says Gregory the First, "of the Apostles to consecrate the oblation only by the Lord's Prayer." There is a trace of its accommodation to this purpose of giving a moral and spiritual purport to the natural gifts in the variation recorded by Tertullian, where, instead of "Thy kingdom come," it is "May Thy Holy Spirit come upon us and purify us." It is also obvious that "Give us this day our daily breal" would thus gain a peculiar significance. "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," had also a peculiar stress laid upon it. It also lingers in the Consecration Prayer of the Eastern Church, where the petition for the coming of the Spirit is amplified, and made the chief point in the consecration. In the East the whole congregation joined in the Lord's Prayer,‡ and thus participated in the consecration. In the Coptic Church, accordingly, the Lord's Prayer is the only part of the service which is recited in Arabic-the vulgar tongue.§ In the Russian Church it is sung by the choir; and of all the impressive effects produced by the magnificent swell of human voices in the Imperial Chapel of the Winter Palace of St. Petersburg, none is greater than the recitation of the Lord's Prayer by the choir without, while the consecration gocs forward within. In the Mozarabic Liturgy the people said Amen to every clause except the fourth, where they said, Quia es Deus. In the West the priest alone recited it. But both in the East and the West the consecration was not complete till it had been ratified in the most solemn way by the congregation. For it was at this point that there came, like the peal of thunder, the one word which has lasted through all changes and all Liturgies-the word which was intended to express the entire, truthful assent of the people to what was done and said-Amen.

Then came forward the deacons and gave the bread, the

brosiaster, De Sacramentis, iv. 4: "consecrated by the words of Christ." Bunsen, vii. 15, 55; ii. 177.

*Adv. Marcion, iv. 21.

+ Cardinal Bona (Rer. Lit. i. 5) and Mr. Maskell (Preface, pp. xx.-xxii.) endeavor to attenuate the force of this passage by quoting passages from Walafridus Strabo and later writers, and by their own conjectures, that "at least the words of the institution were also recited." But of this there is not a trace, either in Gregory or Justin. Bunsen, vii. 121.

Ibid vii. 280.

Renaudot, Lit. Or. i. 262.

Les Anciennes Liturgies, p. 671.

water and the wine to all who were present, and then to those who were absent. The latter half of the practice has perished everywhere. For what is called the "reservation," or even taking the sacramental elements to the occasional sick, is evidently a totaily different practice from that of enabling the absent members of the community to join in the ordinance itself.

These are the original elements of the Christian Liturgy. The Lord's Prayer, which was thus once conspicuous, has lost its place. In the Roman Church, as well as the Eastern, in spite of the efforts of Gregory the Great, it now follows the Prayer of Consecration.* In the Clementine Liturgy it is omitted altogether. In the first English Liturgy of Edward VI., as in that introduced by Laud into Scotland, it occurs after the Prayer of Consecration, but still before the administration. In the present Liturgy it is separated from the Consecration Prayer altogether; though on the other hand, as if to give it more dignity, it is twice repeated.

The sacramental words have passed through three stages: first, the Lord's Prayer; then in the East, the Prayer of Invocation; then in the West, the words of institution. There is a spiritual meaning in each of these three forms. The original form was the most spiritual of all. The Western form, though excellent as bringing out the commemorative character of the sacrament, is perhaps the most liable to fall into a mechanical observance. This has been reached in the fulle t degree, in the opinion which has been entertained in the Roman Church that the words must be recited by the priest secretly, lest laymen overhearing them should indiscrectly repeat them over ordinary bread and wine, and thus inadvertently transform them into celestial substances. Such an incident, it was believed, had actually taken place in the case of some shepherds who thus changed their bread and wine in a field into flesh and blood, and were struck dead by a divine judgment.§

*Neale, Introd. 570, 622.

+ See the long and strange arguments to account for this in Palmer, i. 40, and Maskell, Pref. xxxviii.

The Western Church has not used a Prayer of Invocation for a thousand years. How exclusively Western is the notion that the words of institution have the effect of consecration is clear from the authorities quoted in Maskell, pp. cv., cvi., cxv.

See the authorities quoted in Maskell, Preface, p. ciii.

This is the summary of the celebration of the early Sacrament, so far as we can attach it to the framework furnished by Justin. But there are a few fragments of ancient worship, which, though we cannot exactly adjust their place, partly belong to the second century. Some have perished, and some continue. In the morning was an antistrophic hymn (perhaps the germ of the "Te Deum") to Christ as God, and also the sixty-third Psalm. In the evening there was the hundred and forty-first Psalm. The evening hymn on bringing in the candles, as now in Mussulman countries, is a touching reminiscence of the custom in the Eastern Church. The "Sursum corda" ("Lift up your hearts"), and the "IIoly, holy, holy," were parts of the hymns of which we find traces in the accounts of all the old Liturgies. The "Gloria in excelsis" was sung at the beginning of the service. Down to the beginning of the eleventh century, it was (except on Easter Day) only said by Bishops.t

This survey brings before us the wide diversity and yet unity of Christian worship. That so fragile an ordinance should have survived so many shocks, so many superstitions, so many centuries, is in itself a proof of the immense vitality of the religion which it represents-of the prophetic insight of its Founder.

*Pliny, Ep. x. 97.

+ Bunsen, ii. 50.

+ Maskell, p. 25.

CHAPTER IV.

THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE.

Ir is proposed to bring out in more detail what is meant by Sacrifice in the Christian Church. In order to do this, we must first understand what is meant by it, first in the Jewish and Pagan dispensations, and secondly in the Christian dispensation.

I. We hardly think sufficiently what was the nature of an ancient sacrifice. Let us conceive the changes which would be necessary in any church in order to make it fit for such a ceremony. In the midst of an open court, so that the smoke of the fire and the odors of the slain animals might go up into the air, as from the hearths of our ancient baronial or collegiate halls, stood the Altar-a huge platform -detached from all around, and with steps approaching it from behind and from before, from the right and from the left. Around this structure, as in the shambles of a great city, were collected, bleating, lowing, bellowing, the oxen, sheep, and goats, in herds and flocks, which one by one were led up to the altar, and with the rapid stroke of the sacrificer's knife, directed either by the king or priest, they received their death-wounds. Their dead carcasses lay throughout the court, the pavement streaming with their blood, their quivering flesh placed on the altar to be burnt, the black columns of smoke going up to the sky, the remains afterwards consumed by the priests or worshippers who were gathered for the occasion as to an immense banquet.

*

with slight variation, This is still the form Sanctuary at Mecca.

This was a Jewish sacrifice. This, was the form of heathen sacrifice also. of sacrifice in the great Mohammedan This except that the victims were not irrational animals, but

*See an exhaustive account of the matter in Ewald's Alterthumer, pp. 29-84.

+ Burton's Pilgrimage to Mecca.

human beings was the dreadful spectacle presented in the sacred inclosure at Coomassie, in Ashantee, as it was in the Carthaginian and Phoenician temples of old time.

II. All these sacrifices, in every shape or form, have long disappeared from the religions of the civilized world. Already, under the ancient dispensation, the voices of Psalm- Substitution ist and Prophet had been lifted up against them. of new ideas. "Sacrifice and meat-offering Thou wouldest not;" "Thinkest thou that I will eat bull's flesh or drink the blood of goats;" "I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats;" "I will not accept your burnt-offerings or your meat-offerings, neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your fat beasts."

Has sacrifice then entirely ceased out of religious worship? And had those old sacrifices no spiritual meaning hid under their mechanical, their strange, must we not even say their revolting, forms?

In themselves they have entirely ceased. Of all the forms of ancient worship they are the most repugnant to our feelings of humane and of Divine religion. But there was in these, as in most of the ceremonies of the old world, a higher element which it has been the purpose of Christianity to bring out. In point of fact, the name of "Sacrifice" has survived, after the form has perished.

Let us for a moment go back to the ancient sacrifices, and ask what was their object. It was, in one word, an endeavor, whether from remorse, or thankfulness, or fear, to approach the Unseen Divinity. It was an attempt to propitiate, to gratify, the Supreme Power, by giving up something dear to ourselves which was also dear to Him,-to feed, to nourish, as it were, the great God above by the same food by which we also are fed,-to send measages to him by the smoke, the sweet-smelling odor which went up from the animals which the sacrificer had slain or caused to be slain. The one purpose which is given after every sacrifice in the first chapter of Leviticus is that it "shall make a sweet savor unto the Lord."

Now, in the place of this gross, earthly conception of the

* Lev. i. 13, 27; ii. 2, 12; iii. 8, 26.