THE AMENDED RUBRICS.

WHEN, we are afraid to say how many years ago, Convocation was, to use a phrase of the day, unmuzzled after upwards of a century of enforced silence, dire were the prophecies of evil as the expected result. But when the debates were opened, each session, as it brought together the Church's patres conscripti within the walls of the Jerusalem Chamber, added to the already established character of the clerus for depth of learning and weight of reasoning power. The tentative caution which permitted, in the Letters of Business, no dealing with anything but rubrics, just as a young lurcher in the colliery districts is practised on a rabbit-skin before he is allowed to touch the skin that contains a live rabbit, lest he may destroy the life too soon for sport, was almost condemned as useless, so sure was the ground chosen for every step, so steady the advance. And now at length the result is before the public in the Table of Proposed Amendments to the Rubrics put forth by the Convocation of the southern province.

Meanwhile, in that marvellously beautiful chamber which, under the shadow of the great minster, is the home of the Northern Convocation, debates have been concurrent on the same subjects, though with concurrent public opinion as different asso far as we know them as yet-are the results. As to public opinion, we have even seen letters from members of the Northern Assembly acquiescing in the generally supposed fact of the superiority of the sister chamber in many ways. May we be allowed to doubt, without losing our own character for common sense, the correctness of this generally received opinion?

But, in the first place, we ask, what are the articles on which both Convocations have agreed? Simply and soberly, we answer, those which had already been acted on in almost all churches in the country having any character for life in them, those in favour of which the great majority of the people, being educated up to them, had already pronounced by tacit acquiescence. We have nothing to say in respect of the making the Prayer Book more complete as an historical record by the insertion of such bracketed information as "[prefixed at the Revision

of 1662]," and the "Notes" in Article 13; though why information of this kind is limited to the last 300 years, and excludes, e.g., information as to the history of the Quicunque vult, we cannot comprehend. Nor do such obvious trifles as those noted in Articles 23, 57, and the last part of 81, need comment. But if we except one or two Articles to which reference shall be made below, and those which have been vetoed by the Convocation of York, one wonders what there is in the few remaining ones to have required the vast machinery of election, and summoning and assembling in London from all parts of the country, and deliberations and solemnity for some seven or eight years for their consummation. The provisions of Article 5, useful as they are, have every one of them been common in every church in the realm where there has been any attempt whatever to accommodate the Church's worship to the exigencies of the day and of the people. We suspect that the precedences of holy days in Article 12 will create great jealousy from all schools of thought in those questionable settings aside of the universally accepted, though unwritten rule, that the Sunday, being commemorative of the great victory of the Lord, should take precedence of those holy days which are commemorative only of the very minor (for comparison) victories of His saints; especially when we find such Sundays as those of the great Forty Days, Mid-Lent and Passion Sundays, and the 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany, seconded to commemorations to which their own are of undoubtedly prior importance. Turning to Articles 17 and 18, the permission, we suggest, was not needed to throw open the lectern to "any fit person" by the formal passing of these Articles. The like may be said of the sanction formally given to the singing of hymns, and even more; for this first attempt to formally legalize hymns in the ordinary services of the Church can amount to nothing else than the rendering illegal, and therefore penal, the use of all hymns not hereby sanctioned, such as processional and recessional, penitential hymns and metrical litanies, eucharistic and marriage hymns; the Articles sanctioning hymns in certain places, where they are already sung by custom, having obviously no force at all, unless they forbid ipso facto the use of hymns in all other places. The like may be said about the permission to introduce sermons in certain parts where already custom had sanctioned their use, and no one thought of interfering; for is not the preaching of a sermon or the delivery of an

address at a funeral by these Articles rendered illegal? Articles 31 to 34 inclusive are a similar stereotyping of what a practical and elastic custom had already sanctioned. All such attempts as that of Article 44 to remove certain obvious irregularities and inconsistencies of the present senseless custom of mashing up into one three totally distinct services, such as Mattins, Litany, and Holy Eucharist, only draw attention to other similar ones. For why should care be taken to have only one prayer for the Sovereign qua sovereign, while there are two confessions, two absolutions (!), two creeds, two sets (or three) of prayers for sick and sorrowing, and for many other classes of persons? Eliminate all if you eliminate one; and all duplicates can be eliminated only by using the services as they were originally intended, and as they can only "reasonably " be used, viz., separately, each of them; to restore which original intention of these services the only methods are-one, to render obligatory an interval between these services of at least five minutes, and the ringing of a bell; the other, and the better, to leave things as they are, to be righted by time and common sense. Another such attempt seems to be made in 55; but here, although there seems to be permission to those who are not minded to receive, to content themselves with a former confession in Mattins, or with none at all, nevertheless the latter half of the rubric seems to contradict the former by ordering "the people "the people" to kneel, to kneel, "all saying" the confession. Here there would be an excellent and intelligible rubric, by reading "they" for "the people," and omitting the word "all" before "saying." Is it advisable, by the second provision in Article 60, that formal sanction should be given by the Church, apparently, to the omission of the weekly offertory? It seems to us that the present is a favourable opportunity of rectifying the mistake, made in 1661, of using the Lord's Prayer before instead of after, the act of baptism in the office for Private Baptism. In all our corporate services except this the Lord's Prayer is used, with reference to the people, only subsequent to the central act of reconciliation with God which that service contains. Thus it comes in after absolution at Mattins and Evensong, after the act of Confirmation, after reception of the Holy Eucharist, after the act of Baptism in the other baptismal offices; and immediately after each such act, as if to imply that by that act the object of it had become fit to be included in what is expressed by "our Father." We believe that two very beautiful truths-regeneration by baptism, and the

perfect acceptability of infants thereby among the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty"—are lost sight of, and even the necessity of baptism for regeneration is pro tanto denied by the use of the Lord's Prayer before, instead of after, the act of baptism, in our order for its private administration to infants. Is it too late to reconsider this? In Article 83, the words " and including" should be inserted before "the first blessing; "otherwise, when there are more than one couple, the latter part of that blessing would be most unseemly. Nor can we entirely agree with the obligation to have a matrimonial celebration when there is one longer than is necessary, a sufficient precedent being given by our present order for clerical communion, wherein nothing is required before "Ye that do," &c., save the collect, Epistle, and Gospel. Also, when there is no communion, does the latter part of Article 86 mean that the priest may cut short the service at the first blessing? If by this is implied that the latter portion is only meant, and only suited, for communicants (which we are inclined to think), then why is the discretion left to the minister? If the latter part be suitable for all, then why is the minister allowed to exclude some ? In the proposals respecting the burial office, while we are thankful for the removal of " conscientious objections" in favour of the relatives of the departed, why, we ask, on the other hand, is the conscience of the priest rigidly guarded from any consideration or thought by not permitting to him the discretion which is allowed to the people as to the service which he is to use?

If we turn from this cursory review of such Articles as appear to us to require reconsideration, to those which, being of any importance, seem to be improvements, the list will be but brief. There can be no doubt that the large increase in the number of days for which proper psalms are appointed is a great improvement, both because of the special interpretation and to a vast number of persons new and evangelical light which will thus be thrown upon so many of the psalms, and because of the greater prominence which will thus be given to some evangelical truths which have for so long been almost if not quite forgotten. Under the former head, the psalms we have tested, notably those for Advent Sunday (? the first Sunday in Advent), are admirable. Under the second, the Incarnation (at Annunciation), and the ministration of angels, so prominent a feature in the story of our Lord's own life, will become more fully recognised truths than they are now. The increased prominence given to certain facts or doc

trines by the wider recognition of octave commemorations is also a move in the right direction. This will be observed in Articles 9 (note), 16, 38, 41, 42. The recognition of lay readers in the Church (17, 18), the exclusion of the general thanksgiving from the Litany, into which it is so commonly the habit to thrust it incongruously as new wine into old bottles (27), the permission to omit the Litany altogether on the three chief high festivals, the increased prominence (especially in these days of revival of foreign missionary zeal) given to the truths of the Epiphany by Article 36, the permission to omit the use (with exceptions) of the long exhortations and the warning (49), and other like sanctionings of what has become the tacitly received use of our Church, will relieve many clergy of the feeling that to elasticise the Church's services and fit them to occasion they are compelled to disregard too often her laws. In 40 the discretion of the minister in the selection of post-Epiphany collects for the extra Sundays after Trinity is taken away, and none are allowed to be used but those for the 5th and 6th Sundays after Epiphany, which had a palpably intended reference to the season of Advent. The nearest approach to a new service seems to be the provision, hitherto entirely omitted, for the clinic baptism of adults, so necessary in these days when so many return to their Church from the laxity of Dissent. This, if the Lord's Prayer were placed after instead of before the act of baptism, seems to us to be the one act of rubrical revision which was necessary for the supply of a palpable need; except perhaps the provisions of Article 80, to meet similar exigencies of persons who, either having been baptized in Dissent, or having received clinic baptism without subsequent public reception, have had no God-parents. A most desirable improvement, too, is the permission to the priest (89), in case of urgent necessity to cut down the office for clinic communion to the briefest possible limits.

But it was for not one of these objects, except perhaps as regards the Burial Service, the necessity for altering which has been much modified by the recent Public Health (Cemeteries) Act, 1879, that the Letters of Business were originally granted. Notoriously the kernel of the whole permission lay in the ornaments rubric, the Athanasian Creed, the meaning of the expression "north side," involving the eastward position, the use of wafer bread, and the mixed chalice. The Convocation of Canterbury has observed a judicious silence on all these points excepting the first two. Perhaps this silence may be the result