because the procession is, and the processionists know that it is, likely to lead to a breach of the peace (c). And this is good law though it has been held that no man or number of men have a right to cause alarm to the body of persons who are called the public; and of this opinion were the judges of the Irish Court of Appeal in a recent case in which the above decision was severely criticised (d).

There is no right of meeting on the public highway. It is therefore illegal to hold a religious meeting or service in the street, although the local authorities rarely enforce the law against orderly assemblies.

PROCTOR or PROCURATOR. Proctors in Ecclesiastical Courts discharge duties similar to those of solicitors in other Courts (e). Now any solicitor may act as a proctor (ƒ), and (since 1857) any barrister as an advocate (g). As to proctors in Convocation, see CONVOCATION.

PROHIBITION. This writ is framed in order to keep the various Courts within the bounds of their several jurisdictions. It generally issues out of the High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division, and is directed to the judge of and parties to an action, commanding them to cease from the prosecution thereof. No action pending in any division of the Supreme Court itself can be restrained by prohibition or injunction (); but an action in any other Court, and consequently in the Ecclesiastical Courts, may. It has been thought by some that this applies to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, but the better opinion is that the Supreme Court has no power, and in any case it is not likely to venture to prohibit such an august tribunal (i).

Prohibitions to the Ecclesiastical Courts have been granted from the earliest times ().

(c) Beatty v. Gillbanks (1882), 9 Q. B. D. 308; Eastbourne case (1892).

(d) O'Kelly v. Harvey (1883), 15 Cox, C. C. 435; 14 Ir. L. R. 105. (e) Burn; and see Cans. 129-133. (f) 40 & 41 Vict. c. 25, s. 17.

(g) Mouncey v. Robinson (1867), 37 L. J. Ecc. 8.

(h) Jud. Act, 1873, s. 24 (5).

See Shortt on Informations, &c., p. 429, for the cases in which a prohibition will lie.

(k) Ib. p. 463.

The jurisdiction in prohibition does not enable the temporal Court to act as a Court of Appeal (1).

PROTESTANT. A name given to those Western Churches which protested against the errors of the Church of Rome in the 16th century. They include the churches of England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden and Norway. Some are episcopal, and some presbyterian. See CHURCH.

PROTESTANT SUCCESSION. In 1701, when the Crown of England was settled on the Princess Sophia and the heirs of her body, it was enacted by the Act of Settlement that whosoever should thereafter come to the possession of the Crown, should join in the Communion of the Church of England as by law established, and should marry no one but a Protestant (m).

PUBLIC WORSHIP. In the early British Church the liturgy used was no doubt at first in the Greek language, and similar to the Gallican, and was derived from the eastern liturgy of Ephesus and St. John. Augustin, in the beginning of the 7th century, succeeded in introducing some of the Roman forms, but neither he nor his successors were successful in their attempts to force the Roman Liturgy bodily upon the English or Welsh; so, contrary to the popular notion, the English and Roman forms of worship have never been identical. The foreign element introduced by Augustin was used by no means equally by the bishops, and thus it arose that nearly every bishopric had its own service books or use; of these the most celebrated was the use of Sarum (or Salisbury) upon which our present Prayer Book is in the main founded. The uses of Hereford, Bangor, York, St. Paul's, and Lincoln, were also well known (n). At the

(7) See Shortt on Informations, &c., p. 470, and see as to procedure, ib. pp. 485 et seq.

(m) 12 & 13 Will. 3, c. 2.
(n) See preface to Prayer Book.

Reformation it was thought desirable to have one uniform use, and after various Acts of Uniformity our present Prayer Book, which is scheduled to 14 Car. 2, c. 4, is the result. Up to the year 1871 no departure in the order or form in the Prayer Book was allowed, but since then various deviations have been authorized.

By the Prayer Book (Table of Lessons) Act, 1871, by which new lessons (o) are appointed (including portions of the Apocrypha), it was enacted that upon occasions to be approved by the ordinary, other lessons and other Psalms than those appointed in the Psalter and calendar might, with his consent, be substituted if he should judge that such alteration would conduce to edification.

By the Act of Uniformity Amendment Act, 1872, a shortened order for morning and evening prayer was introduced, and is set forth in the schedule to the Act. This form may be used on any day except Sunday, Christmas Day, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and Ascension Day; if in a cathedral, in addition to, and if in a church, in lieu of, the usual form (sect. 2). This shortened form comprises what is known as the "Order for Morning Prayer," or "Evening Prayer," with the omission, at the minister's discretion, of all or any of the following portions, viz. :-All the appointed Psalms, except one; one of the lessons (unless there are two proper lessons for the day, when both must be read); the lesser Litany and the Lord's Prayer following the Creed; the prayers for the Queen's Majesty, the Royal Family, the clergy and people. Each section of the 119th Psalm is deemed to be a separate Psalm. The Act also directs that upon any special occasion there may be used in any cathedral or church a special form of service approved by the ordinary, but there must not be introduced into it anything (except anthems or hymns) which does not form part of the Holy Scriptures or the Book of Common Prayer (sects. 3, 4). The order for Morning Prayer, the Litany, and the Com

(0) A list of these is now printed in the Prayer Book. See BIBLE.

munion Service may be used as separate services, either together or in varying order, and the Litany may be said after the third collect at Evening Prayer, either in lieu of or in addition to the use of the Litany at Morning Prayer, but without prejudice to any legal powers vested in the ordinary; and any of the said forms of service may be used with or without a sermon, lecture, or homily (sect. 5). A sermon or lecture may be preached without a previous Prayer Book Service, but, if so, it must be preceded by a service authorized by the Act, or by a bidding prayer (q.v.), or by a Prayer Book Collect, with or without the Lord's Prayer (sect. 6). An additional form of service varying from any Prayer Book form may be used at any hour on any Sunday or holy day in any cathedral or church in which the Morning and Evening Prayer, the Litany and the ante-Communion Service, are duly read at some other hour or hours, so that there be not introduced into such additional service any portion of the Communion Service, or anything (except anthems or hymns) which does not form part of the Holy Scriptures or Prayer Book, and so that such form of service, and the mode in which it is used, is for the time being approved by the ordinary; provided that nothing in this section shall affect the use of any portion of the Prayer Book as otherwise authorized by the Act of Uniformity or this Act (sect. 4).

In the ordinary services the custom seems to be to take the Morning Prayer, Litany, and the former part of the Communion Service one after the other on Sunday morning, the sermon being preached and a collection made as part of the Communion Service. Consequently, if there is a celebration of the Lord's Supper at some other time of the day, the service begins with the offertory sentences, the former part being omitted. It may be doubted whether it was intended thus to break the communion office in two on days when there is a communion. The intention of the framers of the Prayer Book seems to have been that at every celebration the whole Communion Service should be gone through, and

the fact that the sermon is included in it seems to show that it was intended that this should be the principal service of the day, and that Morning and Evening Prayer should be taken separately at some other hours of the day.

The precise hours for the services are not fixed, the minister being allowed to use his discretion subject to the intervention of the bishop in case of dispute. The churchwardens have no power in the matter.

By the Universities Tests Act, 1871, special abridgments and adaptations of the Morning and Evening Prayers may be adopted in university chapels, but on week days only.

Also, by the Burial Laws Amendment Act, 1880, a clergyman may, in any case where the office for the burial of the dead may not be used, and in any other case at the request of the person responsible for the burial, use at a burial such service, consisting of prayers taken from the Book of Common Prayer and portions of the Holy Scriptures, as may be approved by the ordinary (p). Except under these statutes, the Prayer Book forms and ceremonies (9) must not be departed from; and small deviations, e. g., omitting part of a verse, are theoretically equally punishable with great deviations (r). A clergyman, therefore, who wilfully deviates from the proper form is liable to be criminally indicted or to be prosecuted in the Ecclesiastical Courts. Also it would seem that the duties become thereby inadequately performed, thus giving the bishop another method of interfering under the Pluralities Acts, 1838 and 1885 (s).

By the canon law the Common Prayer is to be said or sung distinctly and reverently upon Sundays and holidays and their eves, and at convenient and usual times of those days, and at such place of every church as the ordinary shall appoint (t). The Litany must be sung or said on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and at other times when it is

(p) See BURIAL.

(7) See post, RITES AND CERE

MONIES.

(r) See Newberry v. Godwin (1811),

1 Phill. R. 282.

(8) See CLERGY DUTIES.

(t) Cans. 13 and 14.