Scripture have been set by a great Master, the notes to which the words have been wedded seem to bring them home to the mind and feelings of a devout listener in a degree which is impossible without musical help. It would be easy to give examples of this; but I must not run too far away from the point which is immediately before us, which is the making of the responses. The congregation must not leave this to the Choir: they may listen to an Anthem, many of them may be unable even to chant the Psalms, but they must not let the Choir take from them all their part in the service; they must not let the skill of the choir cover their negligence; they must not forget that it is as bad to say Amen by deputy when the Church possesses a trained choir, as it is when the only deputy is an unmusical parish clerk. The prayer, "O Lord, open Thou our lips," and the rejoinder, "And our mouth shall shew forth Thy praise," are applicable to the whole congregation, and not merely to Priest and Choir. Sometimes perhaps silence arises not from carelessness, but from shyness; some people have a great dislike to hearing their own voice. This shyness should be overcome, if possible; it is apt to be infectious; and if a few of the more influential members of a congregation allow themselves to be silent, it is almost certain that others will follow their example, and the result cannot fail to be deplorable. Join in the responses then audibly to the best of your ability, clerk or no clerk, choir or no choir1. 1 What has been said about the clerk and his duties may be usefully illustrated by comparing a rubric in the Accession Service with the corresponding rubric in the service of Morning Prayer. In the former we find the following: "Instead of VENITE EXULTEMUS the Hymn following shall be said or sung; one Verse by the Priest, and another by the Clerk and People;" whereas the corresponding rubric in the ordinary Morning Service runs thus: "Then shall be said or sung this Psalm following." The mention of the Clerk (not Clerks) in the Accession Service is to be noted; and so is the recognition of the practice, which for a long time has been common and continues so still, of the Priest repeating one verse and the Clerk and people another. Accession Service in its present form dates from the beginning of the last century: in the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer there is, so far as I know, no reference to this practice. The CHAPTER VIII. PREVIOUS STUDY OF THE SUNDAY SERVICES. "My study shall be in Thy Statutes." GREAT advantage will arise to the worshipper in Church on the Sunday, the only day upon which a large majority of English people are able to go to Church, if he have prepared himself by a study of the services appropriate to the day. Some portions of the service are fixed, that is to say, are the same from one Sunday to another; but others are changeable, and it will be well to search out and examine these beforehand, and so to be prepared to use them to the best advantage. The changeable portions are the Psalms, the Lessons, and the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel. These it will be desirable to have studied beforehand; a person who does so will find, that when he listens in Church to portions of Scripture to which he has previously directed his attention at home, he will understand them far better than he would if they came upon him unexpectedly. But, besides this, he will frequently find that the different portions of Scripture and the Collect appointed for a particular day explain and throw light upon each other sometimes they are almost evidently chosen with especial reference to this mutual elucidation, sometimes it may be the result of accident; but anyhow it will form a valuable study for the worshipper in Church, to take the various portions of Holy Scripture which are thus brought together into the service of one day, and to examine their mutual bearing. Holy Scripture will thus be seen to be an admirable interpreter of itself; it will be a healthy exercise to strive to understand Scripture in this way; and when the services have been previously studied, the Scriptures of the day will be listened to with a degree of insight and of satisfaction, which cannot otherwise be easily obtained. Sometimes, moreover, the Scriptures of the day may contain some difficulty which cannot be got over in merely listening to them once read; and in such cases it will be an advantage to have quietly scanned the difficulty beforehand, and taken the dimensions of it, and endeavoured to surmount it. What a pleasure too may sometimes be enjoyed, when after toiling over some hard passage in the services, and having contended with it almost in vain, the sermon on the Sunday is made to deal with that very difficulty, and by the light so thrown upon it the perplexing passage starts into clear day! And how much more will such an elucidation be valued by one who has in a manner earned it by previous care and study, than by one who never thought of the difficulty, or knew of its existence, until the sermon pointed it out! I have already spoken of Sunday as the only day upon which a large majority of English people are able to go to Church, and therefore have referred especially to the Sunday services. This book is in fact intended chiefly for those whose leisure is small, and who cannot hope to join in the services of the Church much more frequently than on every Lord's day. Even if persons be so circumstanced that they are within reach of an open Church, and can manage to attend, it does not follow that they will be able to find time to make a daily preparation for the services, such as that which I have been recommending. Anyhow the Sunday service, with its proper first lessons and its Epistle and Gospel, requires a more than ordinary amount of attention; and the absence or great diminution of worldly occupations upon |