every reason to believe that this was in substance the Litany still in use, for it had already appeared in Henry’s Primer; but however that might be, the union which it exhibits between such Litany whatever it was, and the High Mass, prepares us to suppose that a similar arrangement was likely to ensue with regard to the same or any new Litany and the Communion Service. And that such did ensue is made still more manifest by the injunctions of Queen Elizabeth in the first year of her reign; in one of which the very same clause again occurs word for word, except that for “High Mass” there is actually substituted “the time of _communion of the sacrament_.”[373] Indeed the Communion Service could scarcely fail of being annexed to the Litany, since it soon came to pass that the former was seldom read throughout, the sacrament ceasing to be administered weekly, as was at first contemplated, and recurring at least in country churches, as at present only five or six times a year.[374] Nor is this all: in the first Common Prayer Book of Edward VI. it was ordered, that “upon Wednesdays and Fridays, though there were none to communicate with the priest, yet, _after the Litany ended_, the priest should put upon him a plain alb or surplice with a cope, and say all things at the altar appointed to be said at the celebration of the Lord’s Supper until after the offertory.” Whence it is clear, that when there were persons to communicate (which the rubric seems to presume would always be the case on Sundays,) the Litany and Communion service went together; and that when there were none such, still the Litany was immediately followed by the Communion Service as far as to the end of the prayer for the whole state of Christ’s church militant. How long this arrangement continued does not appear; but whether from the difficulty of gathering together a congregation at break of day, discipline being now relaxed, or from whatever other cause, within the first century after the Reformation the Church seems to have lapsed into the present practice, and to have combined its services into one. Bishop Hall in his contemplations makes the incident mentioned in the first Book of Samuel--that “they of Ashdod arose _early_ on the morrow to visit Dagon”--a vehicle for reproof of the lukewarmness of his own times, saying, “The morning is fittest for devotion; then do the Philistines flock to the temple of their god;” and adding, “what a shame it is _for us to come late to ours_!”[375] as though in his day, and he died in 1656, at the age of eighty-two, there were generally matins no longer. And Herbert, in describing categorically the Sunday duties of his Country Parson, expresses himself to the same effect:--“Having read divine service,” says he, “_twice fully_, and preached in the morning and catechised in the afternoon, he thinks he hath, in some measure, according to poor and frail man, discharged the public duties of the congregation.”[376]