ut name of place, it was doubtless printed in Geneva. The
title is: "_La Forme des Prieres et Chantz Ecclesiastiques, avec la
Maniere d'administrer les Sacremens et consacrer le Marriage, selon
la coustume de l'Eglise Ancienne. M.DXLII._"

The following brief sketch will perhaps convey a sufficient idea of
the form "which is ordinarily used" for the public worship of the
morning of the Lord's day.

A brief _invocation_ ("Our help be in the name of the Lord who made
heaven and earth") is followed by an _exhortation_ addressed to the
congregation ("My brethren, let each one of you present himself
before the face of the Lord with confession of his faults and sins,
following in his heart my words"). The _Confession_, which is the
most beautiful and characteristic part of the liturgy, comes next.
Used by Theodore de Beze and his companions at the Colloquy of
Poissy, with wonderful impressiveness, as preparatory to that
reformer's grand vindication of the creed of the Protestants of
France, it has been imagined by many that it was composed by him
for this occasion. But it had already constituted a part of the
public devotions of the French and Swiss Protestants for eighteen
or twenty years. A _Psalm_ was then sung, and a prayer offered "to
implore God for the grace of His Holy Spirit, to the end that His
Word may be faithfully expounded to the honor of His Name and the
edification of the church, and may be received with such humility
and obedience as are becoming." The form is "at the discretion of
the minister." After the sermon comes a longer prayer for all
persons in authority; for Christian pastors; for the enlightenment
of the ignorant and the edification of those who have been brought
to the truth; for the comfort of the afflicted and distressed;[728]
closing with supplications for temporal and spiritual blessings in
behalf of those present. The service was concluded by the form of
benediction, Numbers, vi. 24-26.

Colladon, in his life of the reformer, tells us that Calvin
"collected (recueillit), for the use of the church of Geneva, the
form of ecclesiastical prayers, with the manner of administering
the sacraments and celebrating marriage, and a notice for the
visitation of the sick, as they are now placed with the Psalms."
(Baum, Cunitz,