rubric at every step, the minister would never get out of the vestry.

To begin with the beginning the Calendar-and with the chief and cardinal point of the Calendar-Easter :—

'EASTER-DAY (on which the rest depend) is always the first Sunday after the full moon which happens upon or next after the 21st day of March; and if the full moon happens on a Sunday, Easter-day is the Sunday after.'-Rubric to the Calendar.

This is sufficiently clear-rather more so than directions about the use of the Church-militant prayer-or the proclaiming of psalms —it is a case on which no difficulty seems possible-it stands on the face of the Prayer Book not merely as a rubric of 1662, but as advisedly confirmed by the statute drawn up with so much consideration and care for the reformation of the Calendar and the alteration of the Style in 1751. What can be more explicit, more certain? Well, 'tis all a delusion! In the year 1845-as it was in the year 1818, and as it must be at other encyclical periods-the first full moon after the 21st of March fell on Sunday the 23rd, at 8 o'clock in the evening, and so clearly Easter-day should have been on Sunday the 30th of Marchbut no such thing; a subsequent and unexplained line in one of the tables following the Calendar appoints Easter-day for the 23rd of March ;-and all the solemnities of Easter-day were completed and finished even before the change of the moon—the fundamental rule having carefully provided that they should not take place till a week after the change of the moon. We need not remind our readers that this discrepancy arises from the assumption in early times that a month consists exactly of twenty-eight days, and that therefore the fourteenth day of the moon must be the full moon-an error of a day and a half;—and this fourteenth day having been Saturday, the 22nd, Easter was held, in defiance of law, nature, the general rubric, and even of St. Paul's injunction-Let no man judge you in respect of a new moon'―on Sunday the 23rd, the real full moon happening only at 8 o'clock on the latter evening;-the fact simply being that the rubrics (copied into the statute) confound the ecclesiastical, that is, an imaginary full moon with the real one. Thus then, in limine, we find that the clearest of rubrics, and the most solemnly sanctioned, gives way before a practice founded on considerations which the Rubric does not explain.*

Being thus condemned to keep all the moveable feasts of such years as 1818, 1845, &c., in defiance of the leading Rubric, let us proceed to Church; but, even before we enter it, we are met *A member of the University of Oxford published in 1818 a protest against the mis-observance of Easter.-See Comp. to the Alm. 1845, p. 34.

by

by a difficulty. The rubric prescribes, decidedly and repeatedly, a daily morning and a daily evening service throughout the year.' We all know how imperfectly that indisputable injunction is observed. The Bishop of London, in his Charge of 1842, which showed so much respect to some obsolete and ambiguous rubrics, was, we surmise in self-defence, obliged to suppose that 'the framers of this rubric never intended that it should be obeyed.' We expressed our opinion in March, 1843, that the framers of the rubric probably meant it to be effective, as it had no doubt been in old times; but we fully agreed that it had, by the change of circumstances, become, in a great majority of cases, morally and even physically impracticable; and we drew a conclusion, which we now repeat, that if the clearest and most important rubrics are thus set aside for extraneous considerations, it seems very inconsistent to be so zealous about other rubrics of certainly less value and importance. But even on the service days, before a word can be uttered, some serious-very serious-matters are to be settled.

The order for morning service is prefaced by this preparatory Rubric:

And here it is to be noted that such ornaments of the church, and of the ministers thereof, at all times of their ministration, shall be retained and be in use, as were in this Church of England, by the authority of Parliament, in the second year of King Edward VI.

Our readers are aware that for the class of subjects we are now discussing this is the most important Rubric in the whole book. It is the sole rubrical authority for the decoration of our churches and the habits of our ministers, and by it must be determined the questions, lately grown so serious, of gowns and surplices, candlesticks, credence-tables, and so forth. Of course, then, we might naturally expect to find in the book itself some practical explanation of what is thus enjoined. We find none! Such of us as happen to have access to the statutes at large, refer to them for the alleged parliamentary authority-but, again, we find nothing like what we are in search of. The second year of King Edward VI. began on the 28th of January 1548, and ended on the 27th of January 1549. Now we assert that in that year there was no authority of Parliament on any such subject. In the first year of Edward VI. he had published certain Injunctions concerning those matters, and there then existed a statute, 31 Henry VIII., ch. 8, which enacted that Proclamations made by the King's Highness with the advice of his Honourable Council shall be obeyed and kept as though they were made by Act of Parliament; but that act was repealed in the first of Edward VI., subsequent to the Injunctions, in these large words, 'all and

6

If

every branch, article, and matter in the same statute mentioned or declared, shall be from henceforth repealed and utterly made void and of NONE EFFECT.' It cannot be rationally argued that the Injunctions thus repealed by Parliament in the first of Edward had the authority of Parliament in the second of Edward. they continued in use at all it could only be by the King's prerogative authority, and not assuredly by what the Rubric requires, the authority of Parliament. Moreover, whatever pretence of royal authority they might have is utterly annihilated by subsequent Acts. The question, however, as to these Injunctions is of no importance, except as to the single point of the legality of the two lights on the altar, which they suffered to remain.' Mr. Robertson, of whose diligence and judgment we beg leave to repeat our former acknowledgment, shows that the Bishop of London's partial compliance with the restoration of candles, provided they were not to be lighted,' was a double mistake, for even during the short time that they were by law suffered to remain, it was as being 'on-light,' and not as what were satirically and truly called 'lumina caca.' Mr. Vogan and Mr. Perceval in their pamphlets examine more especially the mere law of the case; and all three decide the question against the candles, whether on-light or caca, by a train of legal and historical argument which leaves no possible doubt upon the subject. If there could be any doubt on the point of law, the opinions of Mr. Vogan and Mr. Perceval would be in this matter entitled to peculiar weight, for Mr. Vogan is one who carries the authority of rubrics very high, and Mr. Perceval tells us that he himself had presented a pair of candlesticks for the Communion table of All Souls' College. This was because he thought them decent ornaments, knew them to be usual in colleges where they had been suffered to remain,' and did not like to see his own college deficient of them:-but when he subsequently found candlesticks introduced in parish churches, where they had never been before, symbolically and systematically, he began to inquire into the matter, and soon satisfied himself, and his arguments must, we think, satisfy any one, that the symbolism is childish, and the authority for it a pretence without a colour of legality or reason.

In truth this whole Rubric, literally read, is an egregious blunder. There was indeed a statute, not of the second year of Edward, but of what is legally called the second and third of Edward VI., and which was not to take full effect till Pentecost in the third year of the King, by which this question of ornaments and vestments was decided, not immediately nor specifically, but with reference to what a Liturgy then in preparation was to contain. This Liturgy, however, was not promulgated till near well

on

on in the third year of Edward VI., and it is to the provisions of that Liturgy-(which, be it observed, prohibited candlesticks altogether)-legalised by anticipation by the act of Parliament of the second and third Edward VI., that the Rubric is supposed to refer as being in use in the second year by authority of Parliament.'

But this point being settled and the Rubric of the Liturgy of 1549-the third Edward VI.-being admitted to be what is referred to in the existing Rubric-we shall find our difficulties by no means removed; for when we inquire after the book so referred to, we learn that it is so rare as to be a typographical curiosity, found only in the choicest libraries-indeed, we might rather say not found, for it turns out that the Oxford University Press in 1838 and Mr. Keeling of Cambridge in 1842, purposing to give a reprint of this book, both published a wrong one, and Mr. Keeling has only just now, in a new edition, published the right one. Such has been the condition of this our great canon of ecclesiastical vestures and ornaments-and yet, by the help of usage, no inconvenience had for two centuries ensued.

At last, however, by these modern reprints, and reprints of reprints, we presume that we have now arrived at what we might naturally have expected to find in the place whence it now derives its authority-the Book of Common Prayer. At the end of King Edward's first book are these general directions, now admitted to be the existing rule:

6 CERTAIN NOTES FOR THE MORE PLAIN EXPLICATION AND DECENT MINISTRATION OF THINGS CONTAINED IN THIS BOOK.

'In the saying of MATINS and EVENSONG, BAPTISING, and BURYING, the ministers in parish churches, and chapels annexed to the SAME, shall use a SURPLICE; and in all cathedral churches and colleges, archdeacons, deans, provosts, masters, prebendaries, and fellows, being graduates, may use in the CHOIR, besides their surplices, such HOODS as pertaineth to their several degrees; but in all other places any minister shall be at liberty to use a surplice or no. It is also seemly that graduates, when they preach, should use such hoods as pertaineth to their several degrees.'

So far regards the ordinary ministrations; but at the beginning of

'THE HOLY COMMUNION, commonly called THE MASS,' we find these different and special directions :—

¶ Upon the day appointed for the ministration of the Holy Communion, the priest that shall execute the holy ministry shall put upon him the vesture appointed for that administration—that is to say, a white ALB, plain, with a VESTMENT or COPE; and where there be many priests or deacons, there shall so many be ready to help the

priest in the ministration as shall be required, and shall have upon them the vestures appointed for the ministry—that is to say, ALBS with

TUNICLES.

¶ And whenever the BISHOP shall celebrate the Holy Communion in the Church, or execute any other public ministration, he shall have upon him, beside his ROCHET, a SURPLICE or ALB, and a COPE or VESTMENT, and also his PASTORAL STAFF in his hand, or else borne or holden by his chaplain.'

These Rubrics, besides offering some discrepancies and obscurities in other details, would allow the minister in any but the specified services to use a surplice or no,' that is, or nothing,'" at his pleasure, while it prescribes albs, copes, and tunicles to all ministers for the Communion, and rochets, albs, copes, and croziers to the Bishops on all occasions. We need not say into what total disuse these rubrics have fallen-yet they are, as far as we can discover, the only rubrical directions for the vesture of her ministers that the Church of England now possesses.

There followed, in King Edward's first book, the following rubric applicable to the whole service :—

¶ As touching kneeling, holding up of hands, knocking upon the breast, and other gestures, they may be used or left, as every man's devotion serveth, without blame.'

This last rubric was repealed in King Edward's second book, and not afterwards revived, as the two rubrics preceding were.

One of the reasons of this first book of King Edward's being so rare, is, that it was in force but a short time. It was thought by the more zealous reformers to lean too much to popish views and practices, and accordingly another Book of Common Prayer was prepared, and in 1552 promulgated by the sanction of a fresh Act of Uniformity (the 5 and 6 Edward VI.), which is set forth at the commencement of the book, and which continues and applies to the new book all the 'force and strength' of the former Act (which, however, it does not set forth)-but with one most important alteration in the point we are now discussing;—for it provides that

'the minister at the time of the Communion, and in all other times of his ministration, shall use neither ALB, VESTMENT, nor COPE; but being archbishop or bishop, he shall have and wear a ROCHET; and being a priest or deacon, he shall have and wear a SURPLICE only.' But this state of things was of still shorter legal duration than the former, for the next year brought the accession of Mary, whose first statute repealed both these Acts, and restored the ancient practice of the Mass. On the accession of Elizabeth (1559) she re-established, with trifling alterations, King Edward's second book, and passed an Act of Uniformity of her own, which is still