THE PSALTER.
[To TEE EDITOR 07 THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—All who join in the evening service to-day will be, or shOuld be, saddened by the recitation in a Christian church of the terrible anathemas of Psalm cis. But it will be said ,St. Peter (Acts i. 16) uses these very words, and, what is more, tells us that the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David thus foretold the fate of the traitor Judas. But the only words quoted are "Let his habitation be desolate and his bishopric let another take." The more awful curses are omitted. Let St. Peter be judged rather by the Epistle and Gospel: if he was untrue to the teaching of his Master, he only -deserves tbat Master's rebuke to the Sons of Thunder, who yet with him were the chosen three. " Ye know not what Spirit ye are of." • And look at St.-Paul. Fiery zeal is-the very spirit of • &briar who expelled the traffickers from the Temple. Our. Church orders a repetition of the Psalter with no dis-. crimination twelve times every year. Let anyone buy a Jewish Prayer-book, and he will find no Psalms appointed for divine service but the voice of praise and thanksgiving. When Canon Barnett was buried at St. Jude's yesterday, it was characteristic of the man that Psalm cl. followed Psalm xc. The revision of the whole Prayer-book is urgently demanded, but immediate relief would be given to all Christian souls by dealing with the Psalter without delay.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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