valley of humiliation, into the hollow of which it takes its first steps to-day.1

1 Of the Collects used at the Communion, thirteen are concluded by this or a similar formulary:-1. First in Advent; 2. Third in Advent; 3. Nativity; 4. Sixth after Epiphany; 5. Septuagesima; 6. First in Lent; 7. Good Friday I.; 8. Good Friday III.; 9. Easter; 10. Ascension; 11. Sunday after Ascension; 12. Whitsun Day; 13. St. Matthew the Apostle. Nos. 3, 9, 10, 11, 12, are Collects for the highest Festivals of the Church, when any but a jubilant termination would be out of place.

In Nos. 1, 2, 4, it is the mention of the Second Advent, and the thought of the last Epiphany, which gives point to the jubilant termination.

No. 5 is accounted for in the text.

In Nos. 6, 7, the termination is doubtless designed to remind us that He who for our sakes underwent the temptations of the flesh, and was "crucified through weakness," is yet a Divine Person, and "liveth by the power of God." (The formulary resembles the three favoured Apostles, who were with our Lord, not only on the holy mount of Transfiguration, but in the garden of the Agony.)

In Nos. 8 and 13 the reason for introducing the termination seems rather connected with the structure of the Prayer. After the clauses, "be made one fold under one Shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord," and "Grant us grace to follow the same thy Son Jesus Christ," it would be bald and unsatisfactory to the ear to add "through Him," and therefore another formulary is adopted. [For more on this subject, see the Appendix to the Collect for the First Sunday in Advent, p. 98.]

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE SUNDAY CALLED SEXAGESIMA,

OR THE SECOND SUNDAY BEFORE LENT.

Lord God, who seest that we put not our trust in anything that we do; Mercifully grant that by thy power we may be defended against all adversity; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Deus, qui conspicis quia ex nulla nostra actione confidimus; concede propitius, ut contra omnia adversa doctoris gentium protectione muniamur. Per.-Greg. Sac. -Miss. Sar.

A SPECIAL interest attaches to this Collect, not so much from its contents, which are meagre in comparison with some others, as from the material alteration which the principles of our Reformers obliged them to make in it. The petition of it, as it stands in the Sacramentary of Gregory, and as it still is used in the Roman Church, runs thus; "Mercifully grant that by the protection of the teacher of the Gentiles 1 we may be fortified against all adversities." St. Paul is, of course, the person referred

1 Dr. Neale tells us ("Essays on Liturgiology," etc., p. 55) that “Quignon, who eliminated from the old Offices several passages of a similar kind, allowed this to remain. But in the Parisian Missal, instead of 'Doctoris gentium protectione,' we have, 'Gratiæ tuæ protectione"" (by the protection of thy grace).-This of course is perfectly unobjectionable; and it may be a question whether "by the protection of thy grace" is not at least equally good with "by thy power." The latter, however, seems to cover a larger surface of idea, inasmuch as grace" protects only against spiritual "adversity."

to, whose tutelage is to fortify the petitioner. In both his Epistles to Timothy he assumes the designation of "teacher of the Gentiles," preceding it in either Epistle by the words "a preacher and an apostle," and succeeding it in the first by the clause "in faith and verity." The petition of the old Collect seems to regard him as being at present, in virtue of the position which he held upon earth, a kind of guardian angel of the Gentile Churches, one who even in Paradise watched their concerns with interest, spread his wing over them, shielded them from the assaults of hostile principalities and powers in the spirit-world, one in short who held towards these Churches very much the same relation, as in the tenth chapter of Daniel certain angels, called respectively "princes of Persia," "Grecia," and Israel, seem to hold to the nations placed under their patronage.2 Now, although there is some authority in Holy Scripture for the tutelage of angels, abundant evidence at all events that by God's appointment they "succour and defend” men “ on earth,” - there is none whatever for the tutelage of departed saints. Sternly, therefore, as they were in duty bound, did the Reformers wield the pruning knife on this occasion, and referred the fortification of the Church against all adversity, not to the protection of the teacher of the Gentiles, but simply to the power of God. But the old form of the petition still has its interest, though it is no longer a practical one. Independently of the historic interest attaching to it, as to all forms of superstition

1 1 Tim. ii. 7; and 2 Tim. i. 11.

2 Dan. x. 13, 20, 21.

3 Gen. xxviii. 12; Dan. (as in last reference), and vi. 22; Psalm xxxiv. 7; 2 Kings vi. 17, with Psalm lxviii. 17; St. Matt. xviii. 10.

4 Collect for St. Michael and all angels. See Heb. i. 14; Gen. xix. 15, 16; Acts v. 19, 20; Acts xii. 7, 10, etc. etc.

which have at any time laid hold of the human mind, there is the evidence it furnishes of a connexion of thought subsisting between these old prayers and the passages of Holy Scripture associated with them as Epistles and Gospels. This connexion, as being not

always very plain, is sometimes doubted or denied; but the evidence of it in cases like the present is so strong that we may well believe that, even when it cannot be so clearly traced, it still exists. It should be remarked, while we are upon this part of the subject, that the original Epistle for this day (which consisted of twentyfour verses) reached to the end of the ninth verse of the twelfth Chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. Our Reformers curtailed it to twelve verses, so that it does not now go down to the end of the eleventh Chapter. We may, I think, see a good reason for this alteration. also. The account of the "visions and revelations of the Lord," with which St. Paul was favoured, was thus omitted altogether, not because it was otherwise than germane to the argument of the entire passage, but because it might have tended to foster the superstitions, connected with his tutelage, which had left such evident traces upon the Collect. It would be otherwise now, when superstition is on the wane, and Rationalism (alas!) in the ascendant; but in those times, when superstition had a real hold upon men's minds, if the notice of the Apostle's having been transported to the third heaven and to Paradise had been brought too pointedly before them, they might easily have been led to do that which he so earnestly deprecates, to "think of men above that which is written."2 If our wise Reformers had not pruned the old Offices with great severity, they would

1 2 Cor. xii. 1.

2 1 Cor. iv. 6.

never have achieved their object.

Hence their retrench

ment of many ceremonies, innocent and even edifying in themselves, but which could not have been allowed to linger in the then state of public sentiment without hazard to the whole fabric of the Reformation.

"O Lord God, who seest that we put not our trust in anything that we do." We put not our trust in anything that we do. Think not that it is an easy thing to refrain from putting our trust in the things we do. It is indeed easy enough, so long as in God's service we are doing little or nothing. If a man has no sacrifices for Christ to show in his life, if he has surrendered for Christ's sake nothing which he might have retained, if his religion,-while it has soothed his own conscience, and won him the favourable opinion of others, has had no element of self-denial in it, then "to put his trust in nothing that he does" is surely the cheapest of all virtues. But look at the toils and sufferings of St. Paul, as he himself records them in this day's Epistle, the abundant labours, the excessive stripes, the frequent prisons, the constant jeopardies of death, the scourgings, the stoning, the shipwrecks, the exposures on sea and land, the hairbreadth escapes from human enemies and from the elements, the weariness and painfulness, the watchings often, the hunger and thirst, the cold and nakedness 1-all this undergone, not with a free unburdened mind, but under the pressure of anxiety and work, connected with the churches 2 which he had founded, and over which he had watched so solicitously; who that had done all this, and submitted to all this, in the service of our great Master, would not feel a temptation to plume himself on his exertions, his activities, his self-denials, and to take heart from looking ("confidere ex ") rather at

1 See 2 Cor. xi. 23, 24, 25, 26, 27.

2 See 2 Cor. xi. 28.