Entroductory Remarks. So little information can be gathered as to the manner in which the office of the Holy Communion should be performed, that the Editor has been compelled to draw up this portion of the work, more from analogy, than from positive directions. He therefore offers it simply in the spirit of suggestion, and in the hope that, should any defects be found, they will lead to the compilation of a service more perfect in its form, and consequently more worthy of being employed in the worship of Him from whom we receive both life, and breath, and all things. "It is plain, from the very nature of the case," as Mr. Jebb justly observes*, " that no part of Divine Service ought to be celebrated with greater Choral fulness than the office of the Holy Communion :"— "but," as he afterwards addst," unhappily, through the coldness of these latter times, the choral accompaniment has ceased in all but a few of our Collegiate Churches, as Durham, Exeter, and Worcester; and there is reason to suppose that it has not been general at least for the last hundred and fifty years." That the ecclesiastical tone, though now commonly neglected, was formerly in use, can be proved both from the work of Marbeck, and from that of Lowe; and the reason of its discontinuance seems to be attributable to the inability of those who officiate; for, * See Choral Service of the Church, page 457. I in speaking of the performance of this service, the above author says ;-" it of right belongs to the Capitular Clergy, who ought not to delegate their office in this most solemn service to inferiors, and therefore the chanting cannot always be secured*." Now, at the coronation of George the First, the Litany was chanted by two bishops, and "Cathedral statutes take for granted that capitulars have a knowledge of music, or appointments to musical stations in the Church would not have been left in their handst." Indeed, as a writer of the last century remarks‡, "it were devoutly to be wished, that their musical education were so general, as to enable the clergy, of whatever rank, to join the choir in the celebration of their Creator in all its appointed forms." The following are the only directions given by Lowe. After the harmonized responses of Morning and Evening Prayer, he says, "the Amen is to be sung by the Quire at the end of each prayer, in parts, except in the second services, and then in a single tone." And at the end of the Litany we read,-" The second Service is begun by the Priest, who reads the Lord's Prayer in one grave tone, the deeper (if strong and audible), the better: then the Collect before the Commandements, and the Commandements in a higher tone, the whole Quire (if no singing to an Organ) answering, Lord have mercy upon us, &c. after each Commandement in the same tone." "Then the Priest reads the Prayers before the Epistle, the Quire answering Amen. When the Epistle is done, and the Gospell named, the Quire sings Glory be to thee, O Lord, in either of the two * Choral Service of the Church, page 474. + Apology for Cathedral Service, 1839, page 19. Brown. Dissertation on Poetry and Music, 2nd ed. 1773, p 231. § That is, the Communion Service. |