wicked than he who has been driven out of it; and it was a fit remedy of those seven successive falls, which the Scripture says happen to "the just man" daily.

And, as the particular number of their Services admitted of various pious meanings, so did each in its turn suggest separate events in our Saviour's history. He was born, and He rose again at midnight. At Prime, (or 7 A.M. according to our reckoning,) He was brought before Pilate. At the third, (or 9 A.M.) He was devoted to crucifixion by the Jews, and scourged. At the sixth, (or noon,) He was crucified. At the ninth, (or 3 P.M.) He expired. At Vespers He was taken down from the cross; at which hour He had the day before eat the Passover, washed His Apostles' feet, and consecrated the Eucharist. At Completorium, or Compline, He endured the agony in the garden.

These separate Hours, however, require a more distinct notice. The night Service was intended for the end of the night, when it was still dark, but drawing towards day; and, considering that the hour for rest was placed soon after sunset, it did not infringe upon the time necessary for repose. Supposing the time of sleep to extend from 8 or 9 P.M. to 3 or 4 in the morning, the worshipper might then rise without inconvenience to perform the service which was called variously by the name of Nocturns, or Matins, as we still indifferently describe the hours in which it took place, as night or morning. It consists, when full, of three parts or Nocturns, each made up of Psalms and Lessons; and it ended in a Service, supposed to be used shortly before sunrise, and called Lauds, or Praises. This termination of the Nocturn Service is sometimes considered distinct from it, so as to make eight instead of seven Hours in the day; as if in accordance with the text, "Give a portion to seven, and also to eight." Accordingly it is sometimes called by the name of Matins, instead of the Nocturns; and sometimes both together are so called.

This subdivision of the night-service has the effect of dividing the course of worship into two distinct parts, of similar structure with each other; the three Nocturns, Lauds, and Prime, corresponding respectively to the three day hours (of the 3d, 6th, and 9th) Vespers and Compline. Of these the three day hours are made of Psalms, Hymns, and Sentences. These are the

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simplest of the Services, and differ very little from each other through the year. Lauds answer to Vespers, the sun being about to rise or about to set in the one or the other respectively. Each contains five Psalms, a Text, Hymn, Evangelical Canticle, Collect, and Commemoration of Saints. These hours are the most ornate of the Services, and are considered to answer to the morning and evening sacrifices of the Jews.

Prime and Compline were introduced at the same time (the fifth century), and are placed respectively at the beginning of day and the beginning of night. In each there is a Confession, four Psalms, a Hymn, Text, and Sentences.

The ecclesiastical day is considered to begin with the evening or Vesper service; according to the Jewish reckoning, as alluded to in the text, " In the evening, and morning, and at noon-day. will I pray, and that instantly." The ancient Vespers are regarded by some to be the most solemn hour of the day. They were sometimes called the Officium Lucernarum1. Prayers were in some places offered while the lamps were lighting; and this rite was called lumen offerre'. The Mozarabic service supplies an instance of this, in which the Office ran as follows:

“Kyrie eleyson, Christe eleyson, Kyrie eleyson. Pater noster, &c. In nomine Domini Jesu Christi, lumen cum pace. R. Amen. Hoc est lumen oblatum. R. Deo gratias."

On Festivals, the appropriate Services, beginning on the evening of the preceding day, are continued over the evening of the day itself; so that there are in such cases two Vespers, called the First and the Second, of which the First are the more solemn.

This is the stated succession of the sacred offices through the day, but the observance of the precise hours has not been generally insisted on at any time, but has varied with local usages or individual convenience. Thus the Matin and Laud Services may be celebrated on the preceding evening, as is done (for instance) in the Sestine Chapel at Rome during Passion week,

1 Vid. Socr. Hist. 22. Vide also Lyra Apostolica in British Mag. for March, 1834.

2 This ceremony must not be confused with the Lucernarium, or prayers at lighting the lamps; which took place before the evening.

the celebrated Miserere being the first Psalm of Lauds. Prime may be used just before or after sunrise; the Third soon after ; and soon after the Sixth; the Ninth near dinner; Vespers and Compline after dinner. Or Prime, the Third, Sixth, and Ninth may come together two or three hours after sunrise. Noon, which in most ages has been the hour for the meal of the day, is made to divide the Services; there is a rule, for instance, against Compline coming before dinner.

Such is the present order and use of the Breviary Services, as derived more or less directly from Apostolic practice. Impressed with their antiquity, our Reformers did not venture to write a Prayer-Book of their own, but availed themselves of what was ready to their hands: in consequence our Daily Service is a compound of portions of this primitive ritual, Matins being made up of the Catholic Matins, Lauds, and Prime, and Evensong of Vespers and Compline. The reason why these changes were brought about will be seen in the following sketch of the history of the Breviary from the time of Gregory VII,

The word has been already explained to mean something between a directory and an harmony of offices; but it is to be feared there was another, and not so satisfactory reason for the use of it. It implied an abridgement or curtailment of Services, and so in particular of the Scripture readings, whether Psalms or Lessons, at least in practice. Of course there is no reason why the Church might not, in the use of her discretion, limit as well as select the portions of the inspired volume, which were to be introduced into her devotions; but there were serious reasons why she should not defraud her children of "their portion of meat in due season ;" and it would seem, as if the eleventh or at least the twelfth century, a time fertile in other false steps in religion, must be charged also, as far as concerns Rome and its more intimate dependencies, with a partial removal of the light of the written Word from the Sanctuary. Whatever benefit attended the adjustment of the offices in other respects, so far as the reading of Scripture was omitted, it was productive of evil, at least in prospect. An impulse was given, however slight in itself, which was followed up in the centuries which succeeded, and in all those churches which either then, or in the course of time, adopted the usage of Rome.

Even now that usage is not universally received in the Latin Communion, and it was in no sense enjoined on the whole Communion till after the Council of Trent; but from the influence of the papal see and of the monastic orders, it seems to have affected other countries from a much earlier date. This influence would naturally be increased by the circumstance that the old Roman Breviary had long before Gregory's time been received in various parts of Europe: in England, since the time of Gregory the Great, who, after the pattern of Leo, and Gelasius before him, had been a Reformer of it; in Basle, since the ninth century; in France and Germany by means of Pepin and Charlemagne ; while Gregory VII. himself effected its reception in Spain. Other Breviaries however still were in use, as they are at this day. The Ambrosian Breviary used in the Church of Milan, derives its name from the great St. Ambrose; and in the ninth century Charles the Bald, while sanctioning the use of the Roman, speaks also of the usage of Jerusalem, of Constantinople, of Gaul, of Italy, and of Toledo.

In Gregory's Breviary there are no symptoms of a neglect of Scripture. It contains the offices for festival-days, Sundays, and week-days; Matins on festivals having nine Psalms and nine Lessons, and on Sundays eighteen Psalms and nine Lessons, as at present. The course of the Scripture Lessons was the same as it had been before his time; as it is preserved in a manuscript of the thirteenth century. It will be found to agree in great measure both with the order of the present Breviary and with our own. From Advent to Christmas were read portions of the prophet Isaiah; from the Octave of the Epiphany to Septuagesima, St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans; from Septuagesima to the third Sunday in Lent, the book of Genesis, the i. xii. and xxvii. on the Sundays to which they are allotted in our own offices; on the fourth in Lent to Wednesday in Passion Week, Jeremiah; from Easter to the third Sunday after, the Apocalypse; from the third to the fifth, St. James; from the Octave of the Ascension to Pentecost, the Acts; after the Octave of Trinity to the last Sunday in July, the books of Kings; in August, Proverbs; in September, Job, Tobit, Judith, and Esther; in October, Maccabees; and in November, Ezekiel, Daniel, and other prophets.

Well would it have been if this laudable usage, received from the first ages, and confirmed by Pope Gregory VII. had been observed, according to his design, in the Roman Church; but his own successors were the first to depart from it. The example was set in the Pope's chapel of curtailing the sacred Services, and by the end of the twelfth century it had been followed in all the churches in Rome, except that of St. John Lateran. The Fratres Minores, (Minorists or Franciscans,) adopted the new usage, and their Breviaries were in consequence remarkable for the title "secundum consuetudinem Romanæ Curiæ," contrary to the usage of such countries as conformed to the Roman Ritual, which were guided by the custom of the churches in the city. Haymo, the chief of this order, had the sanction of Gregory X. in the middle of the thirteenth century, to correct and complete a change, which, as having begun in irregularity, was little likely to have fallen of itself into an orderly system; and his arrangements, which were conducted on the pattern of the Franciscan Devotions, nearly correspond to the Breviary, as it at present stands.

Haymo's edition, which was introduced into the Roman Church by Nicholas III. A. D. 1278, is memorable for another and still more serious fault. Graver and sounder matter being excluded, apocryphal legends of Saints were used to stimulate and occupy the popular mind; and a way was made for the use of those Invocations to the Virgin and other Saints, which heretofore were unknown in public worship. The addresses to the blessed

Mary in the Breviary, as it is at present constituted, are such as the following: the Ave Mary, before commencing every office through the day and at the end of Compline; at the end of Lauds and Vespers, an Antiphon invocatory of the Virgin; the Officium B. Mariæ, on the Sabbath or Saturday, and sundry other offices, containing Hymns and Antiphons in her honour. These portions of the Breviary carry with them their own plain condemnation, in the judgment of an English Christian; no commendation of the general structure and matter of the Breviary itself will have any tendency to reconcile him to them; and it has been the strong feeling that this is really the case, that has led the writer of these pages fearlessly and securely to admit the real excellences, and to dwell upon the antiquity, of the Roman