WOWs and OMGs have secured a recognised place in our speech. We have to ask how we managed to get along without them. There were always what are called minced oaths – blimey, crikey, strewth. And there are scatological, and sexual references that are under a ban in polite society. It is this that gives them currency: they shock.
But as well as words that act as alarm bells or an expletive response of outrage or delight there are words that do duty in a more unobtrusive way. For these we have to thank the compilers of the Book of Common Prayer. And we have to find our way to what is called ‘The Order for the Burial of the Dead’.
In a hushed church where the congregation has just been invited to stand a series of sentences concentrate the mind. ‘I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord’ is their beginning. Then comes ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’ and the sequence ends with quotations that it is difficult to deny: ‘We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.’
There is no doubt that the prayer book compilers knew that they were about. Succinct and economical, their words came from those who knew their limitations. Their form of service is way short of perfect. They were also well acquainted with the fact that in extreme old age a man’s strength is but labour and sorrow.
But for those sentences we owe them an incalculable debt. There is no laboured explanation, no attempt to include everything. Like the words ‘God save the king’ at a coronation, or The ayes have it’ at a vote, the words do all that is required at that moment.
Like it or not, there were stretches of the prayer book that cannot be bettered. And the KJV has similar felicities. If worship means an offering of the best to God, we have to acknowledge that what the prayer book has to offer can hardly be bettered.
CUMMERTREES LYCHGATE
An unusual lychgate is to be found in Cummertrees church, Dumfries and Galloway. More commonly found at the entrance to English parish churchyards, lychgates are often war memorials. This example is a war memorial that has been judiciously refurbished. Cummertrees church was founded by Robert Bruce.
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