is especially rich in the brief prayers called "collects," which are not made for collective use, as many suppose, but collect the central idea or ideas of particular days' services and experiences; as, for example, this collect for the Spirit of Prayer: "O Almighty God, who hast bidden us seek that we may find and who pourest out on all who desire it the spirit. of grace and supplication: Deliver us when we draw nigh to thee from coldness of heart and wanderings of mind, that with steadfast thoughts and kindled affections we may worship thee in spirit and in truth, through Jesus Christ our Lord." The Church cannot afford to disuse a single one of the collects for special occasions. In this sensuous world would it not be well to pray daily: "O Lord, who for our sake didst fast forty days and forty nights: Give us grace to to use such abstinence that our flesh, being subdued to the spirit, we may ever obey thy godly motions in righteousness and true holiness," etc.?

Turning again for a moment to the stately language of our ritual, it is not too much to say that its effect on the extemporaneous prayers of those who know it has been most valuable. Its influence has been toward the elimination of speeches to God-toward the extinction of that type of prayer characterized as "giving the Almighty valuable information;" toward brevity, condensation, and reverent importunity. Like the English Bible, its sentences imbed themselves in memory as the best statements of the truths they contain and lift the phrasings of the moment up to their sonorous and venerable elevation. As to the matter of further extension, while it may be natural and inevitable, it need not be planned for nor legislation in its favor sought; we shall soon see whether the churches who are leading in its use are to derive permanent or momentary benefit therefrom.

It is also yet to be settled whether it will not shorten and widen the bridge over which some pass from us. We shall never, while we are what we are, accept those minute and multiplied symbolisms, either in apparel or acts, which make the Roman and Romanized Anglican services inexplicable to any

but an expert. The writer came into possession, while resident in Rome, of the entire ritual of the Roman Church in its amplest and most sumptuous form from the library of Cardinal Hohenlohe. It is as pitiful as it is interesting to see from the rubrics and the engravings of groupings and doings what a burden is put on human memory and strength in the effort to make all these truly symbolical of Roman doctrine. No wonder that bishops and cardinals need prompting by nimble masters of ceremonies. Our Protestant limitations exclude all this and confine the attention of the minister and people to the prayers and praises through which grace is sought and expressed; so that it may be hopefully said that there is small probability that the appetite for ritual among us will grow beyond the present provision for its satisfaction. If we were believers in grace-conveying priests, ordinances, and wafers the danger would be great. Just so far as our Protestant Episcopal brethren have added these ideas to the older simplicity have they felt the need of candles, incense, prostrations, robes, and lace-a wish for these would with us be antedated by beliefs which would be excommunicative.

There is, of course, some danger that the imperfect rendering of these services might, among us, lead elsewhere, and that offended taste might still do what it does now in making crudity of public service an excuse for departure. But it is also probable that the kind of minister who could maltreat the service would have little appetite for the service itself, and if he botched it would be advised promptly that a return to himself would be less offensive. Happily the movement toward a greater use of the Sunday Service seems to be thus far in intelligent hands, and among intelligent people chiefly.

No greater disaster could come upon the Church than the destruction of that habit and privilege of free prayer in which our people have delighted and excelled. There are moments and moods when the soul seeks relief through "forms of sound words," when the soul feels as if the ages and the millions were, in the form used, reinforcing its petition. There are other, and to the unsophisticated spirit many more, moments

when cathedrals, priests, and forms blockade the Almighty, the soul finding him only when it has surmounted the barriers. This blockading of souls is in the interest of ecclesiasticism. but not in the interest of Christianity. Christ came to reveal the nearness of God to man. He rent the veil of separation. He abolished all sacrificial priesthood except his own; not once in the New Testament is the term "priest," as related. to offering a sacrifice, attached to the Christian ministry. Once, indeed, it is used as to Christian things, and then as to the entire body of believers. There ought, then, to be nothing enjoined or permitted which bars or blocks the access of the soul to God. No prayer meeting can survive as a ritual service. But once a day on Sunday and on special occasions, congregations may be helped by a ritual, not only to decency and order, but to "access to the Father by the Spirit."

There has been a notable increase among us in the use of music and of the participation of the people in the communion service as directed by the rubrics. In no case has it been abandoned, if at all, by a conviction that it was a hindrance to a spiritual observance of the holy feast. Would God that some pastors and presiding elders could see the evil they do by curtailing this majestic service to the last degree of brevity and then galloping through the little they leave! Similar haste, if not similar abbreviation, we have seen in services beyond our borders and in communions supposed to exact from their clergy all the public proprieties. But whether it be a country pastor or the bishop of a great diocese the impression and the wrong are the same. Nay, high place and ampler knowledge make him less excusable who excises the services to suit his fatigue or the convenience of his journey.

To the last this question of the value of a ritual and the quantity thereof in any particular service will be adjudged by individual tastes. We are all apt to elevate our tastes into standards. Would it not promote Christian charity if those who scout ritual as the source and expression of formalism should ask whether those who are trained in their way are better Christians than those trained in the other? Would it

not be well for him who holds to extemporaneous prayer as the only fitting approach to God to ask himself whether a desire to be through and done with it has not often governed his preferences? As the wise use of ritual requires study and training may not the necessity for this burden and pervert the judgment, causing preference for a method which gives the minister control of time and language, and counts him fit without further toil?

On the other hand, how fearful the limitations of a minister who is silent except when he opens his prayer book! What uncharitableness there must be in the contempt such feel for a warm, earnest prayer meeting! It is said that one such, looking at three thousand people on their knees at a camp meeting, said, "What a disgusting spectacle!" The most ignorant man then on his knees would have understood him and his ritual better than he understood them. Extemporaneous prayer is apt to make readier use of any moment than the set form. It cannot be surprised into silence or stunned by exigency.

We hold, then, that our inheritance is a good and great one; that we have made the best use of it possible during the missionary phase of our Church life by extracting from it and making obligatory the special services printed in our Discipline; that the time has come when we should permit individual churches to enrich the Sabbath worship by the use of the Sunday Service in whole or in part, as by experience they find it to edification; that it would be an immeasurable calamity if this should diminish the habit and frequency of free prayer among our people; that never in the future should the use of it on the Lord's Day be made obligatory, the freedom of the churches being preserved in determining how much or how little of the service will be helpful.

Dan" A. Goodsell

ART. II.—THE PREACHING OF ROWLAND HILL.

ROWLAND HILL once began a sermon with the sharp cry, "Matches! Matches!" and then said that he felt he had not been as diligent in work for the salvation of men as the seller of matches under his window had been to dispose of his wares. It was characteristic of the man and of his ministry.

The recent death of Newman Hall, minister of Christ Church, South London, has again directed attention to his even more remarkable predecessor, the founder of that church and for more than fifty years the distinguished occupant of its pulpit. Some few years ago, when Newman Hall resigned his pastorate and was succeeded by the well-known preacherevangelist, Rev. F. B. Meyer, he welcomed his successor with these words, so redolent with holy memories: "I welcome you, dear brother, as successor of Rowland Hill, James Sherman, and Newman Hall, the fourth pastor of Surrey Chapel, perpetuated in Christ Church." 1782-1893, three pastors in one hundred and ten years! What a record of Christian work! Of the three pastorates Rowland Hill's was by far the longest, almost as long as both the others. His was a memorable ministry. The tradition of his great name ought to be kept alive. The influence of his public career as a preacher, the inspiration of his words and example as a Christian philanthropist, the charm and strength of his personal character, his abundant labors during the seventy years of active ministry, his skill as a controversialist, his evangelistic spirit, his widespread activities and successes as an open-air preacher, make him one of the most conspicuous ecclesiastical figures of the meridian days of the evangelical revival of the eighteenth century.

The Hill family was disThe first Protestant lord Lord Hill, the hero of many

Rowland Hill was well-born. tinguished for many generations. mayor of London was a Hill. campaigns, and one of five brothers who fought at Waterloo, was a nephew of Rowland Hill, but not more conspicuous than