FOURTH ESSAY, 1850 A.D. The Indian Liturgy. —Our Prayer Book is
altogether inadequate to meet the needs of the Indian Church. Among other things
for which there is no provision, two stand out pre-eminently. Prayers for the
early and the latter Rain are nowhere to be found; and yet on these in India
hang life and death, fruitful seasons or fatal dearth. Then there are the
surrounding masses of Heathen and Mohammedans, and the dangers to our converts
resulting from their influence and example; the necessity also of unceasing
supplication for the ingathering of all around them. Hence the importance, as
urged in this Essay, of such an enlargement of the Indian Liturgy as will meet
these and other objects of time and place. The reasonableness is also urged of
permission to use unfixed forms, as borne out by the example of the early
Church. The authority of Bingham, Palmer, and others, as to the practice of the
apostolical age and the gradual introduction of liturgical services, is referred
to as a lesson to ourselves. This historical outline (though, I fear, -carried
to an unnecessary length) will, it is hoped, be found of interest, and to abound
with lessons bearing on the reasonableness of the adoption of such a service as
may best suit the wants of churches planted in the midst of heathen nations.
