ur use are so expressed
as to include many local applications, and a very great variety of
circumstances.

Further, it will be clear that an extempore prayer may be part of a
form of Service, just as much as a printed prayer. If the Service is
composed of, The short Prayer, a Lesson, the long Prayer, the Sermon
and several Hymns at fixed, or unfixed, places, the Service is a form.
The description of the Holy Communion in the time immediately after the
death of S. John the Evangelist (Justin Martyr, _Apology_ i. 65-67, {3}
see p. 58) shows us a form which provided for the essentials of such a
service, with prayers, praises, lessons, offertory, Consecration,
Communion, in order, although he who conducted the Service had a
certain amount of liberty in using parts of it.

We may assume then that forms are good, and that it is good to have
preparation and order and chosen phrases. The next question is how to
provide for that Variety which shall sustain interest and engage the
mind of the worshipper in the great business of his Service.

We may consider Variety of method, Variety of singing, and Variations
in the component parts of the Service.

(_a_) Variety of Method. The worshippers are divided into two or more
parties who take up their parts alternately, or together. It is
evident that such a division may be made in many ways. Those which
have been adopted in former times have resulted in the survival of five
Varieties for general Congregations [see chap. III. f.].

(_b_) Variety in Singing. There were of old four methods of singing
the Psalms:

1. Direct or Choral. 2. Antiphonal. 3. Responsorial. 4. Continuous.

1. The _Direct_ or Choral Singing was done by the whole choir:

2. The _Antiphonal_ by the two halves of the choir alternately:

3. The _Responsorial_ by the Priest and choir alternately:

4. The _Continuous_ by the Priest alone.

{4}

A careful study of the Rubrics will show that great liberty is allowed
in the Prayer Book in respect to the singing.

There is a Rubric in the Morning Service which prescribes the manner of
saying or singing Gloria Patri, viz. that it is to be Responsorial.
The order is that after the Morning and Evening Canticles _As it was in
the beginning_, &c. is to be an answer to _Glory be to the Father_, &c.
And this order may be found also after the Versicles of Mattins and
Evensong, _O Lord, open thou our lips_. It might be inferred from this
that the Psalms