or after Sermon. Prayer before competent to solve. My own opinion, not unaccompanied with doubt (by reason of the above-cited authority, and of that only), is, that the canon is superseded so far as concerns the sermon in the Communion service. But at any rate, and under any view of the matter, the collect with the Lord's Prayer is not in accordance with the rubrick, and is repudiated by all authority, however generally used. If therefore a prayer before the sermon be insisted on, it can only be the bidding prayer. 'Mr. Blunt, it seems, at first used that prayer, but entertaining some doubt on the matter, he consulted me. Being so consulted, and not being at the time aware of king George's letter, I resolved his doubt by saying, that I considered the Act of Uniformity as having superseded the canon in respect to the sermon in the Communion service. If it be the wish of either clergy or laity at Helston, that I should reconsider this my resolution of Mr. Blunt's doubt, as to the necessity of using the bidding prayer, I am quite willing to do so; and then, if I cannot, by further consideration and inquiry, relieve my own mind from doubt on the subject, I will do, as I rejoice that I am enabled to do, submit the doubt to the archbishop of Canterbury for his final and conclusive judgment. Meanwhile, I think it right to say, with reference to the 55th canon, which orders the bidding prayer, that even if it be not in any respect superseded by the Act of Uniformity, it will not necessarily follow that it ought now in all cases to be enforced. For the canon law differs in this respect from the temporal law. Where the reason for any canon has ceased, and where, on that or any other account, it has long been suffered by the ecclesiastical authorities to remain unenforced, it is not necessarily to be at once called again into activity; certainly not without previous notice. 'So far, therefore, as regards parish churches, in almost all of which the bidding prayer has long ceased to be used, it may be within the discretion of the ordinary, or Sermon. whether to revive the use of it or not. Every ordinary, Prayer before before he shall resolve in the affirmative, will probably consider well, whether there be sufficient cause for reviving it. Is it, for instance, an edifying prayer? No-it is not, strictly speaking, a prayer at all—it is a direction to the people, bidding them to pray, and telling them for whom to pray. And this direction is fulfilled most effectually and most faithfully in the prayer for the church militant. Whenever therefore the prayer for the church militant is used in its proper place in the Communion service, as it ought to be on every Sunday and holiday, in every church, whether the holy Communion be administered or not, there the whole matter of the bidding prayer is repeated as a prayer, except as regards the Queen's titles, which it would manifestly be irreverent to recount in an address to Almighty God. Now it was the assertion of these titles, that the Queen is "defender of the faith, and in all causes and over all persons, ecclesiastical as well as temporal, within her dominions supreme," which seems to have been one, if not the only main end and object of the canon requiring the use of the bidding prayer. I will not at present enter into the proof of this position. I content myself now with saying, that the object of the 55th canon is very similar to that part of the first canon which requires "all ecclesiastical persons having cure of souls, and all preachers, to the uttermost of their wit, knowledge, and learning, to teach, manifest, open and declare in their 1 The Bidding Prayer, besides the beauty of its language and its stately diction, contains most valuable teaching upon points which require emphasizing. It teaches plainly the truth of the catholicity of the Church, and declares that the English Church is but a portion of a greater whole. It calls upon men to intercede for all the rulers and members of Church and State, pointing out the way in which all are knit together in the commonwealth. And, lastly, it makes full mention of the faithful departed, including them in our intercessions. We may well wonder whether the extraordinary insensibility to the existence of the unseen world, which now characterizes the English people, and their neglect of the catholic custom of praying for the departed, would have been so common or universal, if the Bidding Prayer had been said Sunday by Sunday as required by the 55th Canon of 1604.-ED. 1904. or after Sermon. Prayer before sermons, four times at the least in the year, that all usurped and foreign power (repugnant to the ancient jurisdiction of the Crown over the State ecclesiastical) hath no establishment by the word of God, and is for the most just causes taken away and abolished." Both the one canon and the other are equally stringent and imperative, and both have long been suffered, wisely I think, to lie dormant. 'The Occasional 'Should the time ever come, when it shall be necessary to reassert the Queen's supremacy every Sunday in every church in England, and four times in every year to teach it in sermons; I trust that the bishops will not fail in their duty to enforce both these canons, or the clergy in their duty to observe them. Meanwhile it will be considered by most men quite sufficient that the bidding prayer be, as it is, used in cathedrals and in universities, and sometimes, and on some special occasions, such as visitations of the clergy, elsewhere.'-Judgment of Henry Philpotts (Bishop of Exeter) re William Blunt, Oct. 23, 1844; cited in Stephens' Eccles. Stat., ii. 2049, and Bk. of C. P., i. 377; also in The English Churchman, No. XCVIII. * The Occasional Prayers The question has been raised as to when and how often the "Collect or Prayer for all Conditions of Men' and the "General Thanksgiving" are to be said in the recitation of Divine service-that is, at Morning and Evening Prayer. 1. In the first place, the fact that neither of these two forms are found in "The Order for Morning or Evening Prayer daily throughout the Year," but are printed apart, amongst the occasional prayers, under the heading, Prayers and Thanksgivings upon Several Occasions,' suggests that they are not to be regarded as an unvarying part of Divine service daily throughout the year-in other words, that it is not intended that they should be said Prayers. daily at Morning and Evening Prayer without inter- The mission or exception, but only occasionally. The rubric Occasional which governs the "Prayers and Thanksgivings upon Several Occasions" directs that they "be used before the two final prayers of the Litany, or of Morning and Evening Prayer.' From a glance at the prayers which follow, it is evident that this direction cannot be held to imply that all the forms referred to are to be used every day; but that "upon the several occasions"—e. g. during drought, in time of war, at Embertide, or during the session of Parliament-when any of these prayers are appropriate or specially ordered, they are to "be used before the two final prayers of the Litany, or of Morning and Evening Prayer.' The rubric obviously relates merely to position, not to frequency of recitation. If it had been intended that the Prayer for all Conditions of Men and the General Thanksgiving should be said twice daily without variation, as an integral part of Morning and Evening Prayer, they would naturally have been printed in each case before the Prayer of St. Chrysostom, and not relegated to a place under the heading "Prayers and Thanksgivings upon Several Occasions." It may possibly be urged that, in order to save space and to avoid repetition, these two forms are not printed twice in the daily Choir Offices; but, against such a plea, it is to be observed that quite half of the Order for Morning and Evening Prayer is thus repeated in full namely, all the introductory portion, which concludes with the response, "The Lord's Name be praised," from the Creed to the Collect for the day, and all the prayers which follow the Third Collect. Moreover, the exclusion of the two forms in question from the Order for Morning and Evening Prayer appears to have been deliberate. For, at the last revision, in 1662, the prayers for the king, the royal family, the clergy and people, together with the prayer of St. Chrysostom and the Benediction, were printed in the Order both for Morning and Evening Prayer; instead of being left, as previously, at the end of The Prayers. the Litany also Evening Prayer, which before began Occasional at the Lord's Prayer, was printed with the sentences, exhortation, confession, and absolution as in Morning Prayer. From these facts it is obvious that there was in 1662 no idea of saving space or avoiding repetition, but quite the contrary idea. And it is particularly to be observed that it was in this very year, at the same revision in which all this repetition was deliberately adopted, that the Prayer for all Conditions of Men and the General Thanksgiving first appeared in the Prayer-book. From the circumstances of the revision just alluded to, and the position which was then assigned to these two forms in the Prayer-book, it appears highly probable, if not certain, that they were and are intended for more or less occasional use upon "several occasions," as distinguished from "all occasions." 2. In regard to the Prayer for All Conditions of Men, the rubric directs that it "be used at such times when the Litany is not appointed to be said "; that is to say, the prayer is to be regarded and used as an alternative or substitute for the Litany, and not otherwise. A glance at its contents shows it to be a brief summary of a considerable portion of the petitions of the Litany; it is, in fact, the Litany condensed. Wheatly (on The Common Prayer, p. 136. 2nd ed., Oxford, 1714) speaks of the prayer in question as the Lesser Litany. Now, the Litany is distinctly a morning and not an evening devotion. To say the Litany in the afternoon or the evening is to destroy the liturgical sequence of the morning services, which is, Matins, Litany, and Holy Communion. In fact, the position assigned to the Litany in the Prayerbook affords a strong argument against afternoon or evening celebrations of the Holy Communion. The rubrics which govern the recitation of the Litany are as follows: (1) "Here followeth the Litany, or General Supplication, to be sung, or said after Morning Prayer, upon Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays." (2) Before the Prayer for the King at Morning Prayer only, "Then |