Provocative and stimulating, this survey of the roots of corporate prayer in Christian worship is the sort of book I wish I'd had in seminary, and am glad to have now. Prof. Bradshaw demonstrates an easy command of the ancient writers on liturgics. He possesses an appealing capacity for incisive thinking about liturgy, ancient and modern.

Above all, Bradshaw wants us to be people who pray. He ends by offering rites for daily prayer taken from The United Methodist Hymnal. He chose these because of the limited use of scripture and other materials. In his view, requiring worshipers to use most or all of the psalms and the rest of the Bible, as in the Roman and Anglican offices, gives people "spiritual indigestion." All of us who share Bradshaw's concern to enable prayer should press this book on friends, lay and ordained, and discuss it chapter by chapter, whether we put our own Daily Office books away or not.

(The Rev.) Thomas C.H. Scott

Evanston, Ill.