ciple of the right of particular churches to alter ceremonies it was not a thing authorised by authority at all—it was simply the result of growing laxity and indifference in religion. Ceremonies were in fact dropped, not because people thought them "Romish," or because they preferred "a simple service," but because they disbelieved or were indifferent to all that the ceremonies symbolised.

When in the nineteenth century the Catholic Revival brought in its train a revived interest in ceremonial there was unfortunately no proper guidance in the matter of the restoration of the the lost ceremonies. As ceremonies had been dropped on individual initiative, so were they now restored. This had its unfortunate features and led to a chaotic state of things, ceremonially speaking. But it was inevitable. It is the ordinary human way of doing things. Leaders very rarely lead. They are usually pushed. In fact, changes in the ceremonial of the Church, the introduction of new services, festivals, etc., have very rarely been done from the initiative of authority. They have originated in local needs and circumstances, and when containing a popular appeal have spread and prospered until authority has been compelled to recognise them. It was so with the ceremonial restoration of the nine

teenth century. It began because men here and there, recognising the deep meaning of the offices of the Prayer Book, felt the need of emphasising and objectifying that meaning through symbolic action. A deep conception of the meaning of priesthood and sacrifice leads inevitably to the need to express one's belief in the ceremonial adjuncts of the Eucharist.

But after two centuries and more of the disuse of ceremonial what was to guide the revival? At that time no one really knew the details of ancient English use. They did know that the fundamental principles of ceremonial are the same in all times, and they selected from ancient and contemporary use such things as seemed to them apposite. Hence a good deal of diversity in detail in the ceremonial in use in various parishes to-day. I am not sure that the tears which are shed over this are not wasted. "Different forms and usages may without offence be allowed, provided the substance of the Faith be kept entire," the Preface of the Prayer Book says. The assumption of many minds that all things ought to be utterly alike in all places seems to rest on nothing but the temper of the said minds as they are made that way we need not quarrel with them. In the course of time no doubt authority will recognise that something

has taken place and will regulate it. I do not know that we need regret the continued delay in the coming of that time. The longer those who do not know keep their hands off, the more opportunity there will be for those who try to know to arrive at an intelligent agreement. In the meantime those of us who rejoice" in that blessed liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free" view the existence of a certain variety in worship "without offence," " 'provided the substance of the Faith be kept entire."

XXVII

FASTING AND ABSTINENCE

HE progress of which we hear so much as having marked the last century was mainly a progress in the mastery of the material world. As it affects the life of the average man it does so by putting within his reach a great number of appliances which minister to the ease and comfort of his life. Things which in the beginning are luxuries soon end in becoming necessities in the sense that the lack of them is sorely felt. Our ancestors got on very well without ice-boxes; to us the lack of them would be intolerable. Twenty years ago the automobile was the luxury of the select few; to-day, high and low, rich and poor, find it indispensable to the comfortable conduct of life. From the standpoint of the padded life we look back and shudder at the sufferings and deprivation of our ancestors. Those sufferings exist largely in our imaginations. Born to a certain kind of life they led it with at least as much joy as we lead ours. What has actually happened is that for the last century the world

has been becoming more and more enslaved; for we are the slaves of whatever is to us indispensable.

With all the modern appliances for comfort and convenience within reach it has become increasingly inconceivable to the modern man that discomfort or inconvenience or pain of any sort can be other than an injustice or a nuisance. Comfort, not to say self-indulgence and luxury, has become the primary aim of life. It is an aim that has gained the support of many of our modern religious and moral guides. To be sure these guides still denounce "luxury" of some sort; but mainly, it turns out, of a sort that is not practiced in circles where they move. They are all quite agreed that "asceticism" is a thing to be abhorred. They may not denounce fasting; they may go no farther than the English bishop who lately spoke of it as " innocuous."

Such an attitude toward fasting draws a sharp line between the ancient and the modern world. Fasting has been an universal element in the religious practice of the past. Back of it, I suppose, lies the sense of sin, a sense of being out of harmony with whatever power or person was conceived to be responsible for human life, and to whom human life is accountable. This lack of harmony, this disorder of nature, was felt to have