the parish. She and her niece visited the poor assiduously, and were familiar, every-day visitors at the rectory, and so insensibly saw themselves received everywhere. They were the agents of almost every scheme of social improvement, always ready to act for the greater ladies, who had less time to spare, and content to pick up the crumbs of society from these great folks' tables. Though they were quite insignificant in themselves they were in the midst of everything, and not unimportant members of the society which admitted them on sufferance, yet ended by being somewhat dependent upon them. If ever Miss Trevor enjoyed a holiday from her close attendance on her father, it was when Mrs. Booth had the carriage sent for her before luncheon and came to spend the day, with her dinnerdress and her cap in a little box. She could manage to guess at what the admiral meant, and she would play at backgammon with him, or read the newspapers, while Jane Trevor rested her weary soul in her own room, writing a detailed report to her aurist, or putting a few new verses into a book with a Bramah lock, which held the confidences of her life. It was Miss Booth who was the most popular of the two at Westland Towers, where Ada liked to have a hanger-on. But in the rectory they were both in their element-more familiar, and constantly interfering with Dolly, whom they both were very fond of, and whom they worried considerably. Rosebank had a balance and pendant in Elderbower, where lived an Indian officer and his family; but the Elders were a large family, very much occupied with each other, with the cares of education, and making both ends meet; and consequently they took little part in what was going on, and need not be counted at all.

of sight-seeing the open doorway of its cathedral, or some other church which his guide-book tells him is worth a visit, his impressions are various in kind. First of all, the entrance itself - the inner side-doors opening and closing continually for the ingress or egress not only of strangers like himself, but of the townspeople of all classes (women, it must be said, in undue proportion)-marks the building at once as a place not for "divine service" or "public worship" only, but as emphatically a house of prayer. There are the ever-burning lamps, just visible in the dim religious twilight, pagan in their origin, if you will, but which to some minds will seem no unworthy or superstitious symbolism of an eye to which the darkness is no darkness, a watch that never ceases, a light that lightens the world. There is the perfume of incense, either freshly rising, if high service should be going on, or hanging about the place with a faint fragrance, distinct and peculiar, and perhaps even more suggestive of an offering which is perpetual. In this, too, there is surely nothing to shock either the visitor's feelings or his taste, unless his Protestantism be of a very narrow and negative kind. This again, the antiquarian might tell us, is pagan at least as much as Christian; but its use in the Jewish temple may well redeem it from heathen associations. So long as we still use the words of the Psalmist, "Let my prayer be set forth in thy sight as the incense," so long as we read how the angel in the Apocalypse had incense given him, "that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints," we can hardly assert that the incense is a superstition any more than the prayers. There are modern "Protestants " who are quite ready to say the same of both. If he casts his eye on the series of pictures which hang on the walls or the pillars, representing the several "stations of the cross," it may strike him that such an embodiment of that pathetic story may touch some hearts as forcibly by an appeal to the eye, as the glowing language of a hymn or the graphic description of the preacher. True, the art displayed in such paintings is not always of the highest, especially in the humbler churches, but then neither are the worshippers in such places art critics, on the whole; and he will remember that good taste is not an WHEN an ordinary English traveller, in invariable characteristic either of hymns his walks through some large Continental or sermons, which the critical mind has city, enters - let us hope with some high- devoutly to make the best of. And then er feeling than the mere vulgar curiosity | the worshippers; he will hardly fail to see

This was the circle which encompassed the Markhams like a chorus, like the ring of spectators which is always found encircling combatants in all classes. In this arena, round which were ranged all the bystanders, was about to be enacted the drama of their family life.

From Blackwood's Magazine.
THE ROMAN BREVIARY.

some in any town church, let him enter at | a subdued whisper, and takes his fee with what hour he will. If in the forenoon, almost a show of deprecation. His logic there will surely be a priest saying mass of observation has almost led him to the at some one of the many altars, and some limited conclusion that some Protestants show of congregation round him; and at are Christians. all hours there will be kneeling figures But our traveller will also have received scattered here and there, engaged with impressions most probably of a different apparent earnestness in some kind of pri- kind. The lights, and the incense, and vate devotion. If the visitor possesses in large churches the almost uninterbut a moderate share of reverential feeling, mitted chain of services, and the worshipeven though it amount to nothing more pers who come and go, kneeling in prayer than to reverence in others something he for a few minutes stolen from the busy cannot feel himself, the interest and occu- demands of life, will have won from pation of those worshippers will seem him, more or less, according to his own almost a rebuke to his own. Most of temperament, a respect and even a symus cannot but have noted, even within our pathy which is not checked by conscious own memory, a marked change in the be- divergence in points of belief. As for the havior of casual English travellers within school-children, who commonly abound at a foreign Catholic church. The careless these services, well, Catholics or Protand noisy walk, the loud voice and half- estants are very much the same; there suppressed laughter, the offensively curi- is "a great deal of human nature" in ous stare, which formerly were too often both; the little maidens demure and the disgrace of the "Protestant" sight- docile, the boys somewhat erratic and seer, are rarely heard or seen in such troublesome. But he will have noted places now. An outwardly decent beha- many things which jar unpleasantly upon vior is the homage readily paid even by his own religious feelings. Many outthe man of the world. Such is the tone, ward details will seem to him almost reat present, of good society. Nay, it is no pulsive. He might regard the worship of very uncommon sight to see a quiet mem- the Virgin, however mistaken, as at least ber of the English Church kneel for a few a picturesque ideal of the glorification of moments where others kneel, or read the womanly purity, if he did not so often see Psalms or lessons for the day from an her image vested in tawdry modern finery, English Prayer-book, while the Roman- gay with artificial flowers, and crowned ist, a few paces off, is occupied in the with cheap tinsel. He might forgive any same independent fashion with some pri- amount of lavish decoration on the altar, vate office of his own. It may be that the if the ornaments were always in good latter is paying his devotions to some taste, if the jewels were not so often of favorite saint, or reciting the due number glass, and if the lace were always real. of Aves or Paternosters in very mechani- For if he has imbibed anything of the cal and perfunctory fashion, but there is revived taste for church decoration, he for the time a unity of special interest will have been taught, as its leading prinand purpose that keeps them not so very ciple, that such work should be genuine far apart, there is rest for a few quiet in material and good in its kind; that unmoments for both from the noisy world adorned red pine is better than the finest without, and the place has an atmosphere grainer's oak, plain white stone more to of prayer. It is remarkable, too, though be desired than the cleverest imitation of by no means strange, to see how the marble, honest broadcloth than cotton change in the behavior of the passing velvet. Nay, churchman or no churchtraveller has acted on the minor officials man, as an Englishman he hates a sham. of such a church itself, whom a too great And shams, alas! will meet his eyes familiarity with sacred things is apt to continually, not in the humbler village make somewhat hard and careless. These, churches only, where poverty may check too, have taken up the tone of decent expenditure, and bad taste be more exreverence, in accordance with the de- cusable, but even in churches otherwise mand. We are seldom hurried now, as magnificent, where no such excuse can we were thirty years ago, by the ecclesi- be pleaded. There seems, in many cases, astical guide from shrine to shrine, from an absence of any sense of the fitness of picture to picture, from altar to altar, with things. Common and coarsely-colored insistent pertinacity and loud, voluble prints, meanly framed, hang on the wails description, in utter disregard of his quiet, in close proximity with paintings of sterkneeling fellow-Catholics. He moves now ling value; and a dirty alb will show itself with quiet steps, gives his information in under a gorgeous chasuble. Cleanliness

is, in fact, a thing still much to be desired | ing mass "in a tongue not understanded in the majority of French and Italian of the people;" the people are there, churches; not that the English visitor either silently looking on, or engaged as has any right to cast stones, if he can silently it may be in following the service, remember what was the state of most or it may be in some office of private parish churches in his own country within devotion, recognized by Church authority the last half-century. The processions, as useful for the laity during this public too, leave much to be desired by the service" Methods of hearing Mass," æsthetic mind. It is quite a popular mis- as they are called — or in mental prayer. take to suppose that "they manage these They will stand or kneel, and cross themthings better in France -or in Italy.selves reverently, at certain points of the On certain great occasions - as, for ex- service; but the responses are left enample, the grand outdoor spectacle pre- tirely to the acolyth or "server," just as sented in large Roman Catholic towns on with us, in past times, they were regarded the Feast of Corpus Christi - the scenic as the special duty or privilege of the effect is very striking, and has evidently parish clerk. Not only this, but in the been arranged with much care and pains. same church there will sometimes be two But ordinary processions lack impressive- or three priests officiating at as many sevness, and come far behind their imitation eral altars at the same time, often so as in a high Ritualistic church in England. to confuse the attention; and the mere There is the same lack of dignity, and it fact of the separate congregations gathmight almost be said of decorum, as we ered round the altar of their choice demay bewail amongst ourselves in the stroys the whole idea of a united act of march of our parochial clergy at the worship. There are exceptions to this reopening of a parish church, or the practice in particular churches. In the entrance of the cathedral body at West- fine church belonging to the great monasminster; processions of which a cynical tery at Engelberg, in Switzerland, where friend remarked, that the only religious the peasants gather in crowds from the idea that came into his mind when he saw mountain villages and châlets on the Sunthem was a verse in the Psalms: "They day mornings, one might fancy one's self, reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken if it were not for the costumes and the man, and are at their wits' end." If these language, present among the congregation kind of things are to be done, they should in some exceptionally well-ordered Enbe done well; and they are not done well, glish parish-so hearty and unanimous as a rule, even by Roman Catholics. are the responses, so vigorous the singThey are done better on the stage, be- ing, so exemplary the attention to the cause that is the only place where, so far matter in hand throughout the whole seras we know, a bishop is selected for his vice, a service which could hardly fail personal bearing, and the "supers" who to impress any dispassionate visitor, not form his staff have at least been trained sworn to the shibboleths of sect, that it for the occasion. But in the real ecclesi- was good for the people — and for himastical show, the bishop, in spite of his to be there. But such a congregational magnificent robes, often looks more ro- service is quite an exception: the want of tund than apostolic: the subordinates are it is felt and acknowledged by many ear"paired but not matched;" the short and nest Roman Catholics. It is, unfortustout curé told off with the tall, long-nately, alien to much of the spirit of Ronecked vicaire, like the country rector and the town curate in England; the pale and spiritual ascetic, whose looks seem far away from this world, walking side by side with his jovial and somewhat secular brother cleric, whose eyes wander curiously over the lines of spectators, and not even keeping step. The long procession which perambulates Milan Cathedral at the "blessing of the palms" on PalmSunday, is hardly an exception to these

manism. To offer and to pray for the people rather than with the people is the office of the priest. In truth, the great public office of the Roman Church is not the united service of prayer and praise: it is the "offering of the Mass." "It matters very little," says a Roman Catholic authority, "whether the share prayer takes in it be little or great, provided everything else is duly ordered." And this is their apology for still retaining Latin as the language of her services that it But what such a visitor will miss most, is comparatively unimportant whether the if he at all expected to find it in this people join in them, so far as words are foreign ritual, is anything like a congre- concerned, or not. "One of the most gational service. The priest is there say-efficacious ways of hearing Mass is to

remarks.

watch the actions of the priest at the altar with great attention from the beginning to the end, and look as little at the prayerbook as possible. A person who could do this without distraction would reap incalculable spiritual fruit from it, and would, without a doubt, be assisting at Mass in the strictest sense of the word."* This again is the language of authority, quoted here in no controversial spirit, but as the fairest explanation of the absence of the congregational element. No doubt, the intention of the Roman Church is, that her congregations should unite with the priest in act and intention in the sacrifice of the mass: they are to look upon it as their sacrifice as well as his, and mentally they are to offer it as well as he. Such indeed is the exhortation of the celebrant in the office itself—"Orate, fratres, ut meum et vestrum sacrificium acceptabile fiat" — and the plural number is used repeatedly. There are some few ejaculations, as the Kyrie eleison and the reply to the Dominus vobiscum, which are taken up more or less generally by the people; but their share in this service, except as devout spectators, or as an occasion for private prayer, said as it were to a grand accompaniment, is scarcely appreciable to a stranger.

In

Mass will be going on, as has been said, on Sundays or the greater holidays, at almost any hour in the forenoon. most places the bell will be heard ringing for it as early as five o'clock. It is against rule, however, that the same priest should celebrate twice in the same day, except on Christmas-day: so that in small villages there will most likely be only one celebration. Before the priest begins the actual saying of mass, he goes through a preparatory short and significant service, known as the "asperges," in the course of which he makes the circuit of the altar, and sprinkles with holy water the few worshippers who draw near. On some grand occasions, he goes with his assistants, acolyths, and choir in procession round the church. Then, standing on the lowest step of the altar, he uses the usual invocation of the Trinity, and proceeds to recite, alternately with his server, the forty-second Psalm. This done, he makes his own "confession," and the server, in the name of the people, prays for absolution for him: and then, in the very same words which the priest has just repeated, makes, in the name of all the congregation present, what stands for our general confession of sins. Very different, however, in its wording is the form now used The English visitor will be disappoint- by the Roman Church. The confession ed, again, if even in such a cathedral as in the mass is made, not only to him to Milan, or at St. Roch or the Madeleine in whom we make it, but to "blessed Mary Paris, he has expected to hear the grand ever-Virgin, blessed Michael the ArchanChurch music for which the Roman gel, St. John Baptist, St. Peter and St. Church has enjoyed a somewhat mythical Paul, and all saints:" and with what reputation. Unless it be at high mass, almost seems a studied ignoring of the he will most probably hear no music at congregation's real share in it, the spokesall. And even in that service, if we ex- man for them uses the singular number. cept Rome, he will hear no ecclesiastical The form of absolution used by the priest music so good as he might hear in En- differs nothing in spirit from that adopted gland. The grand choral service which by the English Church, being precatory he would find going on every Sunday, say and not authoritative. But a prayer which at Canterbury or in St. Paul's, or in the follows again strikes a note of discordChapel-Royal at Windsor, he will have lit-ance with Protestant feeling. The altar tle chance of hearing abroad. A fine organ he will frequently hear; but the voices of a choir of canons chanting the Psalms, or of the professional choristers, as a rule, will hardly commend themselves to English musical taste. A grand voice he will hear occasionally from the intoning priest, or in a solo part by some unseen singer (most likely professional), at vespers or benediction; but the general impression will very much shake any preconceived notion that as to musical services the Roman Catholics are any longer

our masters.

O'Brien's Hist. of the Mass, p. 34.

is supposed to contain, and usually does contain, within it or beneath it, the reputed relics of some saint or saints; and he now beseeches the pardon of the Almighty, "through the merits of those saints whose relics are here." Where there is no profession of the presence of any relics, as is the case in some churches (for instance, in America), it might be supposed that such a prayer would be omitted at the priest's discretion; and it is strange to find a warning specially laid down in books of authority that under no such circumstances must this prayer be left unsaid.*

O'Brien's Hist. of the Mass, p. 191.

move towards the gospel side of the altar, and the subdeacon and deacon follow (both will be present at high service), the latter carrying the book elevated before his face. It is then given to the subdeacon, who holds it resting against his forehead. After giving the salutation,

due response, and making a threefold censing of the volume, the deacon chants the gospel in a loud tone, the priest reverently facing him, and afterwards kissing the book and pronouncing an old mediaval rhyme,

Per evangelica dicta deleantur nostra delicta.
(By the words of the gospel may our sins be
blotted out.)

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The collects used may be one, two or three, according to the day or season; the epistle is sung or intoned by the subdeacon, if there be one present, facing to the altar and not the congregation; and this is followed by some sentences of Scripture known as the gradual, because originally read from the steps of the ambo." Dominus vobiscum," and receiving the This ambo is a kind of pulpit, of which there were formerly two (or even three, as may be seen now in St. Clement's at Rome), from one of which the epistle was read, and the gospel from the other. The old custom is still kept up at Lyons, which retains some other peculiarities of the old Gallic ritual. After the gradual is sung the "Alleluia," or it may be a tract or sequence, for these things, again, vary with the varying festivals of the Church. The rules for these variations form a distinct ecclesiastical science. The preface to our Prayer-book speaks of "the number and hardness of the rules called the pie," and with a mild quaintness of satire says that there was "many times more business to find out what should be read, than to read it when it was found." Certainly, when we look at the twenty-six closely-printed pages which this pie occupies at the beginning of Lord Bute's Breviary," we can understand the relief afforded by a simpler scheme. The sequences are in fact the grand old Latin hymns to which no translation can do any real justice, so perfectly does the Latin rhythm adapt itself to the feeling of the words. Amongst them is the beautiful "Stabat Mater dolorosa," used in Passion-week, and the "Dies Ira" and "Lauda Sion," familiar enough to most of us in English versions. Before the reading of the gospel, standing at the middle of the altar, the priest (or the deacon, if present) says a short but beautiful prayer for himself personally, which seems a distinct loss to our English liturgy. It is so short and so suitable, that it may find a place here:

66

After the gospel, if it be Sunday or a holy-day of obligation," there will be a sermon very commonly on the gospel for the day. It is customary now, in churches of the Roman Catholic communion in England, for the priest to read the gospel and epistle in English from the pulpit before he begins to preach. The sermon is often delivered in a calm and measured tone, without action or apparent excitement, much after the fashion long in favor with our Anglican High Churchmen; but sometimes, and especially in the Italian churches, the preacher will use abundant and energetic gesticulation, raising and lowering his voice with all the skill of a practised elocutionist, moving from side to side of the spacious pulpit, and occasionally, at the end of a period, sitting down to recover breath for a recommencement, and to give an opportunity for collecting the offerings of the congregation. Such excess of action, however, is not in accordance with the recognized standard of the Church.

We need not follow the service through; but if the stranger be at the pains to listen carefully, or if he have the text of the office in his hands, he will recognize in their Latin garb the originals of those devotional forms which have been the inheritance of the Church, retained in spite of reforms and revolutions from the earliest ages. The Kyrie eleison, or Lesser Litany, as we call it; the Gloria in excelsis, though here used before the consecration, and not after as with us; the Nicene Then, if it be a high mass, the proces- Creed; the Sursum corda, "Lift up your sion which is to do honor to the gospel hearts;" the Ter sanctus, “ Holy, holy, enters from the sacristy. Acolyths carry-holy," may all serve to remind him ing lighted tapers and swinging censers

Cleanse my heart and my lips, Almighty God, who didst cleanse the lips of thy prophet Isaias with a burning coal; vouchsafe so to cleanse me by thy gracious mercy, that I may be enabled worthily to proclaim thy holy Gospel..

that there are links still unbroken in the unity of the Church Catholic, which it is Surely neither reasonable nor charitable to ignore. Amongst the peculiarities of