There has never been a display like it. This is the catalogue to an ambitious exhibition at the Goldsmiths' Hall, London, which will comprise 250 gold and silver objects and sets of objects spanning the history of the Church from the earliest possible times to the present day. A foreword by the Rt Revd Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, and twelve essays by distinguished authorities will illustrate aspects of evolving liturgy and Church history such as the medieval Mass, Church patronage in the Middle Ages, and the English Reformation. Historical themes from post-Reformation centuries will include Catholic recusancy, the 17th- and 18th-century altar service and the medieval revivals that mirrored the Victorian Tractarian movement. Important commissions from the 1980s and 1990s for Lichfield Cathedral and York Minster will also be discussed. Essays will be accompanied by new photography of key objects, many of them the'secret' treasure of individual parish churches. The guiding principle of the exhibition is that all loans be in the possession of the Church or other religious foundations. Objects have been selected from cathedrals, Oxford colleges and'royal peculiars' such as St George's Chapel at Windsor. The majority are from parish churches great and small up and down the country.

A year of sermons preached by Anglican Reader Pauline Lowe. Most were preached tiny congregations in remote churches in Mid Wales.

The two Books of Homilies, along with the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal, have been basic documents of the Church of England, and are valuable in showing Anglican doctrine during the Reformation, as well as being of considerable historical importance. The first book, published in 1547, early in the reign of Edward VI, was partly though not entirely the work of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, and the inspiration appears to have been his. This was intended to raise the standards of preaching by offering model sermons covering particular doctrinal and pastoral themes, either to be read (particularly by unlicensed clergy) or to provide preachers with additional material for their own sermons. The success of the venture led Bishop Edmund Bonner, who had contributed to Cranmer's book, to produce his own Book of Homilies in 1555, during the reign of Queen Mary. The Second Book of Homilies, published in 1563 (and in a revised form in 1571) appears in turn to have been influenced both by Cranmer's and by Bonner's books. The present edition brings together the all three books, edited and introduced by Revd Dr Gerald Bray.

Since it was first introduced in the Summer of 2000, Common Praise the new Hymns Ancient & Modern has sold over one hundred thousand copies, and been adopted by parishes in every diocese in England and Wales including eight English cathedrals and in five of the seven dioceses in Scotland. It is also used in numerous schools, colleges, hospitals, residential homes, retreat houses, religious communities, crematoria, missions and military garrison chapels.