Ordinary churchgoing folks used to have prayer books which included not only regular church services, but litanies for various applications. A litany, for those who don't know, is a group of "versicles and responses" asking for various things from God. (People were expected to have family prayers in their homes.) Might be morning, afternoon, & evening litanies--or litanies for special events of various sorts. So you had help approaching God under a variety of circumstances. Of course, the ones you used regularly got memorized. & each nationality had their own expressions. In the 1930s-40s the author of the Simon Templar("The Saint") detective stories (Leslie Charteris?) had him turning up Nazi spies in England & America. In one book he's getting himself ready to face down some bad guys on his own & he recites for himself a piece out of an old Scottish litany for evening: "From ghosties & ghoulies & long-leggity beasties, & things that go bump in the night, Good Lord deliver us". Tw