in the hearers of it, the ministry of it, whatever sensations it may have created, has produced no solid or substantial results.

5. But excellent and exhaustive as the Intercessions of our Liturgy are, it is sometimes felt that they do not attract our sympathy or interest us in the same degree with other prayers. It may be right to intercede for our Rulers in Church and State, and to seek God's Blessing upon the Universal Church throughout the world; but, alas! the narrowness of our views and sympathies too often invest such Intercession with a chilly ceremoniousness, and deprives it of all warmth and unction. If, then, we desire a softening element in prayers of this description; if we desire to be brought out of the atmosphere of what may be called official life, into that of our common humanity,-nowhere is this done for us with such simple and touching pathos as in the latter part of the Prayer for the Church Militant. For there the different forms of human sorrow,-that sorrow which makes all mankind of one kin, and puts the Sovereign on a level with the serf,-are brought before the mind; and we implore the Great Healer" of His goodness to comfort and succour all them, who in this transitory life are in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity." Here is calamity, here is mourning, here is poverty, here is broken health, and if there be any other form of human woe, all presented to the eye of the Divine Compassion in five simple words of intense supplication. To Him who lives environed by the glories of Heaven, and the Hallelujahs of Seraphim, what a lazar-house of miseries must the Earth be! How like a pool of Bethesda, with its great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, and withered,-with its restless pining and

moaning, and its cruelly disappointed hopes! Can we think of this multitude of sorrows without sympathy, without at least a fervent desire to recommend it to GOD? And if we can think of it so, are we prepared to partake of the Feast of Love? Have we in that case any thing of His mind, who, upon the sight of the deaf and dumb, sighed, as He looked up to Heaven; who wept, as He stood between sorrowing sisters at Lazarus' grave? And if we have nothing of His mind, shall we present our selves to hold Communion with Him at His Table?

But there is a yet more touching suggestion in this prayer, which can hardly fail to reach the heart. There are those Christians (and some of them possibly among our own nearest and dearest) whose troubles, sorrows, and labours have reached their climax, and who have now passed beyond our sight into that realm beyond the grave, "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." If to follow them with prayer were presumptuous, as being beyond the warrant of GOD's Word, we may at least follow them with thanksgiving. The angels strike their golden harps as fresh souls are won to GOD in this world. Shall we not suppose that they strike them when those souls are taken home to Him,―released from the body of Sin and Death? And may we not join our poor voices with that angelic symphony? And may we not also implore grace for ourselves to follow their faith, considering the end of their conversation, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever? Yes, surely! it is an unloving spirit, and one totally uncongenial with the mind of Christ and His Church, which would cut us off from this solemn commemoration before GOD of those who have departed this life in His faith and fear. This is the one exercise of

Devotion by which the communion of living Christians with departed saints, their fellowship with us of interests, of hopes, of thankfulness, of adoration,-is recog nized. As such we believe the Liturgy would be imperfect and mutilated without it. We believe that without this clause' in the Prayer for the Church Militant, the heart would crave something which it would not find in the highest Office of the Church. For those who have lost Christian friends, who once walked side by side with them in this troublesome world, cannot banish the thought of such friends in their approaches to GOD. The departed ones seem to stand on the other side of the river

1 In the first Protestant Prayer Book (1549) the sentence bidding this Prayer ran merely, "Let us pray for the whole state of Christ's Church." And a prayer for the departed was inserted to this effect:

"We commend unto Thy mercy, O Lord, all other Thy servants, which are departed hence from us with the sign of faith, and now do rest in the sleep of peace; Grant unto them, we beseech Thee, Thy mercy and everlasting peace, and that, at the day of the general Resurrection we and all they which be of the mystical body of Thy Son may all together be set on His right hand, and hear that His most joyful voice: Come unto me, O ye that be blessed of my Father, and possess the Kingdom," &c.

In the Prayer Book of 1552 all mention of the dead was omitted, and to the heading of it were added the words, "militant here in earth."

This alteration was made in compliance with Bucer's strictures, one of which seems somewhat fantastic:-"I should be unwilling in that word-sleep of peace—to give occasion of gratifying those who affirm that the departed in the Lord sleep (even as to their souls) unto the last day."

In 1661, after the Savoy Conference, when the doctrine of Purgatory had been extirpated, the present clause giving thanks for all those who have departed this life in God's faith and fear, and praying for grace to follow their example, was inserted, and is surely a most valuable feature of the Prayer.

of Death, and beckon us to cross, as they have crossed, under the sheltering wing of the Redeemer. And most precious is the thought that, as they are with Him, wrapt in a communion closer than any which can be enjoyed on Earth, whenever we truly seek Him, we draw nigh (though unconsciously and invisibly) to their spirits. For the nearer the rays of a circle approach to their common centre, so much the nearer of necessity they draw to one another. Christ is the one meeting-point of the faith of the living, and of the sight of the dead; and thus in Him our faith hath communion with their sight. "For we are come" (not are to come, but are come) "unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect."

LECTURE VII.

OF THE COMMEMORATION OF THE DEAD IN THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY COMMUNION.

“But ye are come

....

to the spirits of just men made perfect.” HEB. xii. 22, 23.

IN the Prayer for the Church Militant there are three great features, the Oblation, the Intercessions, and the Commemoration of the Dead. Of the first two of these we have spoken sufficiently. The last is a feature which

requires further development than the passing notice which we took of it in the foregoing Lecture.

The concluding clause of the Prayer, to which we refer, "And we also bless Thy Holy Name for all Thy servants departed this life in Thy faith and fear: beseeching Thee to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of Thy heavenly kingdom," was added at the last Review of the Office, all mention of the dead having been in abeyance from the time of the Second Book of Edward VI., from which intercession for the spirits of the departed righteous (such as had found place in the First Book) was carefully expunged, until the year 1662, when the English Liturgy received its finishing touches. It shall first be pointed out how the addition is justified by Holy Scripture.

In the context of the passage, which stands at the head of this Lecture, the Apostle is warning Christians to beware lest they despise their privileges, and by apostatizing for the sake of worldly comfort or advantage, recklessly throw them away. This would be to imitate the conduct and fate of profane Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For, says he (this seems to be the connexion of thought), your privileges as Christians are high and great,-far greater than those of the Church under the Law. And then he proceeds to enumerate them. They (the Hebrew Christians) had not come to a literal mountain, which might be touched; but to a spiritual eminence, in whose high and celestial atmosphere they had communion with God, with Christ, with angels, with the entire Church of God, whether now in warfare, or at rest, and specifically with the spirits of just men made perfect. Such is the general scope of the