Short chapter, 2 Cor. xiii. Sunday, 3rd hour 'The grace'

Confining ourselves for the present to the Morning Office, we may observe, first of all, that with the exception of the Sentences, Exhortation, and Thanksgiving, there is not a single feature which does not either actually come from some one of the older offices, or find its parallel and counterpart there. And at the primary revision of 1549, whatever might be omitted, nothing new was introduced; only the brief lessons at Matins, and again, the short chapters' of Lauds and Prime, were expanded into an entire chapter of the Old and New Testament respectively; the Te Deum made permanent; and the Benedicite classed with it as a responsive Canticle. So truly and bona fide was the new scheme redacted and developed out of the older. It will be found, moreover, that, with an exception to be mentioned presently, and that rather apparent than real, the old order of the retained features was in the original revision strictly preserved. And, to the last, nothing was added in kind but the Sentences and Exhortation at the beginning, and the General Thanksgiving at the close.

"The most general way of characterising the process thus performed upon the older offices, is perhaps to say, that it was an endeavour to return to first principles, preserving, meanwhile, as far as might consist with that design, the existing organizations. The Revisers had before their eyes, on the one hand, an ideal which they knew, by her own testimony, that the Church had aimed at by the general institution of such offices, viz., the public devotional use of the Book of Psalms at large, and no less broad knowledge of, and meditation on, Holy Scripture. On the other hand, they saw in operation a system, which, however designed, and whatever its other merits, certainly was in practice utterly subversive of that ideal. But few of the Psalms were said, chiefly owing to the substitution for the daily portion of some few and almost unvarying ones on the plea of a festival of three or nine lections.' Of the Scriptures, only the few earlier chapters of the different books were really in use. And, besides all this, the language of the services excluded the people practically from all share in them. Here, then, was a broad, general aim, and surely a correct one, to be carried out; viz., to bring back the Psalms and Holy Scripture, the great features of ordinary worship, to real and effective use as instruments of praise and divine knowledge. But how was this to be attained, consistently with preserving sensible continuity between the old and revised forms? Now whether the first Revisers debated previously of any other method of doing this than that which they in fact adopted, we are not informed. It is not improbable that they did so, but perceived that any attempt to retain either the old express division into three offices, or certain complicating features of their contents, would be fatal to that practicability for congregational use which they desired to bring about. On determining, then, to reduce the three offices to one, they would at once perceive certain phenomena in them favourable to such a design. The commencement of all of them, to a certain point, (see the table,) was all but identical. single such commencement would therefore entail no loss of ritual elements. Next, the order of parts in all was so far the same, that, in each, Psalms were followed up by Scripture, however different the treatment of both Psalms and Scripture in each case might be. At the

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same time, the first office, that of Matins, took a decided lead and preponderance in respect of these elements. It contained, theoretically at least, the great mass of the psalmody and reading for each day. A body of Psalms and Scripture, then, standing first, and as the staple of the new office, would serve to give the old Matins conception its due place; while yet the psalmody and Scripture of the other offices would not be left unrepresented, since the whole of the Psalms, and every part of Scripture, were to enter by turns into the office. Next, they would observe that each of the offices possessed, chiefly towards its close, certain features peculiar to itself; viz., Matins its Te Deum, besides (at the beginning) the 'O LORD, open,' the Invitatory, and Venite; Lauds its Canticles, Benedictus, and Communion Collects; Prime its Creeds and LORD's Prayer, its Collects, petitions, and intercessions. These completing portions of the offices might therefore preserve, in a single service, the same order relatively to each other, and to the psalmody and Scripture, which they had always stood in. And thus, by retaining once for all such elements (e. g. the introductory part, and the Psalms and Scripture) as were common to all, and subjoining, in their natural order, features peculiar to the several offices, a single whole would result, recalling sufficiently, for the purposes of continuity, the older forms. It would only be necessary to combine, in one or two instances, the ritual methods observable in different offices; as for example, by imparting to the Benedicite (an unresponsive Canticle, retained from Sunday Lauds in its proper relative place,) the responsive character towards the reading of Scripture which the Te Deum already possessed. The Benedictus would not need even this degree of modification as to its use, since it already stood in a truly responsive position to the "short chapter" from the New Testament at Lauds. The adaptation of the Jubilate, from the same office, as another responsive Canticle to the second Lesson, as before of Benedicite to the first, was a natural afterthought, at the second Revision in 1552. In these cases, then, kindred features of the several offices were made to coalesce and conspire toward sone purpose. The Collects of the two later offices fell easily, in like manner, from their natural affinity, into one group. The ordinary Sunday Capitulum at Terce, or 9 A.M., (2 Cor. xiii. 13: 'The grace of our LORD,' &c,) performing the function of the final Prime benediction, would fitly conclude the office."-Pp. 288-293.

We wish our space allowed us to bring out at length the Eucharistic aspect of our ordinary offices, as Mr. Freeman has done in his fourth chapter. We must also refer our readers to the book itself, for his defence of our Anglican peculiarities, such as the penitential commencement, including the exhortation, our arrangement of the psalms, our long Scripture lessons, our use of the communion office without celebration, &c. We think, indeed, that here his enthusiasm carries him a little too far. It almost provokes a smile to read his apology for "Dearly beloved:" and we are unable to join in his eulogy on the prayer for the Queen. But these are, after all, very minor matters. The great fact is clearly established, that the older services survive among us in their present shape,

and are more in use in England than in any other portion of the Church. The attendance on them may be scanty here, it is nil in other lands. The Gallican and the Spanish have vanished; the Milanese and the Roman exist but for the clergy. Numerous, complex, unvernacular, they have never taken hold of the people's affections.

"Let it be understood, then, that the noble scheme of services we have been contemplating is a thing of the past; and of which none, that we know of, desire or attempt the revival. Other aims engross the mind of the continental churches; as 'Benediction,' or other newlydevised services; not Matins or Lauds, Prime or Compline. Even Vespers, the sole relic of the great system, is the object of earnest and uncompromising attack by the most advanced section of Romanists. The study, therefore, of the Western scheme of Offices in its old form, is the study of a dead language. The inquiry into it is strictly an antiquarian one. Regarded as a public Service of the Church, there is, it may be said, no such thing anywhere now. Let this be distinctly realized it is of the utmost moment, in its influence upon the spirit in which we approach the subject of the present chapter. Let it be clearly apprehended that the Churches, the congregations of Christian men and women, who use these ancient and grand services, nowhere exist. Sundays or week-days, no such tide of psalmody as we have been contemplating flows to the glory of God; no such adoring meditation on Holy Scripture occupies the hours whether of night or day; no Te Deum sums up the meditation or the praise; no Lauds salute the return of day with mixed notes of penitence and joy, or awaken resurrection memories or hopes; no Prime pleads for pardon, or prays for guidance; no Creed is uttered as with one voice and heart; no Collect gathers into it the Eucharistic association of the passing week or season. curious and exquisite devices of ever-varying Invitatory, Antiphon, and Responsory; the several doctrinal associations beating as pulses through the different offices,—these no longer quicken or guide the devotions of any. All this was done once, we hardly know when all that we do know is that it is not done now. In one country alone, in one form alone, does the ancient Western Office really survive. Psalmody, Scripture, responsive Canticles, Preces, Collects, the media of Europe's ancient worship, banished from all other lands, have taken refuge in the Churches of the English Communion. The English Church is in this matter the heir of the world. She may have diminished her inheritance but all other Western Churches have thrown it away. The question is really between these ordinary offices and none :

'Quod quærimus, hic est,

Aut nusquam.'"-Pp. 278, 279.

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And now, after three hundred years, the question of revision is again agitated. There is a cry for shorter services, and for the addition of new ones. With regard to the first we cannot but think that the feeling as to the length of our services is much exaggerated, and that the religious laity, as a body, do not find them too long,

till the clergy suggest it. Even our usual Sunday services could be compressed into a very moderate compass if the clergy would deign to retrench their sermons. The actual worship of Almighty GOD need not occupy much more than one hour; surely not too much to be devoted to that high purpose in one week. Besides, if the laity find the whole too long they have the remedy in their own hands. It wants but a little courage to break through many of our English proprieties, which too often keep people from doing what they feel right. There is nothing to prevent a layman leaving the church after morning prayer, or after litany. There is nothing to hinder his entering when the litany or the communion office commences. If he finds the whole too long and stays them through, he has no right to complain, he has no one to blame but himself. Mr. Freeman indeed proposes to separate the services at the point where the old "lauds" features succeed the "matins," viz., at the canticle after the first lesson. They would then, he says, be short enough. But however successful such a plan might be at Cumbræ, where we suspect the Church offices are new, and where worshippers are not numerous, it would be simply ridiculous to expect our people at large to understand such division. The inmates of a religious establishment are no guides for parochial congregations of the nineteenth century any more than of the fifth. It would be mere antiquarianism to attempt anything of the kind, and we may add, the division is by no means a natural one at first sight.

But Mr. Freeman has probably been led to throw out this method of solving the difficulty: a method to which we principally object on the grounds of its being certain to be found not to work, from the strong conviction he has, that all things considered, it is better "quieta non movere." How ignorant even some of our best clergy are of ritual lore is evidenced by the proposition of one of our most devoted priests, to cut off the Venite from daily service, and so dissever ourselves from the worship of the primitive and Jewish Church into which it entered. We may well dread a revision in the present state of liturgical knowledge. How utterly deficient too, Archbishop Sumner (who, from his position must influence new services) is, in the spirit needed for such a work, his occasional prayers and thanksgivings testify. Does any one wish for services drawn up as slovenly as that on the last fast day, or for prayers framed after such models, as the thanksgiving for the taking of Sebastopol,1 which, for the first time, we should suppose in the history of the Church, omitted all reference to the SAVIOUR'S Name, and merits, as the ground of being heard. No; let us thankfully use what we have. We are no blind worshippers of the existing services; we have no sympathy with the cant of our

1 We have heard it remarked that the Sebastopol thanksgiving, looked like the heads of an extempore prayer, which the Archbishop had heard somewhere, and committed to paper. There was not a single liturgical idea in it.