bishops, as agreeable to the people, as conformable to the custom of the Reformed Churches abroad,[1194] and attractive to those among the Presbyterians and other denominations who only needed encouragement and a few slight concessions to exchange occasional for constant conformity.  Meanwhile, at the end of the preceding century, ‘the Bidding’ had been more generally revived.  Archbishop Tenison, in a circular to the clergy in 1695, had called attention to the neglect of it,[1195] and the Bishop of London revived its general use in his own diocese, to the astonishment, says Fleetwood, of many congregations who stared and stood amazed at ’Ye shall pray.’[1196] In Queen Anne’s time it became very general,[1197] being quite in accord with the High Church sentiment which had then strongly set in.  A political bias also was suspected.  Not, perhaps, without reason; for it was a time when political prepossessions which could not openly be declared found vent in all kinds of byways.  After the Revolution, while the title of the new sovereign was not yet secure, the Clergy were specially enjoined, that however else they might vary their prayer or exhortation to prayer before the sermon, they were in any case to mention the King by name.  It was said—­whether in sarcasm or as a grave reality—­that the semi-Jacobite parsons, of whom there were many, found satisfaction in discovering a mode by which they could ’show at once their duty and their disgust’[1198] in a manner unexceptionally accordant with the law and with the Canon.  ‘Ye are bidden to pray,’ or, as a certain Dr. M——­ always worded it, ’Ye must pray,[1199] did not necessarily imply much heart in fulfilling the injunction by which the people were called upon to pray for their new lords.  But, curiously enough, when George I. came to the throne, the political gloss attached to ‘the Bidding’ became reversed.  In the royal directions to the archbishops, the canonical form, with the royal titles included, was strictly enjoined;[1200] and consequently not those who used, but those who neglected it, ran a risk of being set down as having Jacobite proclivities.  It had, however, never been really popular, and few objected to its gradual disuse.  Ever since the Revolution, it had introduced into a portion of the public worship far too decided an element of political feeling.  The objection was the greater, because the liberty of variation had given it a certain personal character.  If the preacher did not keep strictly to the words of the Canon, he could scarcely avoid making it appear, by the names omitted or inserted, what might be his political, his ecclesiastical, or his academical opinions.  Those, again, whose respect for dignities was in excess—­a foible to which the age was prone—­would go through a list of titles, illustrious, right reverend, and right honourable,[1201] which ill accorded with a time of prayer.  Before the middle of the century, except in university churches or on formal occasions, the Canon became generally obsolete, and the sermon was prefaced, as often in our own day, by a Collect and the Lord’s Prayer.