[Magdalen] End of an Era.

[Jim Guthrie]

From: Charles Wohlers

>Two hours for Morning Prayer??? Certainly never in my experience. "When I was a 
>boy" I much preferred Morning Prayer (we are, of course, talking 1928 BCP here) 
>because it was only 45 minutes, while the first Sunday of the month communion 
>service was an hour and a quarter.

MP+Litanies ( including those dreadful hymns in the Litanies section of the H40) 
Sermon, ante communion -- then Communion -- could hit two hours easy, especially 
with a 30-minute sermon (and keep in mind that sermons in TEC churches often ran 
45-minutes to an hour in the 19th Century so the 20-30 minute sermon constituted 
a considerable shortening of the overall length of service.

When we moved to Smithtown, we were kind of taken aback by starting the 
Eucharist on Page 67 -- it always came after MP at the Principal service. 
Starting  on page 67 was something the 8 o'clockers did <g>.

As a kid in the choir, we sang 8, 9:30 and 11, and my Dad would drop me off at 
7:45 and pick me up at 1 PM. He sometimes went to 9:30  but had been prohibited 
from receiving at communion by the Rector, so he generally did not attend 
Communion (and before I was in choir, we had Sunday "off" from church once a 
month as a result. (Mr. Mills at St James St James persuaded my Dad that the 
communion prohibition was nonsense and the church had changed so though there 
was no boy choir, we no longer got the monthly Sunday off from church <g>).

Cheers,
Jim Guthrie