idea of thanksgiving, which was not expressed in the Sarum rite, was now made prominent in the brief address at the beginning of the service. Psalm cxxi. was the only one used, and the rest of the service proceeded as before. An interesting instance of the fact that before the Reformation the omission' of a rubric commanding a practice was not regarded as a 'prohibition' is to be found in the rubric at the end of the service of 1549. It directs that the woman shall offer her chrisom [i.e. her child's baptismal robe] and other accustomed offerings.' This direction does not occur in the Sarum Manual, but it affords plain proof that the offering was customary when the Sarum Manual was employed.

In 1552 the title of the service was altered to what it now is, The Thanksgiving of Women after Childbirth, commonly called the Churching of Women. The word 'Purification,' which was likely to be misunderstood, was now omitted. In the same way the final rubric was altered from the woman that is purified,' etc., to the woman that cometh to give her thanks.' There was no more mention of the chrisom. Instead of kneeling nigh unto the quire door, the woman kneels nigh unto the place where the table standeth.'

6

In 1661 the Psalms cxvi. and cxxvii. were substituted for Psalm cxxi. The direction that the woman should kneel 'nigh unto the place where the table standeth' was omitted from the opening rubric, which now directs that the woman 'shall come into the church decently apparelled.' This refers to the old custom that the woman should wear a white veil. Such veils were worn before the Reformation, and were still worn in the seventeenth century, and, in fact, regarded as compulsory.1 It seems probable that during the per

1 Bishop Sparrow in the Rationale, A.D. 1657, says 'the woman that is to be churched is to have a veil.' Wheatly, Op. cit., shows that

secution of the Church under the Commonwealth the rule was sometimes disregarded, and that it was necessary to enforce it again in 1661. The clergy would do well to provide such a veil for the poorer members of their flock.

According to a seemly old rule, the woman should be accompanied by two matrons.

in the reign of James I. a woman was excommunicated for refusing to wear the veil. In 1662 Bishop Wren, in his visitation of the diocese of Ely, inquired whether women came to be churched veiled according to ancient custom.

CHAPTER XVI

A COMMINATION

THIS service is a substitute for the primitive discipline of penitent sinners which began on the first day of Lent, and is a modified survival of the later mediæval rites for that day. The institution of Lent dates from the fourth century, and it was in its origin simply a period set apart for the instruction of catechumens and the discipline of repentant sinners. The latter were treated in a manner very similar to the treatment of catechumens. The number of days over which Lent extended varied in different countries, but there was a steady tendency in the fourth century for all Christians to join in the prayers and fasts of the penitents, and out of this noble and instinctive sympathy Lent, as we now know it, had its rise.

The rites of Ash Wednesday are first described in the Gelasian Sacramentary, where we learn that before the 'stational' Mass the penitents presented themselves to a priest who clothed them with sackcloth. On Maundy Thursday they were solemnly restored to communion. At the beginning of the Mass the penitents were introduced by a deacon, who expressed their sorrow for sin, and the Pope offered a beautiful prayer for their pardon. By the ninth century the custom of reconciling the penitents in this manner had disappeared at Rome, and by the twelfth century an entirely new conception was attached to the rites of Ash Wednes

day. All the faithful, clergy and laity, put themselves into the position of penitents, and had ashes placed upon their heads before attending Mass. Even as late as the ninth century this would have been an impossibility. Clergymen in the position of penitents would not have been allowed to officiate, and the laity in a like position would not have been allowed to communicate. In the fourth century they would not have been allowed even to be present at the consecration of the Eucharist.

In the present English Office the Penitential Psalm and the collects and suffrages which follow it are taken from the medieval ceremonial of Ash Wednesday, and are entirely appropriate. The Maledictions in the earlier part of the service resemble the Greater Excommunication which used to be proclaimed in the English tongue three or four times a year in the unreformed service. There exists some popular prejudice against these cursings, under the false impression that they are of the nature of prayers. On the contrary, they are merely declarations, and in no sense imprecations. They merely announce what God has said, and the fact that the modern service, like the later mediæval service, is for the faithful and not for unreconciled penitents, makes them chiefly a warning to those who actually repeat them. When we affirm that the curse of God is indeed due to certain sins, the use of such an affirmation is to make us avoid these sins, and repent of them if we be guilty.

In 1549 the service was simply headed The First Day of Lent, commonly called Ash Wednesday,' and the first rubric announced that 'After Mattins ended, the people being called together by the ringing of a bell, and assembled in the church: The English litany shall be said after the accustomed manner which ended, the priest shall go into the pulpit and say thus.' In 1552 and 1604 the title was A Commination

against sinners, with certain prayers, to be used divers times in the year.' The title did not mention Ash Wednesday, and although the service was no doubt intended to be used on that day, it is plain that it was also intended to be used on other occasions also, like the mediæval Greater Excommunication. In 1661 the title was altered to its present form.

This brief account of the service may be closed with two reflections. First, some may feel a regret that the service no longer contains the picturesque and significant ceremony which gave Ash Wednesday its present name. But we may remember that in the omission of the ceremony the Church of England, as in so many other cases, has returned to the usage of the old Roman Church. Secondly, we may fully agree with Cranmer's wish, written in 1549, that the godly public discipline of the Primitive Church' in the fourth and succeeding centuries may be restored. But at the same time we may be thankful that he judged it best that the man who was burdened with the sense of sin should avail himself of private confession and open his sin and grief secretly.' The two penitential methods are adapted to different states of society, and the Church, which lives to save, has rightly sanctioned both.