in the second, to prayers for the dead. At Northampton, down to the year 1569, persons were requested, by sound of bell carried before the corpse, to pray for the soul recently departed." A proof of this is furnished by one of the rules, or stipulations, in the agreements by the ministers of Northampton in 1571. The 16th article reads thus: "The carrying of the bell before corpses in the streets, and bidding prayers for the dead [calling on people to pray for the dead], which was there used until within these two years, is restrained."- Strype's Annals, vol. II. pt. 1. chaps. 10, 31, pp. 136, 472; Neal, 1. 291.

Archbishop Williams, in his Manual of Prayers, (pages 84-87,) says that the prayers in the old liturgies, said to have been offered for the dead, "were conceived for men dying and passing, not dead already, and so they are still (1672) used in the church of England." But Lathbury, a very thorough churchman, says: "Williams evidently confounds two practices together, namely, praying for the faithful departed, and for those who were in dying circumstances. The latter custom was retained by the Reformers, as is manifest from the rule relative to the passing bell, but the former existed in some early liturgies, notwithstanding the assertion of Williams, and this was rejected by the English church." - Hist. Book of Common Prayer, p. 6. From what has been quoted from Edward's liturgy, it is evident that praying for the dead was at first enjoined by the early Reformers, and only tacitly withdrawn by them and by Elizabeth.

END OF VOL. II.