The third, sixth, and ninth, hours of prayer, are spoken of by the early Fathers of the second and third centuries; but it does not appear that there was any particular service or assembly at those hours until the fifth century, when the monasteries of Mesopotamia and Palestine introduced public worship adapted to them. In France they were introduced in the sixth century. Vespers, or evensong, is mentioned by the most ancient Fathers, and it is probable that the custom of holding an assembly for public worship at this time is of the most primitive antiquity. Certainly in the fourth century, and perhaps in the third, there was public evening service in the eastern churches, as we learn from the Apostolical Constitutions and Cassian, in the beginning of the fifth century, appears to refer the evening and nocturnal assemblies of the Egyptians to the time of St. Mark the Evangelist". Compline, or completorium, was the last service of the day. This hour of prayer was first appointed by the celebrated abbot Benedict in the sixth century ". The church of England, at the revision of our offices in the reign of Edward the Sixth, only prescribed public worship in the morning and the evening; and in making this regulation she was perfectly justified: for though it is the duty of i Bingham, book xiii. c. 9, niis, p. 549, &c. Concil. Lao§ 8, &c. Bona, c. i. § 4. dicen. c. 18. j The office for the third and sixth hours was instituted at Tours by the bishop Injuriosus in 530. See Mabillon, De Lit. Gall. p. 409. k Tertullian. Liber de Jeju 1 Apost. Const. 1. viii. c. 36. m Cassian. Institut. Coenob. lib. ii. c. 5. n Bona, de Div. Psalmodia, C. xi. Christians to pray continually, yet the precise times and seasons of prayer, termed canonical hours, do not rest on any divine command; nor have they ever been pronounced binding on all churches by any general council: neither has there been any uniformity in the practice of the Christian churches in this respect. Besides this, the churches of the Alexandrian patriarchate, which were founded by the holy evangelist Mark, only appointed two public assemblies in the day; and no more were customary, even in the monasteries of Egypt, the rest of the day being left for private and voluntary prayer and meditation. In the ancient Gallican church also, it seems that there was public service only twice in the day, in addition to the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, speaks only of the offices for the morning and evening; and it appears from the canons of Martin bishop of Braga in the seventh century, that no other public daily services were known in the Spanish church". Thus also the church of England left her clergy and people to follow in private the injunction of the Apostle, to "pray without ceasing;" for, as John Cassian observes, a voluntary gift of praise and prayer is even more acceptable to God than those duties which are compelled by the canons: and certainly the church of • Quia tam in sede Apostolica, quam etiam per totas Orientales atque Italiæ provincias dulcis et nimium salutaris consuetudo est intromissa, ut Kyrie eleison frequentius cum grandi affectu et compunctione dicatur, placuit etiam nobis, ut in omnibus ecclesiis nostris ista tam sancta consuetudo et ad matutinum, et ad missas, et ad vesperum, Deo propitio intromittatur. Concil. Vasens. 2. A.D. 529. Can. iii. Labbe, Concilia, tom. iv. p. 1680. P Bingham, book xiii. c. 9, 8, 9. q Cassian. Institut. Cœnob. England did not intend that her children should offer the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving only in the morning and evening, when she appointed those seasons for public worship. Indeed, we find that a book of private devotion, containing offices for six several hours of prayer, including Compline, and entitled the "Orarium," was published by royal authority A.D. 1560, from which Dr. Cosins, bishop of Durham, chiefly derived his "Collection of Private Devotion," &c. The Primer, which was a translation of the "Orarium," contained psalms, hymns in verse, and lessons for six hours of prayer; viz. matins, lauds, prime, third, sixth, and ninth hours, and the evening'. The whole theory and system, however, on which the Canonical hours had originally been instituted, had become to a great extent obsolete, previously to the Reformation of our offices in the sixteenth century. The very essence of the various hours of prayer included the notion of their separation in point of time. The example of Daniel, who "knelt on his knees three times in the day, and prayed, and gave thanks unto his Gods," of the Apostles who were "all with one accord in one place" at lib. iii. c. 2. "Gratius est voluntarium munus, quam functiones quæ canonica compulsione redduntur: pro hoc quoque David gloriosius aliquid exultante, cum dicit: Voluntarie sacrificabo tibi: et Voluntaria oris mei beneplacita sint tibi, Domine." * See the "Orarium seu libellus precationum per Regiam Majestatem Latinè ædi tus." 1560, Londini, Wilhelmi s Daniel vi. 10. 66 "the third hour of the day';" of St. Peter, who, at the sixth hour "went up upon the house top to pray";" of Peter and John, who at the ninth hour, "being the hour of prayer, went up together unto the temple";" of Paul and Silas, who at midnight prayed and sung praises unto God";" of the Psalmist, who "seven times a day praised God;" of the disciples, who after our Lord's ascension "all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication":"-such examples prove, that the true worshippers of God in all ages have felt it their duty and their privilege to offer their supplications to God very frequently in the course of each day of their lives, in order that no long interval of time should be permitted to elapse without seeking for new supplies of Divine grace. And such doubtless was the origin of the canonical hours of prayer: they arose from the feeling of the necessity of frequent supplication; and the examples which have been above referred to, are rightly adduced by Cardinal Bona in illustration of this general principle, and St. Jerome and St. Augustine connect with it the canonical hours of prayera. But as each hour in the day may be associated with the memory of some event in holy writ, or may be made to admonish us of some religious truth or obligation, the Fathers assigned various mystical and moral applications to the appointed hours of prayer". Thus the Apostolical Constitutions (written at the end of the third or the beginning of the fourth century) prescribe prayers at different hours in these terms: "ye shall "make prayers. . . . In the morning, giving thanks, "because the Lord hath enlightened you, removing "the night, and bringing the day: at the third hour, "because the Lord, at that time, received sentence "from Pilate: at the sixth, because in it he was cru"cified at the ninth, because all things were shaken "when the Lord was crucified, trembling at the auda 66 city of the impious Jews, not enduring that their "Lord should be insulted: at evening giving thanks, "because He hath given the night as a rest from our "daily labours at cock-crowing, because that hour gives the glad tidings of the arrival of day to work "the works of light"." 66 |