It is foreign to the aim of these antiquarian studies to sound
any note of controversy, but it will be rather surprising if the beauty
and pathos of the custom, which is to engage our attention, does not
appeal to many who would not have desired its revival in our age and
country.[1] Typical of the thoughts and habits of our ancestors, it is
no less typical of their place and share of the general system of
Western Christendom, and in the heritage of human sentiment, since
reverence for the dead is common to all but the most degraded races of
mankind. That mutual commemoration of departed, and also of living,
worth was not exclusive to this country is brought home to us by the
fact that the most learned and comprehensive work on the subject, in its
Christian and mediaeval aspects, is Ebner's "Die Klosterlichen
Gebets-Verbruederungen" (Regensburg and New York, 1890). This
circumstance, however, by no means diminishes--it rather heightens-the
interest of a custom for centuries embedded in the consciousness and
culture of the English people.
First, it may be well to devote a paragraph to the phrases applied to
the institution. The title of the chapter is "Leagues of Prayer," but it
would have been simple to substitute for it any one of half a dozen
others--less definite, it is true--sanctioned by the precedents of
ecclesiastical writers. One term is "friendship"; and St. Boniface, in
his letters referring to the topic, employs indifferently the cognate
expressions "familiarity," "charity" (or "love").
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