reform of the Service belongs to the Strassburg type. Its divergence from the Wittenberg Order was recognized. The Wittenberg Reformers declined a proposition to consult with reference to a uniform Service. It did not seem to them desirable that Christian liberty in such matters should be covered up by uniformity in worship. The separate development at Nuremberg finally made itself felt in the Saxon series of Orders through the Mecklenberg Order of 1552, the Mecklenberg Order of 1540 having been based on Brandenburg-Nuremberg 1553. To the earliest Nuremberg Order we owe the Exhortation in the Communion Service, probably the composition of Osiander, and to the Orders of which we have been speaking, coming to Nuremberg by way of Strassburg, our Confession of Sins and Declaration of Grace, and the Nunc Dimittis.

It would not be just to say that the German Mass of 1526 represents Luther's final conclusion on the Service. The Wittenberg Order of 1533 is far more ornate, and the Saxon of 1539 is more characteristic of the Normal Lutheran Liturgy.

Reading, Pa.

EDWARD T. HORN.

PREACHING AND THE DAY.

DOES the Day influence the Sermon, or is the Sermon independent of the Day? Is the Sermon something distinct from the rest of the Service or an integral part, and as such influencing or influenced by the other parts? Is our Worship an harmonious whole or made up of indiscriminate acts having no inter-relation or bearing no effect upon each other? Is this Worship which is such a great part of the Church's life, based on a distinct plan with a definite object in view or simply an outpouring of the momentary emotion, or an expression of personal thought, will or experience? If based on a distinct plan does this leave any imprint on the structure of the Service and does this seek and demand expression?

Let us keep these questions in view and let them guide the consideration of the subject.

There is such a thing as a Lutheran Cultus. The Lutheran Church observes the Ecclesiastical Year. It is the Ecclesiastical Year in which the Cultus thrives. But neither the Cultus nor the Church Year are of distinctly Lutheran manufacture; nor do they date simply from the Reformation era. While there are many things that may be brought forward as marks of the Reformers, as results of their thought and touch, still there is nothing that has not come from a former age, that does not trace its foundation to earliest times and date from the days of the pure and unadulterated orthodox practice. However there is such a thing as a Lutheran standard from which we must consider all matters and a Lutheran point-of-view; but these are nothing more than the standard and view-point of the Early Church. Lutheran Cultus means Christian Cultus. Lutheran practice means Christian practice,-Apostolic, post-Apostolic, Greek or Latin, early or later Roman, or what you will. Therefore any

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question which we consider, based on our Cultus or Church Life of the present day, must also consider the pure antecedents from which it sprang and which it acknowledges as source and standard. The Lutheran Church is in the hereditary line of the Ages, and whatever they brought forth that is not contrary to the Word of God and pure practice, is hers by hereditary right.

Christian Worship or the Cultus, from the earliest times, whether expressed in simplest form or grandest ceremonial, has always expressed itself harmoniously, as a dignified, unified, logically progressing act. The various parts which contributed to the structure, were so arranged that they would either eloquently and pointedly express their messages to, or act as guides for, the people. One step followed the other preparing for, and leading to, the climax, and therein the Office ended. The Apostolic admonition: "Let all things be done decently and in order" (I Cor. 14: 16), as well as the Apostolic examples were faithfully followed; and this admonition is the essence of all liturgical, structural law and necessarily means harmony. This is borne out by the remains of the earliest traces of a Christian Liturgy† and has never been forsaken by the Church through all her centuries of growth even amid innovations and false doctrines.

Christian Church Life was, first of all, a simple outpouring of the momentary emotion, but this very thing was the basis of the structure of the Christian Year. By "momentary emotion" nothing is meant that might convey the slightest suggestion of certain practices of the present day. The expression of the Worship was limited to the one plain, pre-eminent Fact. It was simply the Day and its memory that engaged their thought; and these days were limited to a weekly cycle; and that was their atmosphere. Every Lord's Day brought to them the memorial of the Day of

* NEALE while granting the non-Apostolic authorship of the Early Greek Liturgies, nevertheless claims that they are based on Apostolic forms. "These liturgies," he says, "though not composed by the Apostles whose names they bear, were the legitimate development of their unwritten tradition respecting the Christian Sacrifice, the words probably, in the most important parts, the general tenor in all portions, descending unchanged from the Apostolic authors." The General Introduction to

the History of the Holy Eastern Church. p 319.

+ See Greek Liturgies.-RENAUDOT, Liturgiarum Orientalium. 2 ed. 1847. DANIEL, Codex Liturgicus. Vol. IV. NEALE AND LITTLEDALE, The Lits. of St. Mk., St. Jas., etc. 3 ed. '75. Englished also by NEALE AND LITTLEDALE and in Ante Nicene Fathers. Vol. VII.

Resurrection; and soon with that, the fourth and sixth days (distinguished as feria) assumed the character of memorials of the Suffering, and the Crucifixion and Death of Christ, making in itself a harmony and following a distinct purpose.* Starting from this, but never forgetting or forsaking it, the yearly recurrence and remembrance of the Great Days and their Facts gradually grew into a set celebration. And as the Lord's Day was the first day observed, weekly, so that Day which celebrated that Fact was the first festival to be celebrated annually; but it does not stand alone, any more than did the Lord's Day. The events closely related to it appear with it, making a season of preparation for, and following it with a season wherein its particular spirit was brought home and applied. Then soon another Day and its groups of lesser dependent feasts (a distinction which was made even in earliest times) arises, until after but a few centuries of Church life, we find the Christian Year celebrating the great central Days with their pre- and post-, seasons, observed throughout the Church with greater or less fidelity. This is a matter of simple ecclesiastical history.

The one had its effect upon the other. True, it was but gradual, but nevertheless it was powerful. Hymns are found celebrating the facts of the Great Days; Homilies by the Early Fathers, setting forth Christian life in the light of these Events; these even before we have any remains of a complete Liturgy.‡ The earliest Service-book that has come down to us, the Roman Sacramentary known as the Leonianum,§ points very plainly to an harmonious structure and makes ample provision for the changing spirit of the great Seasons, of course in no wise as fully and completely as later Sacramentaries. Yet it is interesting to note that this, the oldest of Roman liturgical antiquities, does not

* RIETSCHEL, Lehrbuch d. Liturgik, p. 166 § 18.

+ On Early Hymns cf. BENNETT, Christian Archæology, c. 8, p 272 seq.; AUGUSTI, Denkwuerdigkeiten, V, 234; ALT, Christ. Cultus, I, 421.

We speak of the Western Section of the Church, since it is the Roman antiquities more particularly, that are to be considered as antecedents to our use.

§ MURATORI, Liturgia Romana, Vol. I; published separately by FELTOE, Sacramentarium Leonianum. Cambridge Press. '96. PROBST, Die aeltesten roem, Sacramentarien und Ordines erklaert, for criticism. The Gelasianum is published by WILSON. Oxford Press. '94. And with the Gregorian may also be found in MURATORI, which also compares and gives the others mentioned. The Mozarabic is published by MIGNE. Paris. 1850.

limit its variables to one set for a particular Day or occasion; but frequently provides two and even more sets, all of which bear upon the one fact of the Day.

A little later we come upon a group of Sacramentaries, Antiphonaries and Lectionaries, out of which we can construct a complete and detailed structure in which not only the great Days are illuminated by special observances and appointments, but the feria, the passage from Lord's Day to Lord's Day, are emphasized and provided for in much the same manner. We speak of the Sacramentaries of Gelasius and Gregory; the Ambrosian, Mozarabic and Gallican Office-books; the Antiphonary ascribed to Gregory* in various forms and others and various manuscript Lectionaries. The oldest of these MSS goes back as far as the year 700; Probst § would give the Gelasianum an even greater age; and since most of these MSS are not much younger, (the 9th Century at latest), we have a rather high age for a completed fabric. We said these MSS contribute a complete and detailed structure. How is this shown? In the Propria¶ and other variables; and the richness and variety as well as aptness, of Introits, Collects, Lections, Antiphons, Graduals, Responsories, Offertories, Collects ante-, and post-, nomina, Prefaces, Post-communions, Hymns, etc., are abundant proof of the fact that the Christian Year did have an effect, and that not a weak one, upon the expression of the Worship, and that those who composed the variables and appointed them did so under this influence. What more natural, than that Feast and Fast centered in the life of

* BERNO AUGIENSIS, (†1045) says in his de rebus ad miss. pert., c. Gregory was the “ordinator libri Sacramentarum et Antiphonarum.” + RANCKE, Das Kirchliche Pericopensystem. p 116 seqq.

Ibid. p 126 seqq.

§ PROBST, D. aelt. Roem. Sac., etc. P 156 § 34.

I: that

RANCKE recognizes it as a complete system by 9th Century. Pericopensystem. p. 406. Thesis 14.

It is to be noted that the completeness of the Propria etc. in these earliest liturgical remains presupposes their use in an earlier period. In other words, if a Sacramentary, coming to us from the early part of the 8th Cent. contains full Propria, it is not presumptuous to suppose that they were in use the latter part of the 7th Cent, or earlier. They would not necessarily come into use for the first time with, and be a complete and personal work, as a whole, of the one editing the Sacramentary. He, no doubt, drew from older sources. Then it follows that some earlier minds embraced the idea of an harmony in structure, at least, and so expressed it in the dress of the Service.