renounced, or other chapters must be found, completing his idea as accurately as these do: which latter, it is imagined, would prove a difficult task.
2. The other matter proposed for enquiry is less important, and may be dismissed in a few words. Why, it is asked, should there not be Lessons from the New Testament proper for every Sunday in the year, as well as for a few great days? In answer to which it may be observed, first, that there are, generally, two such Lessons, always one, read in the Communion Service. Only that which is called The Second Lesson, varies with the day of the month. Of the reasons which, in point of fact, led to the continuance of this latter arrangement, I am not aware that any record remains. But it appears to be accompanied with two incidental advantages, which some may think considerable enough to render alteration unadviseable, without very clear proof of greater benefit likely to arise from it.
One of these advantages is, the standing memorial thus afforded to the people, that there was once such a thing as a Daily Service; that such is the system and wish of our Church, and the theory on which the Prayer-Book is constructed. It is an intelligible hint, that a Churchman's devotion was not meant to be all narrowed into the Sunday. The Services of that holy day were but to be a continuance and an expansion of those due on the other days; not a totally distinct thing. This we are weekly reminded of, by the very place in the Calendar, where we must look for the Second Sunday Lesson. The value of the hint people of course will estimate more or less highly, according to their sense of the importance of a Daily Service, and of the responsibility which Churchmen have incurred by letting it drop so very quietly in almost every parish of the kingdom.
The other advantage of these varying Second Lessons, (and it will be found in practice a very considerable one,) is this; that it presents the Old and New Scriptures in endless variety of mutual combinations, the more striking because they are unforeseen, and in a certain sense casual. The thought is happily expressed by Herbert, thus addressing Holy Scripture:—
"O that I knew how all thy lights combine,
And the configurations of their glory;
Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,
But all the constellations of the story!"
