on the Wednesday or Thursday, the collect alone. When on Good Friday, or any of the next four days, let the office of the saint's day be wholly omitted.

When St. Mark occurs on Easter day, on the Monday or Tuesday following, or on the Sunday after, his office may be omitted.

When St. Philip and James's day happens on the first Sunday after Easter, their office may, in like manner, be omitted. When on any of the other Sundays, it may supersede everything of the Sunday but the first lessons. When it falls on the Ascension, it must be omitted. When St. Barnabas falls on Whit Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday, or on Trinity Sunday, his office may be omitted. When on a Sunday after Trinity, it may supersede all but the first lessons.

When St. John the Baptist, St. Michael, and All Saints, fall on a Sunday, the office of that Sunday may be wholly omitted.

When the remaining saints' days falls on Sundays, the first lessons of the Sundays; the rest of the saint.

Although there are sometimes twenty-seven Sundays after Trinity, proper lessons are appointed for twenty-six only. I have heard it remarked, that the lessons of the twenty-seventh must be common and taken from the calendar, but I humbly apprehend the contrary, the rubric after the Gospel of the twenty-fifth (or last) Sunday distinctly ordering that one of the omitted Sundays after Epiphany should supply the want.

On the table of proper Psalms I shall merely observe, that it is a great pity there are none for Monday and Tuesday in Easter and Whitsun weeks; as it is, nothing can forbid the most mournful Psalms being occasionally read on those days of high thanksgiving and jubilation.

Our having discontinued the practice of singing before and after the Psalms, anthems chosen out of them, has this disadvantage,-that the people do not know, in some cases, why such and such Psalms are chosen for certain days. Thus, for instance, we have followed the Breviary arrangement in having the forty-eighth, sixty-eighth, and hundred-and-fourth Psalms said or sung on Whit Sunday; but I much question whether two out of every ten persons know the reason of the choice. If we look into the Roman Breviary, we at once see that reason, for there, before and after each of these Psalms, is ordered to be sung that verse which seems most directly to refer to the mystery of the day. These verses are as follows, according to the Vulgate version:

Ps. xlviii. 8-"We have received thy loving-kindness, O God, in the midst of thy temple."

Ps. lxviii. 28, 29-" Stablish this thing, O God, that thou hast wrought in us, from thy temple in Jerusalem.

Ps. civ. 30-" Send forth thy Spirit, and they shall be made; and thou shalt renew the face of the earth."

I cannot help remarking here, though it be a digression, that the instance just cited is but one of many in which a knowledge and study of the Latin office-books is found to throw great light on many

things in our liturgy which, from its too great conciseness, would otherwise be difficult of explanation. Thus we find in our Prayerbooks the festival of the Epiphany, or Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles; a most important commemoration, inasmuch as it directs our view to that breaking down of the partition wall, and making both one in Christ, which is one of the grandest characteristics of his religion, as distinct from Judaism. Knowing nothing more of the festival than this, an attentive churchman is led to wonder at the choice of second lessons; one, the narrative of our Saviour's baptism, (a Jewish rite, be it remembered,) and the other an account of the miraculous conversion of water into wine at the marriage of Cana; both, certainly, manifestations of Christ to Jews, but not to Gentiles. On looking, however, into the Roman Breviary, we find that one of the anthems so slightingly mentioned in our preface, at once explains the difficulty. The anthem is as follows:-" We celebrate a holy day adorned with three miracles ;-to-day a star led the wise men to the manger;-to-day wine was made from water at the marriage;-today Christ would be baptized in Jordan, that he might save us. Alleluia." From this it appears that two other events were commemorated on the 6th of January, besides the adoration by the magi; and indeed the Greek church regards our Lord's baptism as the great event of the day. We are fond of charging Rome with keeping the people in the dark, as indeed she does, were it but by her Latin service; we should, however, consider whether our abolition of such parts of the old offices as this, by which Rome explained her own rites, does not subject us to similar blame.

To conclude this digression, and the present paper. Some, even of the irregular practices of our church, may be explained by the Breviary. Every one has heard a hymn introduced immediately after the second lesson: there is no sanction for this; but, I have no doubt, it has come down from Breviary times, for a proper metrical hymn is there prescribed immediately after the capitula of lauds and vespers, and just precedes the benedictus and magnificat, which latter, in the Latin office, is sung at a different hour from the nunc dimittis. C.M.

SACRED POETRY.

HYMN FOR TRINITY SUNDAY.

O PRAISE, O praise HIS MAJESTY,

Who out of darkness call'd up light,
Who said, "Let air, earth, ocean be,"
And air, earth, ocean own'd his might.

O praise, O praise His Holiness,
Who man in his own image made,
And crown'd with blessings numberless,
And yet by man was disobey'd.

O praise, O praise His matchless Love,
Who, peace for rebels to provide,
Resign'd a throne, all thrones above,
And bore their sins, yet sinless died.

O praise, O praise His boundless Grace,
Who aids endeavour, soothes distress,
And guards from guilt that might efface
Thoughts of His Power, Love, Holiness.

His Grace, Love, Holiness, and Power
Of mercies are the ceaseless spring ;-
Praise, endless as the gifts they shower,
To Father, Son, and Spirit sing.

D. S.

2.—JULIAN.

DREAD glimpses, even in Gospel times, have been;
Nor was the holy household mute,

Nor did she not th' Avenger's march salute
With somewhat of exulting mien.—

Angel harps! of yore full well

That measure stern

The church might learn

When th' apostate Cæsar fell.

Proud Champion he, and wise beyond the rest,
His shafts not at the church, but at her Lord addrest.

What will He do, the Anointed One on high,
Now that hell-powers and powers of Rome
Are banded to reverse His foeman's doom,
And mar His Sovereign Majesty?
Seers in Paradise enshrin'd!
Your glories now

Must quail and bow

To th' high-reaching force of mind-
Vainly o'er Salem rolls your dooming tone :

Her sons have heard, this hour, a mightier trumpet blown.

The foes of Christ are gathering, sworn to build
Where He had sworn to waste and mar-

Plummet and line, arms of old Babel's war,
Are ready round Moriah's field.-

But the clouds that lightning breathe
Were ready too,

And, bursting through,

Billows from the wrath beneath

For Christ and for his Seers so keenly wrought,
They half subdu'd to faith the proud man's dying thought.

3. THE FALL OF BABYLON.

BUT louder yet the heavens shall ring,
And brighter gleam each Seraph's wing,
When doom'd of old by every Prophet's lyre,
Theme of the Saints' appealing cry,
While underneath the shrine they lie,
Proud Babel in her hour sinks in her sea of fire.

While worldlings from afar bemoan
The shatter'd Antichristian throne,

The golden idol bruis'd to summer dust

"Where are her gems ?-her spices, where?
Tower, dome, and arch, so proud and fair-

Confusion is their name-the name of all earth's trust."

The while for joy and victory

Seers and Apostles sing on high,

Chief the bright pair, who rest in Roman earth :
Fall'n Babel well their lays may earn,

Whose triumph is when souls return,

Who o'er relenting Pride take part in Angels' mirth.

VOL. VII.-Feb. 1835.

T

4.

THUS evermore the Saints' avenging God

With his dread fires hath scath'd th' unholy ground;
Nor wants there, waiting round th' uplifted rod,
Watchers in heaven and earth, aye faithful found.

God's armies, open-ey'd, His aim attend,

Wondering how oft these warning notes will peal,
Ere the great trump be blown, the Judge descend:
Man only wears cold look, and heart of steel.
Age after age, where Antichrist hath reign'd,
Some flame-tipt arrow of th' Almighty falls,
Imperial cities lie in heaps profan'd,

Fire blazes round apostate council-halls.

And if the world sin on, yet here and there

Some proud soul cowers-some scorner learns to pray; Some slumberer rouses at the beacon glare,

And trims his waning lamp, and waits for day.

[Erratum in No. xvii.—for "Pageant of earthly prowess drawing nigh,” read dawning.]

CORRESPONDENCE.

The Editor begs to remind his readers that he is not responsible for the opinions
of his Correspondents.

SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL.

SIR,-The majority of your readers will, I am convinced, feel obliged to you and your correspondent (p. 64, &c. of your last number) for bringing before us a subject which it is very important to see temperately and respectfully discussed. There cannot exist a doubt that the parochial clergy feel a very lively anxiety to augment the funds of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, but find that they are much impeded by the present mode of conducting its business. I desire not to insinuate, or to express, any blame; if there be grounds for any charge, I profess that I know not against whom it is to be made, nor do I pretend to acquaintance with the details of management. But the discussion can scarcely be productive of benefit to the great cause--the propagation of the pure Gospel of the Saviour-if it be carried on in the spirit which exhibits itself in some parts of the letter and of the note.* Let us not waste time, and disturb perhaps destroy-harmony and good will, either by blaming the committee and threatening them with the introduction into their

The Editor takes his good friend Littoralis's rebuke in good part, though he is sorry to say that he feels no penitence for the sentiments exprest in the note. Littoralis, however, may feel assured and comforted by remembering, that such oldfashioned opinions are not at all likely to gain the least acceptance. One expresses them on the principle of "liberavi animam meam."