XIV.

THE CHRISTIAN YEAR.

"Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which Thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility."-The Collect for Advent Sunday.

THE faithful use of the priceless heritage of the CHRISTIAN YEAR, with its annual recurrence of Feasts and Fasts, is a source of incalculable power and blessing. It is not now in (public) use by our Protestant brethren, except in respect to the great Festivals of Christmas and Easter, and the time is still not remote when the observance of the former was a penal offence in Massachusetts. But the return to any portion of the Sacred Seasons which distinguish the Calendar of the religious life from the purely secular one is a happy omen. Logically it involves the adoption of the entire Calendar, and there are indications of a growing sentiment in this direction. The appointment by State or National authority of an annual day of Fasting and another of Thanksgiving, with an illogical "week of prayer" at the opening of the year, is a meagre provision indeed for the instinctive demand of Christian hearts, as is beginning to be acknowledged. The sense of joy and gratitude for the blessings of Christmas and Easter can not be properly evinced without the due preparation

for them by the holy Seasons of Advent, Lent and Holy Week, and their acceptance carries with it the entire proposition for the commemoration, in due order, of the leading events in the life of Our Lord and Master. The Christian Year is a lively and systematic exposition of the Christian Creed." The learned and judicious Hooker says: "Well to celebrate these religious and sacred days. is to spend the flower of our time happily."

The observance of Wednesday and Friday as well as Sunday is as old as Christianity, while the Christian Year itself is the outgrowth of Judaic precedent. Easter is the Christian Passover, Whitsunday the Christian Pentecost, and Christmas the Christian Feast of Tabernacles. These mark the broad outlines of the yearly round, and with the Feasts and Fasts included in that cycle countless traditions and memories are involved. The Year begins about a month in advance of the secular year, and with the preparatory period of four weeks called Advent, which heralds the anniversary of Our Lord's Nativity. Thence onward for about one half the Year the teaching of Collect, Epistle and Gospel, which are an integral part of the Communion Office for each Sunday and Holy-day, is historically and doctrinally based on the events and phases of Our Saviour's earthly Life and of the founding of His Church, culminating in Trinity Sunday, set apart in special honour of the Triune God. After this, from Trinity on to Advent again, the Sundays bear no names except numerical ones, the observance is mostly non-festal in its character, and the instruction mainly practical in the duties of the Christian life.

The same authority which wrote, defined and accepted

the New Testament Canon of the Scriptures changed the day of the Jewish Sabbath to the Christian Lord's Day; thus celebrating on the First Day of the week the Resurrection of Our Saviour, who "brought life and immortality to light;" as the Jewish Church had commemorated on the seventh day the completed work of the first Creation. Of the FEASTS AND FESTIVALS of the Christian Year there are eighty-two, and fifty-seven of them are in honour of Our Lord; i. e., Easter and forty-nine other Sundays (the other two having a peculiar and added significance), Christmas, Circumcision, Epiphany, Easter Monday and Tuesday, Ascension and Transfiguration. Whitsunday

and the Monday and Tuesday following are the three Feasts in honour of the Holy Ghost, and Trinity Sunday that of the Blessed Trinity. Of the remaining twenty-one, Michaelmas commemorates the Holy Angels, and two, Annunciation and Purification, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Fourteen others are in memory of the Twelve Apostles (with St. Matthias in the place of Judas), including St. Paul and St. Barnabas, and the Evangelists St. Mark and St. Luke. Of the other four three bear the names of St. John Baptist, St. Stephen the first martyr, and the Holy Innocents, and the last is the Day of All Saints unmentioned by name, who have borne testimony to the Faith of Christ from the beginning.

The days assigned to individual saints are usually those of their martyrdom. Other National Churches, like the Church of England, have a Calendar embracing by name saints of later times, though these so-called "blackletter days" have no proper Service of their own; but ours is confined to those named in Holy Scripture. The prophets of the Hebrew Dispensation, except Our Lord's

great forerunner, are not thus commemorated (save by the Greek Church), since He himself has said that "he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater" than they. In addition to all these, the Church has a special Service for such annual or other Thanksgiving festival as shall be appointed by State or National authority. The strict distinction between the words "Festival" and "Feast" in liturgical use is to reserve the latter for days in honour of Our Lord, with special reference to the Celebration of the Holy Feast of the Lord's Supper on those days, though by no means restricting its use thereto.

Of days of FASTING AND ABSTINENCE there are appointed ninety-four, thus devoting, with those of Feast and Festival, one-half of the entire Year to specific Christian thought and observance. The remaining days of the Year are termed Ferial days (or days of non-appointment). The solemn days of Fasting are two: Ash Wednesday, which ushers in the great Lenten Season, and Good Friday, the anniversary of the Crucifixion. The ninety-two other days "on which the Church requires such a measure of abstinence as is more especially suited to extraordinary acts and exercises of devotion," are the remaining thirtyfive week-days of Lent (as Sunday is never other than a Feast day); the twelve Ember-days (or Days preceding the four Ordination Seasons); the three spring Rogation-days (for blessings on the fruits of the earth); and the remaining forty-two Fridays of the Year, on which is the ordinary week-day Service of the Church (not including Christmas, if occurring on that day). Neither on these week-days nor at other times will thoughtful Church people allow themselves to be diverted from the appointed Services of the

Church by amusements or social engagements. In such limited localities as is still observed an annual Spring Fast appointed by the State, this day may be added, though its necessity is entirely annulled by our own Spring Fast of forty days. In these cases the Civil Authority should at least appoint its annual Fast on Good Friday—a day hallowed to all Christians of every name, in virtue of the Redeemer's sufferings.

A table of all the Holy-days which make up the Church Year is a part of the prefatory matter of the Prayer Book, where also Proper Scripture Lessons for all, and Proper Psalms for sixteen of them are provided. The Opening Sentences in the Daily Service include special selections for the greater Days and Seasons. The undesigned coincidences of these various oracles with special occasions in the history of the Church and of individuals is of frequent experience. The character of these Days, as regards their date in the secular calendar, i. e., whether movable or immovable, has been defined in the chapter on this preliminary matter. For each of them a Collect, Epistle and Gospel is provided, and for the five greater Feasts a Proper Preface; and these constitute their distinctive characteristic as a part of the Communion Office. Between all three there is often (indeed, generally) a close connection to be found in their strain of thought or doctrinal teaching; and the Lessons, though of later appointment, are generally found to harmonize; less especially so during the Trinity Season, which is not historically arranged. The Epistle and Gospel are to the Communion Office what the Lessons are to the Daily Service; the reading of Holy Scripture having always been