over eighteen weeks in the year. Passing over these comparative trifles, we come to THE ALTAR. That name, we repeat, is unknown to the Prayer-book. The thing intended is-the Lord's table. According to the genuine rubrics, the table is to have " a fair white linen cloth, upon it," ""at the Communion time." The 82nd Canon orders thus:-" The Communion Table is to be covered, in time of Divine service, with a carpet of silk, or other decent stuff, thought meet by the ordinary of the place, if any question be made of it." But there is not a word about the size or height of the table, about hangings behind it, about a composite covering, (on the contrary, it is to be a carpet of silk, &c.,) or about hangings with strange names presently to be introduced. There is nothing about lights, or flowers, or colours, which have no authority in the Church of England. Moreover, the Judgment of the Queen in Council, 1857, pronounces that no articles may be added to the furnitures of any church without a faculty. But hear how the shortcomings of the Church of England are supplied by the "Churchman's Diary" for 1864

"THE ALTAR.

"The length of the Altar will vary according to the size of the Church and Chancel, but it should never be less than six feet. It should be three feet six inches high, and raised as much as possible above the level of the nave; there should also be a Dossal Cloth, or Painting, behind it. The covering or vestment should fit closely, and be in two parts, the frontal or antependium, which hangs in front, and the superfrontal, which covers the slab, and should hang down about ten inches below. The frontal and superfrontal should each have a fringe. The linen used at the celebration ought to cover only the top and sides. The Ornaments' proper for the Altar are two lights, and a cross; and on Festivals, vases of flowers. These should be placed on the Super-altar, or Re-table.

If there are more sets of vestments than one, the following order should be observed in the use of them. The Superfrontal may always be red.

"White. From the evening of Christmas Eve to the Octave of Epiphany, inclusive, (except on the two feasts of S. Stephen and of the Holy Innocents); from the evening of Easter Eve to the Vigil of Pentecost, on Trinity Sunday, Purification, Conversion of S. Paul, Annunciation, S. John the Baptist, S. Michael, S. Luke, All Saints.

"Red. Vigil of Pentecost to the next Saturday, Holy Innocents (if on a Sunday), and all other Feasts.

"Violet. Ash Wednesday to Easter Eve; Advent to Christmas Eve; Ember Week in September; Holy Innocents, unless on a Sunday. "Black. Good Fridays and funerals.

"Green. All other days.

"Some ritualists say the Altar should be stripped on Good Friday. "No cushion should be allowed upon the Altar, and only one Book for the Celebrant, with a small brass desk to support it."

Such are the counsels which, for nineteen years, appear to

have been offered to the clergy of the Church of England, leading all whose minds are sufficiently disorderly, not only to deviate from custom, but to metamorphose, by unauthorised additions, the character of the Church of which they are ministers. They account for the uniformity of these irregu larities, which range certain churches, in various parts of the country, in a class by themselves.

Against such innovations we raise our protest, though we know that it will be despised by the wilfulness and waywardness which circulate and uphold the regulations to which we have pointed.

1. The additions made to the Calendar exhibit not only a wanton misuse of private judgment, but a contempt for the decisions of the Church, which deliberately reduced the Calendar into the form in which we find it in our Prayer-books.

2. The interference of the Diary with the discretion thrown upon the clergy, in various cases, by the Prayer-book, is a great impertinence, implying either that the clergy have not discernment enough to judge rightly, or that the reformers and revisers of the Prayer-book ought not to have left any of these questions open.

3. The change urged upon the clergy in the matter of their dress, when officiating, relates to a thing of the most minute importance in itself. To leave such things as we find them, unless there are strong reasons for alteration, is the part of common sense. But if any are not content to follow custom and the canons of the Church, and think that they are held in conscience to overlook both, and to make the rubric of the Prayer-book of King Edward VI. their guide, let them at least be consistent, and obey it as it stands, clothing themselves with neither more nor less than it prescribes. Away with all the additions, and the rule which would bring out a red, green, or violet priest, to perform the service before an astonished and disgusted people. Meanwhile let us, the rest, be permitted to wear the surplice and hood according to the Canon, and even to add the scarf (or, as it is now called, the stole), because custom has sanctioned it, and it provokes no remark.

4. The precepts concerning the Communion Table, and the name given to it-the Altar, and the private prayers put into the mouth of the officiating clergyman, are the effects of a disloyal spirit. The frontal, and superfrontals (of many colours), the dossal, the superaltar, the candles, the vases, the cross, and the rule for the length and height of the table, are alien to the Church of England. She recognises none of them. Everything that startles and offends you in such churches is due, not to the Church, but to the perversity of those who placed them there.

5. The ceremonies prescribed over and above those which the Church has ordered, are the fruit of the same disobedient spirit. The bowings, and crossings, and turnings, the upraising of two fingers, the elevation of the elements, the standing with the back to the people, now at the middle of the "altar" and now "" half way between the centre and the north end," may be regulations of the Diary, but are repugnant to the Church of England. The Church has entered very carefully into the consideration of ceremonies, and has explained to her members, in the Preface to the Prayer-book, "why some be abolished and some retained." She has looked She has looked upon them as matters peculiarly liable to abuse, though they may have been devised with a godly intent and purpose." She has also claimed her right to regulate them, repudiating by anticipation the work of this miscalled Churchman's Diary; for she says:

"And although the keeping or omitting of a ceremony, in itself considered, is but a small thing; yet the wilful and contemptuous transgression and breaking of a common order and discipline is no small offence before God. Let all things be done among you, saith St. Paul, in a seemly and due order; the appointment of which order pertaineth not to private men; therefore no man ought to take in hand, nor presume to appoint or alter, any public or common order in Christ's Church, except he be lawfully called and authorised thereto." We have not heard that the conductors of the Diary have hitherto been so called.

6. The disloyalty of this Diary appears yet further in its venturing to decide matters which the Church refers to the Ordinary, whose duties in such matters are never once recognised amongst its various directions.

We cannot close this article without remarking, that if those whose principles are represented by the Christian Observer were to manifest one-tenth of the lawlessness shown by the Diary and its adherents, a clamour would be raised throughout the country, having for its object to put them to shame, and to represent that their position in the Church is tenable no longer.

CITIES" DESOLATE, WITHOUT AN INHABITANT."

To the Editor of the Christian Observer.

MY DEAR SIR,-My former letter left us taking our last look at Rabbah, and thinking the last thoughts which the spectacle of her ruin suggests. These were interrupted by a message from a Sheik, who was encamped near the valley, inviting us to visit him. An "At Home" from an Arab chief

was not to be despised; and before long, we were all sitting together under his hospitable-not roof, but-curtains. Tongues were at a discount during the interview; the interest of it, both to hosts and guests, depended on their making liberal use of their eyes. Shall we take an inventory of an Arab's tent? It is not a very long business. To begin with the house itself. Now, in limine, I am justified in calling it "a house;" for the words are interchanged, in that repository of oriental phraseology, the Old Testament, and more than once; for instance, "Rebekah took goodly raiment of her eldest son Esau, which were with her in the house;" and so, I suppose, Job. viii. 15. There is, indeed, nothing which makes us realize more vividly that we are in the lands of the Bible, than being sheltered by native tents. Here they are long, low, and black, dropping on the wind-side to the ground, but open from end to end on the other. They are very picturesque, and we could quite understand that she paid herself a compliment who said, "I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem; as the tents of Kedar." Even the little tents which we used had before now taxed the united strength of our party, when it was necessary to pitch them in a windy place; and every child of the desert would feel the force of the lamentation, "My tabernacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth of me, and they are not. There is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains." Directly we entered, we were asked to sit down on strips of carpet or skins, I forget which. In order that we might have something to lean against, camel-saddles were placed between us; and Rachel's stratagem was at once before our eyes, for underneath the hollow of these saddles a large amount of stolen goods might be secreted. Preparations for our entertainment were now made. We were reminded of the typical service of Scripture, by seeing a boy kneel down to grind, or rather to pound, something in a small stone basin; another cleared out a hole in the ground, and filled it with sticks, and from this primitive kitchen-range we soon obtained a very fair cup of coffee. The wants of tent-dwellers are so few, that their domestic articles remain of necessity the same from generation to generation. The hair of their camels and goats, and the wool of their flocks, furnish them with houses, clothes, and sacks; these latter articles serving as general receptacles for the household goods on the march. The skins supply them with carpets, saddlery, bottles, and boots; add a wooden bowl or two, and a few earthenware pots, and you have the stock in trade of a young Bedouin housekeeper. The mistresses of the establishment are, I believe, shut off from us by certain curtains: the formula expressing the whole duty of childhood, as we learnt the same

from the governors and the teachers of our youth, namely, "Be seen but not heard," is reversed in the case of these ladies, whose tongues, alas! are too often the only evidence which the traveller has of their existence. Whilst we were occupying ourselves with these hasty observations, pipes were passed round; and inestimable is their value on such an occasion, for they enable a man to be silent without looking silly. Since the introduction of tobacco, the words of Isaiah xxx. 14 are daily illustrated to a degree that the prophet could not have anticipated; for when your pipe is to be lit, a broken fragment of pottery is almost sure to be used to carry the spark. We had not much to show our hosts in return for their hospitality. They seem to resemble children in many points of their character, as I shall notice further on; and they naturally showed a child-like wonder at the few "curiosities of civilization" which we carried about with us. A revolver was the object of reverential interest; a watch, rather a curious luxury in a land where, during man's waking hours, the great time-keeper himself is scarcely ever out of sight; they fastened with more eagerness upon a compass which was attached to my chain; the fact that, wherever I might be, this small needle would tell me the direction of Constantinople, of Jerusalem, above all, of Mecca, was too wonderful for the sons of men; a sort of fact which could only be commented upon by looks, a problem which no fellow could justly be called upon to find out. Guess, readers, if you can, what it was that carried away the palm from all these trophies of intellect and industry; guess it, ye that travel by steam, and talk by electricity !—an English hunting whip! What could there be, they seemed to argue, in a piece of cane and twisted thong to wake such echoes among the hills? Our escort were never tired of starting and smiling when they heard the "crack," but there was matter for grave discussion, when they found that in their hands all the waving and lashing in the world produced no more than an insignificant "flick." I was much amused once, on meeting a strange party of Arabs, to find, when the first salutations were over, some of the young men coming up to me and making signs that the whip should speak; as if they would have their new friends hear the voice of the tutelary deity under whose protection their guests were travelling. Those meetings in the lone pasture-grounds, how full of novelty to us, but of real old-worldliness, they were! We will say "good-bye" to the Sheik at Rabbah, and go on to describe an interesting encounter with a strange tribe, which took place in the afternoon's ride. We rise upon the crest of a prairie wave, and with an increasing sweep the vast champaign rolls away in front of us. We see before we are seen, for uneasy consciences are ever on the alert, and what right have we to be here?-we