Page:History of the Nonjurors.djvu/542

524 otherwise. As the Rubric is the law on the subject, and it contains no restrictive clause, the only question to decide, a question of very easy solution, is, what is intended by a pious and charitable use.

Considerable light is reflected on the whole subject of the Offertory, by the forms of prayer for special days of fasting and thanksgiving, which, from the period of the Reformation, were set forth at intervals.

It was the custom in these Forms to print the entire Service, at least to the period of the Revolution, even the Lessons, in order that the Clergy might use only one Book on such occasions. They prove, that the practice of reading the Daily Morning Service, the Litany, and the Communion Service, never varied from the days of Queen Elizabeth: for all of them are precisely similar in this respect, closing with the Prayer for the Church Militant. If then such a practice prevailed on these occasional days, there can be no doubt, that it was just the same on Sundays and other holy-days: for the directions in these special