martyr of Christ. After this we read of the Church of Smyrna's giving an account of St. Polycarp's martyrdom, (which was in the year of our Lord 147,) and of the place where they had entombed his bones, and withal professing that they would assemble in that place, and celebrate the "birth-day of his martyrdom" with joy and gladness. (Where we may observe, by the way, that the days of the martyrs' deaths were called their birth-days; because they looked upon those as the days of their nativity, whereon they were freed from the pains and sorrows of a troublesome world, and born again to the joys and happiness of an endless life.) These solemnities, as we learn from Tertullian, were yearly celebrated, and were afterwards observed with so much care and strictness, that it was thought profaneness to be absent from the Christian assemblies upon those occasions.

The following ages were as forward as those we have already spoken of, in celebrating the festivals of the martyrs and holy men of their time. Insomuch that at the last the observation of holy-days became both superstitious and troublesome; a number of dead men's names, not over eminent in their lives either for sense or morals, crowding the Calendar, and jostling out the festivals of the first saints and martyrs. But at the reformation of the Church, all these modern martyrs, were thrown aside, and no festivals retained in the Calendar as days of obligation, but such as were dedicated to the honour of Christ, &c. or to the memory of those that were famous in the Gospels. Such as were, in the first place, the twelve apostles, who being constant attendants on our Lord, and advanced by him to that high order, have each of them a day assigned to their memory. St. John the Baptist and St. Stephen have the same honour done to them; the first because he was Christ's forerunner; the other upon account of his being the first martyr. St. Paul and St. Barnabas are commemorated upon account of their extraordinary call: St. Mark and St. Luke for the service they did Christianity by their Gospels; the Holy Innocents, because they are the first that suffered upon our Saviour's account, as also for the greater solemnity of Christians; the birth of Christ being the occasion of their deaths. The memory of all other pious persons is celebrated together upon the festival of All Saints; and that the people may know what benefits Christians receive by the ministry of Angels, the feast of St. Michael and all Angels is for that reason solemnly observed in the Church.

These days were constantly observed in the Church of England, from the time of the Reformation till the great Rebellion, when it could not be expected that any thing

that carried an air of religion or antiquity could bear up against such an irresistible inundation of impiety and confusion. But at the Restoration our holy-days were again revived, together with our ancient Liturgy, which appoints proper Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, for each of them : and orders the "curate to declare unto the people, on the Sunday before, what holy-days or fasting-days are in the week following to be observed." Rubric after the Nicene Creed. And the preface to the Act of Uniformity intimates it to be schismatical to refuse to come to Church on those days. And by the first of Elizabeth, which is declared by the Uniformity-Act to be in full force," all persons, having no lawful or reasonable excuse to be absent, are obliged to resort to their parish-church on holy. days, as well as Sundays, and there to abide orderly and soberly during divine service, upon pain of punishment by the censures of the Church, and also upon pain of twelve pence for every offence, to be levied by distress."

In relation to the concurrence of two holy-days together, we have no directions either in the rubric or elsewhere, which must give place, or which of the two services must be used. According to what I can gather from the rubrics in the Roman Breviary and Missal, (which are very intricate and difficult,) it is the custom of that Church, when two holy-days come together, that the office for one only be read, and that the office for the other be transferred to the next day; excepting that some commemoration of the transferred holy-day be made upon the first day, by reading the hymns, verses, &c. which belong to the holy-day that is transferred. But our Liturgy has made no such provision. For this reason some ministers, when a holyday happens upon a Sunday, take no notice of the holyday, (except that sometimes they are forced to use the second Lesson for such holy-day, there being a gap in the column of second Lessons in the Calendar,) but use the service appointed for the Sunday; alledging that the holyday, which is of human Institution, should give way to the Sunday, which is allowed to be of divine. But this is an argument which I think not satisfactory; for though the observation of Sunday be of divine institution, yet the service we use on it is of human appointment. And therefore I take this to be a case in which the Bishops ought to be consulted, they having a power vested in them to "appease all diversity, (if any arise,) and to resolve all doubt concerning the manner how to understand, do, and execute the things contained in the Book of Common Prayer." See the preface concerning the Service of the Church. Wheatly.