confession, Prayer for Grace, Profession of Faith, Intercession, and Praise, with an introductory Commemoration, is only

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