the Priest to celebrate. A "High Celebration " is generally choral in its character, or at least great prominence is given to its musical and other festal features; while a "Low (or Plain) Celebration" has none of these, and may be without a processional entrance as well.

XVIII.

THE DECALOGUE, ALTAR-SERVICE AND SERMON.

IF

"We beseech Thee to direct, sanctify and govern, both our hearts and bodies, in the ways of Thy laws, and in the works of Thy Commandments."-The Collect for Sanctification.

"Godly and wholesome Doctrine, and necessary for these times, * * * * to be read [preached] in Churches by the Ministers, diligently and distinctly, that they may be understanded of the people."-The Thirty-fifth Article of Religion.

F Morning Prayer have just been said, the LORD'S PRAYER is omitted; otherwise its words in the shorter form are the first on the lips of the Priest. It is to be repeated by him alone, it being originally a part of his own private preparation, and then said in the Sacristy, or at the foot of the Altar-steps. It should be mentally shared by the people, but is nowhere intended to be ritually used in public without some proper preface. It occurs later under these conditions and with special honour.

It is followed by the COLLECT FOR PURITY, a most beautiful and liturgically perfect Prayer, eight hundred years old and peculiar to Anglican use. Its tone is like the "O Lord, open Thou our lips" of the Daily Service. The Communion Office, as a complete liturgical function, is addressed to the first Person in the Godhead, and pleads before Him the atoning Sacrifice of God the Son. He is in this Collect addressed as Omniscient, and we ask for

cleansing by His Holy Spirit, through Christ our Lord. This Prayer is for Priest and people, and is typified in the Greek ceremonial by the Priest's preparatory ablution of his own hands, saying: "I will wash my hands in innocency, O Lord, and so will I go to Thine Altar." It is to be carefully remembered, however, that no personal unworthiness of the Priest can invalidate or impair the efficacy of the Sacraments.

Acting as God's deputy, the Priest then turns to the people, as in the Lessons and the Absolution, and rehearses distinctly the TEN COMMANDMENTS, one by one, after each of which the people, still kneeling, implore mercy for past transgressions, "and grace to keep the law for the time to come." The rationale of the Ante-Communion is a threefold self-examination, as declared necessary in the Catechism, i. e., as to repentance, as set forth in the teaching of the Ten Commandments; as to faith, as called forth by the Epistle and Gospel and in their summary the Creed, and in the Sermon; and as to charity, as set forth through the Offertory and the Prayer for the Church Militant. The aim is, of course, to guard this Sacrament from any careless reception; and the standard of the Moral Law is a severe one, being nothing less than the voice of God and the writing of His own finger, differing from all other Jewish laws as being of universal obligation. The strongest safeguard against presumption is the exaltation of the dignity of the Office itself, and the "examination of life and conversation by the rule of God's Commandments."

The Decalogue (or Ten Words) was not in the First Book, but inserted by the English revisers, who thus restored from primitive use a Lection from the Hebrew

Law. The translation there and here is that of the Great (or Cranmer's) Bible. In the Catechism they are further defined as "The same which God spake in the twentieth chapter of Exodus, saying," etc. The Two Tables of the Law contain respectively the first four of the Commandments, which embrace our duty to God, and the last six, which inculcate our duty to our neighbour. The Greek numbering of them is the same as the Anglican; but the Roman Church follows another tradition in consolidating the first with the preamble, and begins to number with the second; making up the number by dividing the tenth into two, which have the same import but diverse application. There is no commentary or analysis of the Decalogue comparable to that most tersely given in the Catechism. Any treatment of it here is almost superfluous (as belonging rather to Biblical exegesis), and must be very brief, touching hastily on a few leading characteristics, viewed in the light shed upon them by revealed Christianity.

In the First Table are set forth the belief in, and the fear and love, the worship, and the service of a Personal God. (1) The first Law asserts the sanctity of our own individual relationship to Him, and makes us responsible for unbelief; since "God is Love," as shown in the facts of Our Lord's earthly history. (2) The sanctity of His worship as spiritual and thus contrasted with and divorced from that of Mammon, or material superstitions, is set forth in the second. Coupled with this is the statement that godly parentage only heightens responsibility, and that visitation of judgment is only to them that hate Him, and that therefore cease to keep His Commandments. (3) The

sanctity of His Name which the third asserts, carries with it not only a command against blasphemy and irreverence, but also enjoins the sacredness of His Word, and implies our duty to promote it in the cause of Christian Missions. By wandering and ill-disciplined thoughts we lose our hold on sacred things, and Prayer and Giving of Thanks are their best antidote. (4) The sanctity of His Holy Day, inculcated in the fourth, is in special danger in these latter days, when rest is so much craved from a weekly round of excitement; and it is because it is so little realized that worship is the truest and most effectual rest. God rests from His original creation in the present long "sixth day" of the world, but He fills it still with the wonders of Providence and Redemption; and the "Great Sabbath" is yet to come. Nothing has made the Anglo-Saxon a peculiarly. "God fearing" race so much as their remembrance of the One Day in seven. It were to be wished that the Hebrew word "Sabbath" should never be used of the Lord's Day, unless prefaced by "Christian "; since the First and last days of the week stand for two distinct truths. There was no division of time into weeks before the day of Moses. There should be no weekly relaxation now from the treadmill and tension of worldly pursuits which does not put into the foreground of rational enjoyment the realization of the imperative needs and claims of religion.

The Second Table, looking to our neighbour's rights, begins (5) in the fifth with the sanctity of the family, the first form of society, on which all civilization and government depend, and out of which came the State and the Church. Since every father should be the priest of his own household, and as parents are in the place of God to their