them; but they may be studied for the form, and not for the life. Those books are most useful which combine both form and life; and though there is no exact medium which will suit all cases, there is a proportion suited to each ease. The deepest piety may glow through the distinctions of a schoolman, pervading his whole manner, and shining out in brief and inimitable touches; and the most absolute accuracy may be discernible through the deep affections of a S. John, or the fervid eloquence of a S. Paul. But the quantity of matter devoted to either purpose must depend on the object proposed in the whole treatise. The present work is, if anything, deficient in scholastic method and exactness, though it is carefully and truly orthodox. But this is said with reference to an absolute standard of perfection, and to the requirements of our age and country, in which it is not too much to say that the education of a Clergyman is incomplete until he has well studied the subject here treated. Our best treatise on such a subject, and this has many claims to that rank, must become an almost necessary manual to the divinity student, and be ranged on the same shelf with Pearson and Hooker. In a book that will take such a place, even a slight deficiency will be felt; and if such a deficiency is alluded to, it is not with a view of deterring any one from undertaking the labour of a careful perusal, which scarcely any book that has been published for a century will more amply

repay.

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ART. IV.-Guide to the Daily Prayers in England, Scotland, and Wales. No. I. London: Masters, 1849.

'But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, 'who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept ' with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy.' We doubt not that such will be the feeling with which some of our readers will examine the little work which stands at the head of the page the first complete guide to the daily prayers of England and Wales. It may be cheering, they will say, to see such symptoms of the progress of the revival in our Church; to learn that whereas daily prayers in any place but in cathedrals and college chapels were, ten years ago, a prodigy, there are now some three hundred churches which have cast off the yoke of a mere Sunday religion, and day by day magnify GOD. But what is this to the case as it once was? Time has been that in the majority of our English villages the daily sacrifice was offered up, and the LORD's death shown forth. Time has been that there were seven services enjoined instead of two, and those two so often neglected. And after all,-these three hundred churches, what are they among so many ?

We do not deny how much truth there is in this view. But we do most strenuously deny that it contains the whole truth. There is a bright as well as a dark side to the picture. GOD forbid we should say one word that might appear to throw a slight on the frequent offering up of the mystic sacrifice. That our communions are sadly, fearfully, few, we should be the last to gainsay. But this is a different question. Inferior in virtue to that most holy rite, who will disbelieve that public daily morning and evening prayers of the Church are of inestimable benefit to her of marvellous efficiency with GOD? And now we are about to make an assertion which will, perhaps, startle some of our readers. In no national Church under the sun are so many public matin services daily said as in our own. True, foreign priests recite the hours privately, with most scrupulous fidelity. A dispensation is hardly ever granted. A distinguished French nobleman, who has perhaps the most extensive ecclesiastical acquaintance of any man in Europe assured us that he knew but one instance of such a dispensation. But matins, except in cathedral churches, are almost unknown abroad. In many cathedrals they are never said except on

the highest festivals. Mr. Webb, in his work on Continental Ecclesiology, assures us that he never heard them but once or twice. We ourselves have been more fortunate; and can bear witness that in the Spanish and Portuguese cathedrals they are generally at seven or half-past seven in the morning. But then, to make up for this, vespers, which are very frequent in Germany and Italy, are, in the west of Europe, generally said privately. And in a common village church on the continent to find a priest who daily recited his matins and vespers publicly, leaving the other hours out of the question, would be a phenomenon.

In England, thank God, it is no longer so. Scattered here and there, sometimes more widely, sometimes more thickly, the churches which are blessed with the daily prayers hallow large tracts of country. Day unto day they utter speech, night unto night they teach knowledge. Men cannot go on toiling and slaving in the business of this world without being reminded of a better. The Manchester artizan hears the sound of the daily bell in his attic; the Cornish fisherman, in his boatcove; the Norfolk drainer, in his fen; the Sussex shepherd, on his down: Whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear-Whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear,'that is the one message that peals from those church towers.

We do not intend to write an essay on this subject; -we merely propose to offer a few desultory remarks which may, perhaps, not be without their use. Would that we could induce one Priest to recite those prayers publicly, which the Church orders him to say, publicly or privately, every day!

It would be very interesting were a list of the Caroline daily services in being. The result would be, we have no doubt, that in towns they were much more general than nowin village churches much less frequent. Writers of religious novelets represent them, of course, as universal; but clear proof to the contrary exists. It is recorded by George Herbert's biographer, as an unusual thing, that he had daily prayers at Bemerton. It is noted, in the life of Dr. Willet, a learned polemical divine of James the First's time, as a very remarkable circumstance, that he came down at the hour of prayer, taking his family with him to the church: there services were publicly 'read, either by himself or his curate, to the great comfort of his parishioners, before they went forth to their daily labours.' We constantly find examples of endowments, as at S. Mary, Reading, left, in the Caroline times, for daily morning prayer: what need if it had been general, or considered as the rule? Again, in almost all the almshouses of that period the statutes direct that daily prayers shall be said in the chapel, but that the

brethren and sisters shall resort to their parish church at all times when it shall be open for Divine worship; a clear proof that it was not expected to be so open daily. Indeed, the deep research of the compilers of the 'Hierurgia Anglicana' could not have failed to establish the frequency of daily service in those earlier years of the seventeenth century, could it have been so proved.

In the eighteenth, it gradually died out of our towns, though in some instances, as at Boston and Grantham in Lincolnshire, it lingered on till the commencement of the present century. In the latter town it has never been given up. Dr. Wells endowed his church at Cotesbach with a sum for the perpetual recitation of daily morning prayers. The piety of a townsman did the same thing for Holyrood at Southampton, even in that dark age. In both cases the practice is maintained.

6

We hear the remark constantly made by parish priests who wish to establish daily public prayers, I should get no one to come if I did.' The answer is clear, if the objection were well founded: No matter whether you do or not: if your people neglect their duty, no reason yours should be negligently performed. Then, the school may always attend. This nothing can prevent. But even without this, and taking the very lowest view of the subject, we shall find that, in vulgar phrase, the daily prayer answers.' We happen to know that, among the 500 or 600 applications which the editors of Mr. Masters's list made to parish priests for information respecting their work, in one instance only was the answer, 'Daily service is given up for want of a congregation.' And this was in a place with every external advantage-a fashionable suburban parish. A very curious case, which tends to the same point, came under our own knowledge. A priest was instituted to a living in the fen-country; the population might be two thousand, and inconveniently situated for the church. It had been totally neglected; dissent was rampant; immorality unblushing: the one Sunday congregation averaged a hundred persons. In an unusually unfavourable autumn he commenced daily prayers. The farmers laughed-the squire, over his bottle of wine, expressed his belief that the rector was mad -the neighbouring clergymen shook their heads. The new incumbent threw himself on the poor; he fixed his hours for their convenience-six in the morning, seven in the evening, through the winter-and by the ensuing spring he had an average daily morning congregation of one hundred, that on Sunday improving in the like proportion, This is success which must not be looked for; but much more may be anticipated than is usually expected.

We are in possession of the average attendance at daily

prayers in most of the churches out of London where they are said, and the result is worth being recorded. The proportion per cent. of average attendance stands thus:-In three churches it exceeds 50; in eight varies from 40 to 50; in seven, from 30 to 40; in three, from 25 to 30; in seven, from 20 to 25; in twenty-one, from 15 to 20; in twenty-five, from 10 to 15; in twenty-one, from 5 to 10; and in five, is below 5. The largest average we know is 100; that occurs in the evensong of the church in a manufacturing town in one of the midland counties, with a population of 25,000 souls. In one case the attendance was given as absolutely nothing; but the explanation was adjoined, that there is only one family professing to be members of the Church in the parish. It is needless to say that this was in Cornwall.

The largest averages are almost universally in small country towns, with populations of three or four thousand, and two or three parishes; the smallest, in the suburban districts round London. In country places, the summer average will exceed the winter by at least one half. Generally speaking, the evensong will be better attended than matins, but the rule is not universal; and the more educated the congregation, the less will it hold.

One of the most important questions for a priest about to establish daily service is, of course, the time. There seems to be a kind of implicit feeling that 10 and 4 are the canonical hours of the English Church: why, it would be very difficult to say. But ever since the time of George Herbert, such has been the opinion; and those hours, in the majority of our cathedrals, are still the hours of prayer. Yet as, on the one hand, there is no canonical reason, but rather the contrary, for their choice, so in most places, and in all country villages, hardly any more inconvenient hours could be fixed. These suit neither rich nor poor; and the convenience of one or the other party ought to be consulted. The priest must so arrange his morning service as to catch the poor man before he goes forth to his daily work, or wait till the rich man can be expected to come. One alternative must be taken; and, in most cases, undoubtedly he should remember that to the poor the Gospel is preached. In summer, 5, or half-past 5, would give them the best chance of attending; yet, so far as we know, only one church in England has daily matins at 5, and one has the Litany at the same hour. In winter, 7, or even half-past 7, would suit the labourer very well; but, in the churches which adopt that time during summer, it is usually changed for the winter months. One church alone, and three or four cathedrals,Chichester and Chester, for example,-have two matin services. In town churches, later hours will, of course, be desirable,