and we will remark here only this, that the red-letter days occur on an average twice a month, and that there is no month without one at least. The black-letter days may be thus grouped : (a) Five with biblical subjects,-viz., Mary Magdalen, Transfiguration, Name of Jesus, Beheading of John the Baptist, Visitation of the Virgin Mary to Elizabeth. (b) Three relating to biblical persons, but with non-biblical accompaniments,-viz., to St. Mary and her Conception and Nativity; to St. John, with the addition "Ante Portam Latinam," commemorating the tradition that he was delivered from the caldron of boiling oil before the Latin Gate of Rome. (c) Five commemorating early and conspicuous Fathers of the Latin Church,-viz., Cyprian bishop of Carthage; Hilary bishop of Poictiers; Ambrose bishop of Milan; Jerome presbyter at Bethlehem ; Augustine bishop of Hippo in Africa. None of the Greek Fathers occur. (d) Four commemorating bishops of Rome,-viz., Clemens Romanus, Fabian the martyr, Silvester, Gregory the Great, the last of whom sent Augustine the missionary to Britain. (e) Two commemorating persons otherwise prominent in the Church history of the West,-viz., Martin bishop of Tours, and Benedict of Nursia founder of the Benedictine Order. (f) Several belonging to English Church history in particular,―viz., in the Roman period, Alban martyred in 304: in the British period, David bishop in Wales in the heptarchal period, Augustine first archbishop of Canterbury, Chad bishop of Lichfield, Etheldreda abbess of Ely, Bede of Jarrow the Church historian, Boniface missionary to Germany in the period of the Anglo-Saxon monarchy, Edmund, a dependent king of East Anglia, murdered by the Danes, Swithun bishop of Winchester, Dunstan archbishop of Canterbury, Edward king of England, murdered from political motives, Alphege archbishop of Canterbury, murdered by the Danes in the medieval period, Hugh bishop of Lincoln, ob. 1200, Richard bishop of Chichester, ob. 1253. In modern times there have been added to the Calendar three red-letter days: Charles king and martyr, January 30th; Restoration of Charles II., May 29th; Papists' Conspiracy, November 5th. These were formerly observed with special services, which were abolished January 17th, 1859. The days, however, were not retained in the Calendar as black-letter days. There are other days not noticed in the above classification, but which have become familiar to us, as St. Valentine, St. George, St. Lawrence, St. Crispin, St. Cæcilia, St. Catherine; besides others less famous. § 43. History of the Calendar.· The mediæval Calendar exhibited only saints' days and holydays, which were very numerous, sometimes exceeding twenty a month, many of them having their own collect, epistle, and gospel, and all receiving some notice in the service on their days. The only use of the Calendar was to exhibit these commemorations there being attached to it no table of lessons like that for which our Calendar is chiefly consulted. The reformed Calendar of 1549 exhibited no saints' days whatever, besides twenty-five red-letter ones, making one, two, or three in a month, the prominent feature of it being the table of lessons. Compared with the Sarum Calendar it illustrates to the eye in a most striking manner how Holy Scripture had then taken the place of the saints. In 1552 Mary Magdalen and Barnabas, who had appeared in 1549, were omitted, reducing the redletter days to twenty-three; but four black-letter days were added, those of Clement, Lawrence, George, and Lammas, the first black-letter and non-biblical commemorations admitted into the reformed Calendar. In 1559 Clement was omitted and Barnabas restored, without any further change, making twentyfour red-letter and three black-letter days. In 1561 a commission was appointed to revise the tables and rules, and the list of saints was then made nearly as at present. In 1662 Alban, Bede, and Enurchus were added, completing the Calendar as we now have it. CHAPTER IX. MORNING AND EVENING PRAYER. § 44. Their History as a Whole.-In 1549 both began with the first Lord's Prayer and ended with the Third Collect. All the forms were drawn from five of the Hours of the Breviary, and the subjoined tabular view, which shows the principal contents of each of those services, will explain how the three old Morning Hours furnished the new Matins, and the two old Evening Hours the new Evensong: MATINS (including NOCTURNS.) Our Father, Hail Mary PRIME. Our Father, Versicles, Glory, Psalms, Athanasian VESPERS. Our Father, Versicles, Psalms, Short Chapter, COMPLINE. Our Father, Versicles, Psalms, Short Chapter, Nunc Dimittis, Short Litany, Our Father, Suffrages, Creed, Confession and Absolution, Third Collect. Thus on Whit Sunday, 1549, the priest found nearly all his old forms reappearing, though in an unaccustomed tongue. The people too would recognise much that they had been familiar with in their Primers, missing, however, the usual addresses to St. Mary, and sensible of novelty on finding themselves reciting Psalms and listening to two full chapters. Few doctrinal changes would be noticed at this service on the festival we are supposing, but on some ensuing Saints' Days there would be noted, new collects, without any reference in them to the saints' intercessions. The Second and Third Collects, morning and evening, four in all, occur in the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries; the Prayer for the Clergy and the People in the Gelasian. 1552. The titles now became Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer. There were also inserted (but only as yet in the Morning Prayer) the Sentences, Exhortation, Confession, Absolution, which were borrowed, as to their general features, from the Liturgy then recently published by Valerandus Pollanus (vide § 16). Here was a new opening, which may be called a service of public penitence; and its appearance was at a time when the private penitential service of auricular confession and its accompaniments was being discouraged by the omission of the sentence which left it optional (vide § 100, sub ann. 1552). A penitential opening of Divine service, followed by psalmody, is described by St. Basil (Ep. 63) in the fourth century as the common practice in his time. The ancient Prime and Compline contained a |