oved the noble edifice and its solemn
services with a very profound attachment; but, as a general rule, they
belonged to the past and to the future far more than to the present. The
only mode of utilising cathedrals which seems to have been thoroughly to
the taste of the last century was the converting them into music-halls
for oratorios. Early in the century we find Dean Swift at Dublin
consenting--not, however, without much demur--to 'lend his cathedral to
players and scrapers,' to act what he called their opera.[1184] Next, in
St. Paul's, at the annual anniversary of the Sons of the Clergy, sober
Churchmen saw with disgust a careless, pleasure-loving audience
listening to singers promiscuously gathered from the theatres, and
laughing, and eating, and drinking their wine in the intervals of the
performance.[1185] Then came the festivals of the Three Choirs at
Worcester, Gloucester, and Hereford, very open to objection at a time
when the managers thought of little but how to achieve for their
undertaking popularity and pecuniary success. Sublime as is the music of
'The Messiah,' it was not often performed in the last century without
circumstances which jarred strongly against the devotional feeling of a
deeply religious man like John Newton, and led him to what might
otherwise seem a most unreasonable hatred of oratorios.[1186]

In Queen Anne's time, there was often no part of the Church service in
which the High or Low Church tone of the congregation was more closely
betokened than when the preacher had just entered the pulpit. In the one
case, the Bidding Prayer was said; in the other, there was an extempore
prayer, often of considerable length, commonly called the pulpit prayer.
The Bidding Prayer had its origin in pre-Reformation times. 'The way was
first for the preacher to name and open his text, and then to call on
the people to go to their prayers, and to tell them what they were to
pray for; after which all the people said their beads in a general
silence, and the preacher also kneeled down and said his.'[1187] It was
thus not a prayer, but an exhortation to prayer, and instruction in the
points commended to private but united worship. In Henry VIII.'s time
the Pope's name was omitted, and prayer for the King under his proper
titles strictly enjoined. In Elizabeth's reign, praise for all who had
departed in God's faith was substituted for prayer in their
behalf.[1188] By the existing Canons, as agreed upon in 1