[The custom, we believe, is observed in the majority of churches. The
reasons for standing rather than kneeling seems to be, that when the
Lord's Prayer comes in the course of the lessons it is only read
historically, as a part of a narrative, which indicates that the whole
sacred narrative should be treated, as it was anciently, with the like
reverence. The rubric says nothing about sitting; standing and kneeling
being the only postures expressly recognised. In the curious engraving
of the interior of a church, prefixed to Bishop Sparrow's _Rationale
upon the Book of Common Prayer_, 1661, there is not a seat of any kind
to be seen, pews not having become at this time a general appendage to
churches; probably a few chairs or benches were required for the aged
or infirm.. The only intimation of the sitting posture in our present
Common Prayer-Book occurs in the rubric, enjoining the people to stand
when the Gospel is read, which Wheatly tells us was first inserted in
the Scotch Common Prayer-Book. See "N. & Q.," Vol. ii., pp. 246. 347.]
_Hypocrisy, &c._--Can you inform me with whom originated the following
saying: "Hypocrisy is the homage which vice renders to virtue"?