Studies in the Book of Common Prayer ~ Herbert M. Luckock

Preface
It often happens that many things in a book are intelligible only to those who are familiar with the mind and character of the author. An. expression or phrase, which may ordinarily be passed over as unimportant, becomes instinct with meaning and suggestiveness, when read by one who has the advantage of an intimate acquaintance with the writer by whom it was used. And if this be true in regard to the chief leaders of thought in the present day, it is truer still when the reader and writer find themselves separated from each other by a long distance of time.

Now the realisation of this has often made me feel that a much fuller apprehension of the real teaching of the Book of Common Prayer would be attained, if more light could be thrown upon the views and characters of the different men who compiled and revised it.

Many summaries of the history of the Book have been given to the world at divers times, but the authors have for the most part been satisfied with little more than the bare enumeration of the names of men who were charged with a work unequalled in importance for the influence which it has exercised on the worship of the Church. In a few instances, e.g. Cranmer or Ridley or Cosin, there was no necessity to do anything more, but Day and Thirlby and Morley (to select at haphazard), except to the real student of Ecclesiastical History, have been names, and names only.