alert and to enliven devotion by calling upon the congregation to make their petitions for those deliverances and blessings recited by the minister. {172} Litany Desk.--A kneeling desk, sometimes called a faldstool, from which the Litany is read. Its customary place in the Church is on the floor of the nave in front of the chancel in accordance with the Injunction issued during the reigns of Edward VI and Queen Elizabeth. The significance of this position may be seen by reference to the words of the prophet Joel read on Ash Wednesday as the Epistle, "Let the Priests, the Ministers of the Lord, weep _between the porch and the Altar_, and let them say, Spare Thy people, O Lord." Liturgical Colors.--(See CHURCH COLORS.) Liturgy.--The word "Liturgy" is derived from the Greek _leitourgia_, meaning a public work or duty, whether civil or religious. It then became generally used with reference to sacred offices, whence arose its ecclesiastical use to signify the solemnization of the rites of the Christian Church. Afterwards, it came to be especially applied to the office for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist and as such the term is technically used in Church History. The Liturgy being the Office of the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, it has for its nucleus our Lord's words of Institution. These with their accompanying Divine acts form the centre around which all subsequent prayers, praises and ritual customs gathered, and the history of these is the history of Liturgies. Liturgies have been used in the Christian Church from the beginning as the ancient Liturgies demonstrate. Of these there are many still extant in MSS. some of them fully as old as the oldest MSS. of the Bible. While they vary in arrangement and phraseology, yet the leading and essential {173} TABLE SHOWING THE DESCENT OF PRINCIPAL LITURGIES ------------------------------------------------