DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4668#0100
82 The Hidden God. [Ch.
superstition alone. Who, for instance, can
explain the Latin titles used for the psalms
in the Prayer-book of the Church of England,
without going hack more than three hundred
and fifty years to the time when England used
the same language in her public worship as the
rest of Christendom? So in the Latin Mass
the Kyrie Eleison betrays its connection with
the Greek; and the word Hosanna in the
office for Palm Sunday carries us back to the
Hebrew.
But there is one word in particular which is
employed not on any special occasion but in
every service, not once or twice but after
every petition, not as a portion of the prayer
but as its summary and its seal. If a stranger
stand outside the closed doors of a church
while service is going on, there is one word,
and probably but one which he would hear
distinctly repeated again and again. " Amen,"
" Amen," " Amen," that is the aspiration which
time after time comes rolling forth with the
superstition alone. Who, for instance, can
explain the Latin titles used for the psalms
in the Prayer-book of the Church of England,
without going hack more than three hundred
and fifty years to the time when England used
the same language in her public worship as the
rest of Christendom? So in the Latin Mass
the Kyrie Eleison betrays its connection with
the Greek; and the word Hosanna in the
office for Palm Sunday carries us back to the
Hebrew.
But there is one word in particular which is
employed not on any special occasion but in
every service, not once or twice but after
every petition, not as a portion of the prayer
but as its summary and its seal. If a stranger
stand outside the closed doors of a church
while service is going on, there is one word,
and probably but one which he would hear
distinctly repeated again and again. " Amen,"
" Amen," " Amen," that is the aspiration which
time after time comes rolling forth with the