diction), throw open a chapel fitted up within that house to the general world, for the constant celebration of a novel and an unauthorized system of public worship, partly, we hear, composed of an extravagant representation of the Eucharistic Office of the Church of England,[1] partly of an edited revival of the Benedictine Breviary, and partly, and lastly, of the introduction of one of the most unprimitive rites of modern Romanism—a rite which cannot be used in the Church of England without direct violation of the existing formularies—the 'Benediction of' (i.e. by) 'the' (necessarily reserved) 'Blessed Sacrament'—then, we say, that Mr. Lyne and his friends are not in a position in which they can claim the silent forbearance of those Churchmen whose wish and whose work is, by patience and prudence, no less than by straightforwardness, to preserve, to strengthen, and transmit the Church of England, with its collective doctrines and Catholic worship, unimpaired.
Mr. Lyne bespoke the sympathies of Churchmen at Bristol on the score of the practical character of his work; and Lord Harrowby mildly responded with the question, 'Why run the risk of making this work unpopular and unfruitful by the unwonted and startling garb in which you perform it?' But we distinctly say, that this claim can only be accepted with great allowances in face of devotions so lengthy and so exhausting (involving the night offices, with '1 a.m.' set down as the hour for rising) as those in which the Norwich fraternity indulges. It is an historical fact, that the vast and complicated structure of worship, which in an abridged form was therefore termed the Breviary, was the product of ages in which printing was unknown and newspapers unthought of. With their marvellous interchange of Scripture, fathers, and memoirs, of Psalm and hymn, of versicle and antiphon, these services were a body of literature as much as a system of worship. They were the literature which suited the capacities and the antecedents of those good unlettered folk who for so many centuries formed the staple of the Benedictine body. No doubt the features of these services which are doctrinally most objectionable, are, on the other hand, in a literary point of view, picturesque contrasts to the rest. In short, as, century after century, the Breviary deteriorated in catholicity, it became more abundant in the poetic element—may we be allowed to say, in sensationism? True to its principle of never owning a change if it can help it, Rome, (except during a brief moment of reform under Quignonius' in-
- ↑ We give the most moderate interpretation of the 'daily mass,' but it may be the Benedictine mass itself. We might also enumerate such occasional outbursts as the Feast of the Assumption, the 'bambino' at Christmas, and the Boy Bishop on Holy Innocents Day.
