A prayer that asks God to arrive first
God answered the prayer, "Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings."
The words open a collect in the Book of Common Prayer. In the Church of England’s online text of the 1662 prayer-book tradition, it appears among the collects following the Communion service, with permission to use these prayers on other occasions as well. Chesterton quotes its opening accurately and stops before the petition for gracious favour and continuing help. The prayer book was first published in 1549; the witness cited here is the Church’s current online presentation, not a facsimile of that first edition. Read the collect.
Here prevent carries its older meaning, to go before or anticipate. A later parliamentary discussion of this very prayer explicitly explains that sense; it is useful evidence of the linguistic obstacle the expression presents to modern hearers. Hansard, 14 November 1974. Chesterton then activates the familiar meaning of hindering: God has gone ahead of his intellectual discoveries and, in doing so, frustrated his hopes of originality. The turret already standing on the building is the same joke in architectural form. Its age disappoints the would-be inventor while confirming that his desired structure exists. The prayer therefore condenses the paragraph’s mixture of gratitude and comic professional disappointment; it does not suggest that the original collect asks God to obstruct good actions.
Sources
Revision 1 of 1 · 2026-11-07 · Suggest an edit