From the preface of an old service book, we read:
"The general purpose of a liturgy is to secure comprehension and order in our prayers, to enable the congregation to follow with greater ease, and by their more frequent audible response to make the prayers their own ; but, more especially, to provide guidance for individual devotion, to discipline and inspire the soul for free utterance in prayer, as well as to lead to that unutterable yearning after God and the silent adoration of His glory into which the highest reaches of prayer inevitably pass. It follows from this that liturgical prayers are of a certain recognizable type, somewhat restrained and impersonal in their feeling, smoothflowing in language and unobtrusive in their style ; and also that they ought to be recited without emphasis and in a level tone, the enunciation distinct and clear but the rate somewhat faster and the voice more subdued than ordinary reading requires ; the intention being to create an atmosphere of devotion and to provide a background of prayer, rather than attempting to force individual aspirations into a prescribed form, or pretending to cover the complete exercise of prayer. Rightly understood by those who follow, and properly used by those who lead, liturgical prayer may therefore be a greater encouragement to 'free' prayer than the often too dominating, individualistic and complicated utterances which have come to be thus exclusively described."
William Edwin Orchard, The Order of Divine Service for Public Worship (Oxford University Press, 1921)
It is and remains one of the best defenses of liturgical prayer (and worship) I have ever read.
