THE

ARMOURY OF PRAYER

A Book of Devotion

COMPILED BY

BERDMORE COMPTON

VICAR OF ALL SAINTS', MARGARET STREET

SECOND EDITION

AUG 1882

ROONER'S

WATERLOO PLACE, LONDON

Drford and Cambridge

MDCCCLXXX

138. 6. 651.

LET CONSTANT USE BUT KEEP IT BRIGHT,

YOU'LL FIND IT YIELDS

TO HOLY HANDS AND HUMBLE HEARTS

MORE SWORDS AND SHIELDS

THAN SIN HATH SNARES, OR HELL HATH DARTS.'

"

R. CRASHAW.

Preface.

THE special object of this work is to help the private worship of those English Church people whose spiritual temperament is rather sober than ecstatic, and who cannot be quite real in the use of the highly-coloured expressions of glowing feeling, or of the antiquated phraseology, which others find delightful and edifying.

The still waters of their devotion run too deep for the picturesque channels which commend themselves to more impulsive souls.

The materials have been mainly collected from the ancient liturgies and the old devotional writers. For those of modern origin which have been taken from other authors, the compiler offers his thanks, and especially to the Bishop of Bedford; the Rev. W. E. Scudamore; the Rev. R. M. Benson; the Rev. Canon Bright; the Superior of the Sisterhood of East Grinstead (for extracts from Dr. Neale's "Virgin's Lamp"); Mr. Hodges, the publisher of "The Narrow Way;" and the proprietors of the Hymns' at the end of the collection.

Hymns 8 and 12 are from "Lyra Sacra Americana." Hymn 17 from Williams' "Hymns on the Catechism."