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Anglican sacrament just once so as to qualify. This caused much controversy and led eventually in 1710 to the Occasional Conformity Act, which was devised to check it. This Act was repealed in 1718, but many of the Nonconformists themselves disapproved of the practice on conscientious grounds, and, though it was often resorted to and caused grave scandals, those who resorted to it cannot be fairly taken as represen- tatives of their sects. The Test Act was not repealed till 1828, the year before the Catholic Emancipation Act was passed ; the Catholics and the Nonconformists combined their forces to obtain both objects.

Although Ijy the passing of the Toleration Act of 1689 the condition of the Nonconformists was so much ameliorated, they lapsed in the second quarter of the eighteenth century into the prevailing religious torpor, and seemed to be on the verge of extinction. They were rescued from this state by the outbreak of the great Methodist movement, which resulted both in arousing the existing Dissenting sects to a new vigour, and in adding another which exceeded them all in numbers and enthusiasm.

Present Condition. — At the present day the Nonconformists in England, the only country to which this name with its implications applies, are very nu- merous and constitute a powerful religious, social, and political influence. As they have effectually re- sisted the taking of a religious census by the State Census department, it is impossible to ascertain their numbers accurately, for their own statistics are sus- pected of exaggeration. According to Mr. Howard Evans's statistics (as given in the Daily Mail "Year Book of the Churches" for 1908), the Baptists then reckoned 405,7.55 communicants, the Congregational- ists 459,983, and the various denominations of Meth- odists 1,174,462 — to which figures are to be added those of the highly indeterminate number of "adher- ents" who are not accepted as communicants. It will be seen from this list that the Methodists are by far the larger of these three principal denominations, but they are likewise the mo.st subdivided. It will be noticed, too, that the Presbyterians, once so numerous in the country, have no place among the larger sects. The Society of Friends, commonly called Quakers, are allotted 17,767 communicants by Evans. Besides these there are innumerable small sects, of which the Plymouth Brethren and the Swedenborgians are the most conspicuous. (For the separate denominations see the special articles. Baptists; Congregation.4l- ism; Methodism; Presbyterianism; Friends, Soci- ety OF.)

Neal, Hist, of the Puritans, or Protestant Nonconformists, 1517^ less (2nd ed., London, 1822) ; Price, Hist, of Protestant Noncon- formity in England from the Reformation under Henry VIII (2 vols., London, 1836) ; Bogue and Bennett, Hist, of Dissenters, 1688-1808 (4 vols., London, 1808); Bennett, Hist, of Dissenters, 180S-18S8 (London. 1839) ; Wil,son, Hist, and Antiquities of the Dissenting Churches (4 vols., London, 1808); Wakeman, The Church and the Puritans, 1.570-1660 in Creighton, Epochs of Church History (London. 1887); Overton, Life in the English Church, 1660-1714 (London, 1885); Abbey and Overton, The English Church in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1878): Skeats AND Miall, Hist, of the Free Churches of England, 1688-1861 (London, 1891) ; Rees, Hist, of Protestant Nonconformity in Wales, 1633-1861 (London. 1861); Hetherinqton. Hist, of the West- minster Assembly of Divines (Edinburgh, 1878); Gould, Docu- ments relating to the Settlement of the Church of England by the Act of Uniformity of 1662 (2 vols., London, 1862); Calamy. Abridg- ment of Mr. Baxter's Hist, of his Life and Times, with an account of many. . . ministers who trfrr ijected. . . and a continuation of their history tilUI,, ■,<■• ;• '/ ' \..~u.Um. \~02); The Nonconform- ist's Memori'i!. In u : ' / ///,' Ministers who were ejected or silenced iiflir III, I: ' \i,\^., L.indon, 1775), abridged and corrected cliii.,!, l.^ I'm mi u i Lniidnn, 1802); Walker, An attempt towards rcconrinii uii account of the numbers and sufferings of the clergy of the Church of England. . . in the late times of the Grand Rebellion (London, 1714), a set-off against Calamy's ac- count of the sufferers in 1662; Kennett, Register and Chronicle . . . containing matter of fact, with notes and references towards dis- covering and connecting the true history of England from the Restora- tion of Charles II (London, 1728), a careful criticism of Calamy's

statistics. Sydney F. Smith.

None. — This subject will be treated under the fol- lowing heads: I. Origin of None; 11. None from the XI.— 7

Fourth to the Seventh Century; III. None in the Roman and Other Liturgies from the Seventh Cen- tury; IV. Meaning and Symbolism of None.

I. Origin of None. — According to an ancient Greek and Roman custom, the day was, like the night, divided into four parts, each consisting of three hours. As the last hour of each division gave its name to the respective quarter of the day, the third division (from 12 to about .3) was called the None (Lat. nanus, nana, ninth). For this explanation, which is open to objec- tion, but is the only probable one, see FrancoUnus, "De tempor. horar. canonicar.", Rome, 1571, xxi; Bona, "De divina psalmodia", III (see also Matins and Vigils). This division of the day was in vogue also among the Jews, from whom the Church bor- rowed it (.see Jerome, "In Daniel," vi, 10). The fol- lowing texts, moreover, favour this view: "Now Peter and John went up into the temple at the ninth hour of prayer" (Acts, iii, 1); "And Cornelius said: Four days ago, unto this hour, I was praying in my house, at the ninth hour, and behold a man stood be- fore me" (Acts, x, 30); "Peter went up to the higher parts of the house to pray, about the sixth hour" (Acts, x, 9). The most ancient testimony refers to this custom of Terce, Sext, and None, for instance TertuUian, Clement of Alexandria, the Canons of Hip- polytus, and even the "Teaching of the Apostles". The last-mentioned prescribed prayer thrice each day, without, however, fixing the hours (AiSaxi tQv 'Liroa- ToXuiv, n. viii).

Clement of Alexandria and likewise TertuUian, as early as the end of the second century, expressly mention the hours of Terce, Sexi:., and None, as specially set apart for prayer (Clement, "Strom.", VII, vii, in P. G., IX, 455-8). TertuUian says ex- plicitly that we must always pray, and that there is no time prescribed for prayer; he adds, nevertheless, these significant words: "As regards the time, there should be no lax observation of certain hours — I mean of those common hours which have long marked the di- visions of the day, the third, the sixih, and the ninth, and which we may observe in Scripture to be more solemn than the rest" ("De Oratione", xxiii, xxv, in P. L., I, 1191-3).

Clement and TertuUian in these passages refer only to private prayer at these hours. The Canons of Hip- polytus also speak of Terce, Sext, and None, as suitable hours for private prayer; however, on the two station days, Wednesday and Friday, when the faithful as- sembled in the church, and perhaps on Sundays, these hours were recited successively in public (can. xx, xxvi). St. Cyprian mentions the same hours as having been observed under the Old Law, and adduces reasons for the Christians observing them also ("De Oratione", xxxiv, in P. L., IV, 541). In the fourth century there is evidence to show that the practice had become obli- gatory, at least for the monks (see the text of the Apos- tolic Constitutions, St. Ephraem, St. Basil, the author of the "De virginitate" in Baiimer-Biron, op. cit. in bibliography, pp, 116, 121, 123, 129, 186). The prayer of Prime, at six o'clock in the morning, was not added till a later date, but Vespers goes back to the earliest days. The texts we have cited give no infor- mation as to what these prayers consisted of. Evi- dently they contained the same elements as all other prayers of that time — psalms recited or chanted, canti- cles or hymns, either privately comijosed or drawn from Holy Writ, and litanies or prayers properly so- called.

II. None from the Fourth to the Seventh Cen- tury. — The eighteenth canon of the Council of Lao- dicea (between 343 and 381) orders that the same prayers be always said at None and Vespers. But it is not clear what meaning is to be attached to the words \eiTovpyla twp eixui', used in the canon. It is likely that reference is made to the famous litanies, in which prayer was offered for the catechumens, sinners, the