(c) Variations in the Component Parts of Services.
1. Praise and Prayer.
2. Variations;
from Service to Service,
" Day to Day,
" Week to Week,
" Morning to Evening,
" Season to Season.
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CHAPTER II.
ORIGIN OF MORNING AND EVENING PRAYER.
The Services in the Prayer Book may be roughly classed as (1) those which are used every week: and (2) those which are used more rarely. The principal service is the Holy Communion; which is provided with a special Collect, Epistle and Gospel for each week, and for Holy Days of special importance as being connected with the Lord's life on earth, or with His immediate disciples.
The weekly Collection, enjoined by S. Paul in the churches of Galatia and Corinth (1 Cor. xvi. 2), suggests that the Holy Communion was from the first the usual Sunday Service. And this is confirmed when we find S. Paul making a rapid journey from Greece to Jerusalem (Acts xx. 16), but waiting seven days at Troas so as to be with the disciples there upon the first day of the week, when they came together to break bread (Acts xx. 6, 7): cf. also a similar sojourn at Tyre on the same voyage (Acts xxi. 4). But the Holy Communion was not the only regular Service. Peter and John went to the Temple (Acts iii. 1) at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour. Peter went up upon the housetop to pray (Acts x. 9) about the sixth hour.
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Cornelius saw the vision about the ninth hour (Acts x. 3). They were all together in one place (Acts ii. 1) upon the day of Pentecost—and it was the third hour of the day (Acts ii. 15). These hours may have been suggested to them as Christians by the solemn scenes of the crucifixion of our Lord (S. Mark xv. 25, 33, &c.)[1].
The constant sense of responsibility and danger tended, of course, to the frequent assembling for united prayer. It was natural to adopt some such method as that in Psalm lv. 17, evening, morning and noon (cf. Daniel vi. 10).