Johnson on the use of forms

"let me farther assure you, that now after near forty years use of our excellent method of worship, . . . it is so far from growing tedious or a matter of formality, as some imagine, that every opportunity seems to add fresh life, and I see fresh beauties, and find further advantages in it from time to time."

     Samuel Johnson, On the beauty of holiness in the worship of the Church of England (1749), as quoted in Prayer book spirituality, ed. J. Robert Wright (New York:  The Church Hymnal Corporation, 1989), 51.