6. I have as yet dealt only with the negative evidence; but the positive testimony against the reading, and in favour of the reciting or preaching sermons, is far from small. I should look upon man as crazy who ventured to speak slightingly of Bingham, and should as soon think of setting up myself against that great man as of challenging Goliah of Gath to fisty-cuffs; but I can never get rid of the thought that Bingham had a strong prejudice against extempore preaching, and treated the history of sermons somewhat unfairly: _e.g._, in his 22nd section of that 4th chap. of the xivth book (with which chap. I take it for granted my readers are acquainted), he somewhat roguishly misrepresents Mabillon and the Council of Vaison; and as to every other passage he quotes or refers to, every one asserts that the sermons were to be preached or _recited_, not one says a word about reading. The Council of Vaison is, of course, that which was held in A.D. 529, and at which Cæsarius of Arles presided: but the 2nd canon does not say a word about reading; so far from it, it commands that the homilies which the deacons preached should be recited [_recitentur_, Labbe, iv. p 1679.], as though the practice of reading a sermon were not known. So, with regard to the other passages from St. Augustine, there is not a hint about reading: if a man could not make his own sermons, he was to take another's; but to take care to commit it to memory, and then deliver it. I should be glad to furnish you with a few "more last words" on this subject, but I fear that these remarks have already proceeded to too great a length: still, if you give me any encouragement, I should like to take up the matter again. I should be glad to be informed whether it be true, as I have heard, that the practice of learning their sermons by heart is universal and avowed by the preachers in Germany; and whether it be really a common thing for a preacher there to deny himself on a Saturday, on the plea that he is getting his sermon by heart? AJAX. Papworth St. Agnes, July 8. 1851. _Written Sermons_ (Vol. iii., p. 478.).--Your querist M. C. L. may be referred to Dr. Short's _History of the Church of England_, § 223.; or to Burnet's _Reformation_, vol. i. p. 317., folio; where he will find that the practice commenced about the year 1542. N. E. R. (a Subscriber.) FEST SITTINGS. (Vol. iii., pp. 328. 396.) Not questioning the meaning given to the word _Fest_ by R. VINCENT, I take leave to refer you to Dr. Willan's list of words in use in the mountainous districts of the West Riding of Yorkshire, in the seventeenth volume of the _Archæologia_. You will there find: "FEST, to board from home." The word is used in that sense at the present time. A gentleman resident in the West Riding writes to me: