We have had occasion to notice that the Sundays which occur during the great quadragesimal period of humiliation are rather Sundays in Lent than Sundays of Lent. In the midst of the Fast, they form no part of it; and on them the Church continues without interruption to celebrate the Resurrection of the Saviour. Yet to any one observing the offices proper to these Sundays, it will be apparent that the general spirit of, so to say, the contextual days is upon them. Their rejoicing is done with evident trembling. There is in each the consciousness of the fast which was in force the day before, has been intermitted only for the Sunday, and is to be resumed on the morrow. In the order for Morning Prayer for the first Sunday in Lent, the Gospel is supplied by the narrative of the fasting and temptation in the wilderness, which leaves the Saviour as victor over the devil, and as enjoying the ministration of angels. The Gospels for the second and third Sundays are illustrative of the exercise of that power over diabolical agencies which Christ had first vindicated by His own personal supremacy. As we are invited hopefully to contemplate the fact that our High Priest "was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin;" so, conversely, the fact of our temptations at all points resembling His, is to be dwelt upon as one of the meditations very proper to the Lenten season. The following poem calls upon us to be aware of the armies of the Evil One contending against us and plotting within us for our discomfiture and destruction, and presents a vivid realization of those spiritual foes against whom the Christian is bound evermore to struggle. It is the production of Andrew, Archbishop of Crete, who was born at Damascus, about A.D. 640, and died near Mitylene, about the year 732. The most ambitious composition of this poet is the "Great Canon," which-partially used in the Eastern Church during other days of Lent-is sung right through on the Thursday of Mid-Lent week, called, on that account, the Thursday of the Great Canon. The Great Canon 66 143 is, in its entirety, of great, and, for our purpose, of impracticable length. We transcribe a translation, from the late Dr. Neale's "Hymns of the Eastern Church," of a part of it called a "Stichera for the Second Week of the Great Fast." The true use of Lent is, that its attendant contrition, charity, contemplation, and discipline should result in practical and discernible improvement and purification of the heart and the affections. Amongst the "Poems" of the late Dr. Faber we find one on Lent," which sets forth the wholesome effect of that season upon the soul, which, if left to an uninterrupted succession of joyful commemorations, an unbroken series of festivals from which fasts should be excluded, would be liable to waywardness and wantonness. Dr. Faber is dramatic and personal in his method of exhibiting the chastening results of the Lenten period; and he seems to have been attracted to it by a kind of Spenserian emulation. We have religion and selfdenial engrafted, as in the gorgeous allegories of the "Faerie Queene," upon a stock of chivalry. A Christian knight is represented as marching with a retinue, from whom he has assimilated some frivolity and contracted some stains in morals in the gaiety of a procession along the course of the Christian seasons, which, from the time of Christmas, have been unsaddened by a fast. It is with this notice of a poem-which we regret not to be able to quote-devoted to the ideal results of Lent that it seems proper to bring to a close the present paper, in which we have sought to illustrate the various ideas and phases of the entire season. One day alone of Lent we reserve for separate and particular treatment; and the several poems which we set apart for the poetical illustration of this day are those which give utterance more singly and more fully than any we have hitherto quoted to that abasement, and rending, and contrition of heart which are so especially characteristic of Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday. ROM small and limited beginnings, and through the operation of a pious contagion, many of the existing celebrations of the Church have gradually spread into universality; with the attainment of which they became ripe for authoritative recognition and enactment. In proportion as the origin of these celebrations has been local and inconsiderable, the knowledge about them has been obscure, and the tracing of their precise history has been difficult or impossible. It is not every season that can, with the great festival of Easter, look down upon all posterior challenge from the unmoved base of apostolic institution. Already we have seen something, and hereafter we may see more, of the hopelessness of fixing to-day the exact birth-place or birth-time of various Christian commemorations. The origin of Ash Wednesday, without being certain, is yet limited to a very small range of uncertainty. The traditions of its appointment oscillate only between the two popes, Gregory the Great and Gregory the Second, as its alternative authors; and between the sixth and eighth centuries as its alternative periods of first observance. Before the dedication of Ash Wednesday as the Caput Jejunii, the head or commencement of the Fast, this had begun on the first Sunday in Lent; and, regarded as a quadragesimal interval of forty days, had been only approximately observed. With the expansion of time, as we have seen already (page 133), there resulted a development of the doctrine and associations of the season. But it still remained that the radical idea of Lent was one of penitence, contrition, abasement and supplication. However complex and various the lessons of the great Fast may be, this survives above all, beneath all, and enfolding all. St. Chrysostom and Cassian gave prominence to the value of Lent as a season of preparation for the high communion of Easter. Still, as every form of preparation is founded on penitence, we never in the whole course of the Lenten fast get so far as a stage to which the necessity of penitence does not apply. It is ordered that every Collect peculiar to Lent is to be preceded by that for Ash Wednesday; which is humbly addressed to a sin-pardoning God, by his people "worthily lamenting their sins, and acknowledging their wretchedness." This is the key-note with which all subsequent intercession must be in accord; and by which even the gladsome strains of the Sundays in Lent are to be regulated. Amongst writers who have investigated the origin, traditions, significance, and uses of Lent, there is no name of greater claim to honour and respect for the thoroughness of his work, than that of Bishop Hooper, who at the time of publishing his "Discourse concerning Lent" (1694), was Dean of Canterbury. We borrow from the Bishop a few of his concluding sentences, in which with an engaging combination of zeal and dignity, he enforces the peculiar lessons which the season of Lent should inculcate. "Were we," he says, "to celebrate the anniversary of our Lord's passion only, and with no respect to our sins since our baptism; yet we should come upon the solemn day too rashly and unworthily, if we did not appoint some others to go before it, and usher it in; and should seem to have too low thoughts of the sacred mystery, if we did not take care to rise up to its high consideration by the |