Standing when the Lord's Prayer is read.—On Sunday, January 8, the second lesson for morning service is the sixth chapter of St. Matthew, in which occurs the Lord's Prayer. When the officiating clergyman began to read the ninth verse, in which the prayer commences, the congregation at Bristol Cathedral rose, and remained standing till its conclusion. Is this custom observed in other places? and (if there is to be a change of position) why do the congregation stand, and not kneel, the usual posture of prayer in the Church of England?
Cervus.
[The custom, we believe, is observed in the majority of churches. The reasons for standing rather than kneeling seems to be, that when the Lord's Prayer comes in the course of the lessons it is only read historically, as a part of a narrative, which indicates that the whole sacred narrative should be treated, as it was anciently, with the like reverence. The rubric says nothing about sitting; standing and kneeling being the only postures expressly recognised. In the curious engraving of the interior of a church, prefixed to Bishop Sparrow's Rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer, 1661, there is not a seat of any kind to be seen, pews not having become at this time a general appendage to churches; probably a few chairs or benches were required for the aged or infirm.. The only intimation of the sitting posture in our present Common Prayer-Book occurs in the rubric, enjoining the people to stand when the Gospel is read, which Wheatly tells us was first inserted in the Scotch Common Prayer-Book. See "N. & Q.," Vol. ii., pp. 246. 347.]
Hypocrisy, &c.—Can you inform me with whom originated the following saying: "Hypocrisy is the homage which vice renders to virtue"?
A. C. W.
[The saying originated with the Duke de la Rochefoucault, and occurs in his Moral Maxims, No. 233.]
Replies.
"CONSILIUM NOVEM DELECTORUM CARDINALIUM," ETC.
(Vol. viii., p. 54.)