persons ascripti Glebe) at a place called Streanaeshalch (Whitby) built there a religious house, in which the princess Aelfleda was first a nun, and afterwards presided as abbess. She died at the age of fifty-nine years, and was buried in the church attached to her own monastry, dedicated to St. Peter; where also her royal father, her mother, the queen Aeanfled, and her maternal grandfather Aeduin (Edwin) the first christian king of Northumberland, together with many noble personages, were buried. In the year 662 a synod was held at Whitby abbey; whilst Hilda was abbess; wherein the time of keeping Easter was discussed, with several other ecclesisiastical questions. The famous Wilfrid, then only in priests's orders, who afterwards presided over the monastery at Rippon (Monasterium Hripense) where he built the Minster; and who built Hexham and Southwell churches, &c. and became Archbishop of York, assisted at this synod.

It grieves me to hear of the destruction of our ancient religious edifices, heretofore the scenes of royal splendour, and the seats of learning. The repairing of our ancient churches should be well looked after. Some⭑ thing should be done to them every year. If proper support be with-held too long, or repairs not given to them in time, their ponderous walls, once their stability, only accelerate their fall. What a number of churches have tumbled into ruin within our memory. The west end of Hereford Cathedral, and the whole of St. Chad's Church at Shrewsbury, fell in the year 1786. In the year following, Banbury Church, one of the largest in the kingdom, shared the same fate. A few years before, another parish church, of large dimensions, came to the ground instantaneously, that of Whitchurch in Shropshire. It fell on a Sunday, but, providentially, between morning and evening service. Chelmsford Church has since then fallen; and again another Church in Essex, a little after; the Church of Whittle about a mile and an half from Chelmsford.

Do our archdeacons pay attention to Discipline, as well as Doctrine? Are they alert in the discharge of their peculiar duty? Do they visit the Churches seriatim? Or do they only hold local visitations? I mean visitations held at one particular Church, serving for a whole district. Have they power sufficient to compel parishioners to repair Churches?-I marvel much at the strange apa

thy

66

ge

thy with which parishes behold the dilapidated state, and filthy condition, and comfortless plight of their Churches. Were our ancestors liberal enough to build Churches; and shall we think it much to repair, to clean, or to re-pew them?-Not that I am an advocate for what is called " repairing and beautifying" Churches, in the tasteless and random way in which it is too frequently done; which may rather be called "disfiguring and deforming of Churches." No; I would “ consult the nius of the place in all." I would preserve, whilst they are yet capable of preservation, such parts as are verging to decay; and I would restore such members of an ecclesiastical edifice as have fallen, in such a style, as to harmonize with the rest of the building. I would open such windows as the parsimony of the last generation has stopped up. I would let in the light and the air. Ventilation of most country Churches is absolutely necessary for the health of those who resort to them. I would remove the earth from their walls, which the continued use of our churchyards (as cemeteries) has raised, so as to occasion continual damps. I would see that the water passing down the spouts from their roofs, has a due current from the churches. In many, the rain is carried off the roof, only to settle through, and sap the foundation.-I would remove such innovating incumbrances as the folly of ordinary bricklayers and carpenters have erected. At Stepney Church, for instance, a filthy sepulchral brickbuilt porch has been removed from the west end of the building, and a handsome stone door-way has been discovered behind it ;-no doubt the original entrance into the church. A porch was never wanted here, because the space under the belfry forms a porch of itself. I hope soon to see a miserable altarpiece, of a base sort of Grecian architecture, supporting Moses and Aaron painted on flat deal-boards, and cut out in the form of men, (just as you see figures in tea-gardens about London,) removed; and the east window, a handsome specimen of OLD ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE, (vulgarly, but not correctly, styled Gothic) opened out. A window, in the Tower, of a like kind, it seems, is to be restored immediately to its pristine beauty. The drainage of the church has been already secured. A mass of damp earth has been removed from about it, and a pavement of flag-stones has been carried round the building. The worthy rector calls this process, unburying the church." The respecting the interior of

our churches; there is no need to make alterations for alteration's sake.. Our ancestors, and their architects, were very good judges of the proper arrangement of parts in the inside of churches. It shall rarely happen_that any good comes of moving the pulpit, desk, &c. Least of all should they be placed in the middle aysle. The ALTAR, most certainly, should ever be regarded as the sanctum sanctorum of a Christian Church. Nothing should shut it out from the perspective of the building. It should occupy the main point of light. Of late years, (is it because preaching is preferred to praying; nay to the solemnization of the most sacred Christian Mysteries?). the pulpit obstructs the view of the altar, in many newly repaired churches. In ancient churches, the pulpit is found on the north side of the church, near the entrance of the chancel. In most of the fifty new churches, in and about London, the pulpit and desk stand one on one side, and the other on the other side of the middle aysle. But in churches which have lately been improved, both pulpit and desk are placed, indecently, before the Altar. I am sorry to observe, that the pulpit in St. Paul's Cathedral has been moved from the spot where it was placed by Sir Christopher Wren. It is now fixed, in the new-fangled way, directly in the center, and completely blotting out all view of the Altar from the entrance of the choir. But this is not all. The litany-desk keeps its old positionwhere the Priests recite that impassioned, and very impressive part of our public service, the litany, between the porch and the altar; but when the officiating ministers kneel at "the falled stool," (as it was anciently called,) they cannot see the Altar! Their faces are within a few feet of the pulpit, which directly fronts them. I allow that the new pulpit is a pretty thing; but I cannot help wondering at the temerity of that improving hand, which removed the old one, and planted the new one where it now stands. The epitaph of Sir Christopher Wren, already loses part of its force-" CIRCUMSPICE" directs our eyes to something which that great man did I am, Gentlemen, Your most obedient servant, A LONDON CURATE.

not.

May 7, 1804.

*

No doubt the litany was ordered to be said in this place, because of Joeb ii. 17. "Let the Priests, the Ministers of the Lord, weep between the Porch and the Altar, and let them say-spare thy people, O Lord, &c."

Vol. VI. Churchm. Mag. May, 1804. Qq ANSWERS

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON LITURGICAL
SUBJECTS.

I

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S MAGAZINE.

GENTLEMEN,

WISH to answer, as well as I am able, some queries in the letter of my Kentish brother, pp. 242-3, in your last Number. 1. Palm Sunday and the Annunciation of the blessed Virgin Mary, fell on the same day, this year;

canon,

may

be

how should the services have been performed?-As the Rubric says nothing definitively on this subject, I suppose much is left to the private sense of decency and order, which individual officiating ministers may have. Non curat lex de minimis;-this maxim doubtless applies to as well as to common law. Either service used, or both may be discretely blended, at the option of any Clergyman. Wheatly says, "he doubts not but the service will be differently performed in different churches," (chap v. Sect. iv. § 3.) in such cases; he supposes that of the Annunciation's happening in Passion Week." The order how the rest of the Scripture (exclusive of the Psalms) is appointed to be read," prefixed to the table of proper Lessons; directs "that when proper Lessons are appointed, then the lessons of ordinary course shall be omitted." This rule certainly authorizes, nay, prescribes, the subsitution of Matt. 26, for John 12, whenever Palm Sunday falls on March 25, which indeed is very properfor the former of these chapters begins that affecting assemblage of Scriptures, detailing our Lord's agony, his being betrayed, his trial, mockings, passion and death, his burial, and glorious resurrection, in the week and on the Sunday following. The Gospel for the Sunday next before Easter, is the 27th of St. Matthew;—and therefore I think the Church intended this order to be observed. I can tell you what the rule is in the Church where I serve as Curate; a rule laid down by one of the best Parish Priests that ever London saw, who entered upon his living in the year 1768. I lived happily with him for more than six years, and buried him when he died-semper deAlendum, semper a me honorandum! We always make the Service for Sundays take place of all others;-deeming

Sunday

Sunday the first of all festivals. In the table of feasts you will find first enumerated in the Common Prayer-book,"all Sundays in the year." Then we always make the Service for ordinary Holidays, or Saint's-days, give way to that appointed for the Commemoration of any thing relative to our Lord; the " Master and Lord" has precedence of his servants; "he that sendeth, is greater than they that are sent." However, when a holiday falls upon a Sunday we read after the Sunday's Collect, the Collect for that holiday; and if the Athanasian Creed is to be read upon it, we read it. This is the way we take in the case of the coincidence of Sundays with festivals, or one festival with another.

2. Respecting the registering of infants when privately baptized, I know not how the law stands;but here again I can state our custom, and the reason for it: We never register a child till it be brought to Church ;-and on this account by baptism, privately administered, it is made a Christian, but till it be publicly "received into the congregation," we do not esteem it a Member of our Church, or record its name amongst those of the Parishjoners. I think it will be difficult for any one to lay down the law abstractedly here;-but if there be no producible law, I conceive the custom of the parish will pass for law. One custom I have stated; and we stand upon firm ground, I believe; but I think a Clergyman would hardly be justified in refusing to register, if the custom of his parish set the other way. I wish that a similar cus tom might prevail in every parish; it would undoubtedly operate as a check to Sectarianism,

3. Wearing of scarfs. I have no doubt but scarfs are of modern invention; Hoods and tippets are mentioned in canons 58 and 74. Graduates, by the former canon, are enjoined to wear their appropriate hoods; and nongraduates wearing academical hoods are liable to be suspended; however, they may "wear upon their surplices, instead of hoods, some decent tippet of black, so it be not silk." By parity of reason, therefore, silken scarfs should not be worn by persons who are neither chaplains to those who have a right to retain them, (not noblemen only) nor Doctors in Divinity; but some stripe of decent black stuff. I should like to examine a few pictures and old prints, expressive of the ecclestiastical costume of former times; particularly in the reign of James Is when the present canons were set forth. The portrait of a forQq2

me