preponderance of the phlegmatic over the vivacious.
There is an immense mass of our fellow-countrymen
and countrywomen who can convey their
bodies into certain buildings, deposit them there
in quiescence for a certain number of hours—
one or two more or less being of no importance
—and then remove the said bodies to their homes
feeling no particular sense of relief when the
signal for departure is given. This is a large
class; but is it so large a class as to be alone
worthy of consideration? Is there not another
large and important class who chafe under the
restraints which the fiat of their more phlegmatic
brethren has laid upon them: persons of quick
and irritable temperament, who live more in
live minutes than others do in as many hours?

We all remember as children what we have
gone through in church. We all remember
how, at that period of our lives, we have made
our own divisions of the Church services, and,
separating the long two hours' ritual into
different clauses, have checked each off as it was
accomplished, but have remembered with despair
that even when the collect (which we viewed
with bitterness from having learnt it in the
morning) was read, there was the Litany—
shame that so beautiful a service should be so
thought of even by a child!—and after that the
Communion, and then after all the sermon, and
when that might end who could tell? We all
remember how we have wished the sermon
came first, because then, that once over, we
should know exactly where we were with the
rest. We have all—do not deny it, worthy sir,
because you have—all, while the sermon was
delivering, watched the thickness of the pile of
pages that had been read, and compared it with
the bulk of those yet to come. We have all
rejoiced as the lump first mentioned got thicker,
and that last named got thinner. We have all
experienced heart-sickness when we found that
the clergyman, having got to the end, turned
his book round and began again on the backs of
the pages. We have all experienced torture
when, in a sermon on heads, we have found
ourselves after twenty minutes, only arrived at the
end of the first head, remembering that there
were two more, and beyond those, in a vista of
fidgets, an application and the conclusion. We
all remember the threat of "something to be
explained presently," and how we used to
reflect when the sermon seemed near its end, that
it couldn't be, because that threat had not yet
been fulfilled. And lastly, we all remember our
longing for those blessed words, "And now,"
and also what our sensations were, when a
fallacious "and now" happened to come in in
the course of the sermon, making us jump off
our seats in anticipation of the end, and proving
only the commencement of a new view of the
subject in hand.

And why have we spoken of these sensations
as belonging only to our childish recollections?
Surely this is not altogether fair? If we were
put on the rack and compelled to own the truth,
should we not at the first twinge, at the first
turn of the screw, cry out, "I own it! Many of
these very feelings, these hopes and fears, pass
through my mind every Sunday of my life." Yes,
we should speak thus, if we spoke the truth.

Now, the question is simply this: Why should
this improper and distressing state of things go
on? Why should we suffer under what it is in
our own hands to remedy, and to remedy without
a shadow of offence to the weakest brother,
still less to the real interests of vital religion
among us? What we urge—urge most reverently
but most strongly—is no change in any single
iota of doctrine, nor even in the words of which
our ritual consists. We simply wish that what
was originally divided, what was intended to be
divided, and what is better divided, should be
divided; and that three services, each one
complete in itself, should not continue jumbled into
an incomplete whole, because they were so
combined when our social system was in every
respect different from what it is at the present
time.

The remedy in this case is so simple too, so
easy. Why not let it be tried at any rate?
Let the Morning Prayer be read, exactly as it
stands, in the morning, at half-past ten or
eleven, as might be most convenient. Let there
be a Communion Service at noon. In the afternoon,
at the usual time of afternoon service, the
Litany and a sermon, and Evening Prayer—said
once instead of twice a day—in the evening.

Against this simple arrangement what is to be
said? It has been argued that in the country,
where many of the villagers live at a considerable
distance from the parish church, this division of
the services would be inconvenient and
unpopular; but even supposing this—which is
granting a great deal—is there any reason why the
inhabitants of the town are to be subjected,
perforce, to the same system which suits the
inhabitants of the country? It is to townspeople
doubtless, pre-eminently, that the change for
which we plead would be a benefit. They work
with their heads, and in confined and unwholesome
air, and consequently it is to them that
the mental strain of confining their attention
while these three services are gone through—
a mental strain, it must be remembered, of a
very extreme kind—is peculiarly trying, and a
great diminution of the benefit of their day of
rest. Let the change, then, be gradual. Let
it be tried in London first; nay, we will go
even a step farther: There may be those
among us whom old habits and prejudices
may affect so strongly that the alteration might
at first, at any rate, be displeasing to them;
why not begin by trying the experiment of the
divided services in one church or chapel of ease
in each division of London, and so make the
change slow and gradual instead of abrupt and
despotic? There are many desirable points that
may be carried by a moderate and judicious
policy, when a less temperate course would set
every one against them.

Were this plan, obvious and easily effected as
it is, once fairly tried, we believe that it would
surely advance and gain ground of itself, and
that enormous good would follow. An immense