anything, made Englishmen first detest and hate the Mass. The Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament is now apparently trying hard to revive this scandalous custom in our Reformed Church of England, under the name of "Offerings for the due and reverent Celebration of the Holy Eucharist!” Another of these "Recommendations" is, to offer up at the Holy Communion, "Prayers for the Visible Unity of Christendom." At page 70 we read the prayers for this object recommended by the Confraternity. The following is an extract from the first of these: "We earnestly pray Thee for the restoration of visible unity of worship and communion between the divided members of the Catholic Church, both East and West." Here we find the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament praying that the Church of England, and the Eastern Churches, may again be in "visible unity," not only with the Eastern Church, but also with the Church of Rome. On this subject, and the many objections which may be brought against Corporate Reunion with Rome, I shall have a great deal to write in a later chapter. In the "Laws of the Confraternity" it is provided that "Grants of Altar Vessels, Vestments, or Altar Linen shall be made by the Council-General, according to the means placed at their disposal, to such poor Parishes and Missions as may need assistance.” 22 The "Vestments" here referred to are, mainly, such as the Popish Chasuble, Alb, Tunicle, Stole, &c., all of which have been declared illegal by the Courts of Law. Every member of the Confraternity is expected to offer prayers for the dead. A service used by the C. B. S. is entitled "Vespers of the Blessed Sacrament." It concludes with this prayer:— in "May the souls of the Faithful, through the mercy of God, rest peace. ** 23 Amen." Manual of C. B. S., p. 15. Ninth edition. Ibid., P 34. REQUIEM MASSES FOR THE DEAD. 213 The Church of England, on the contrary, exhorts her children, saying: "Neither let us dream any more, that the souls of the dead are anything at all holpen by our prayers." 24 But the Confraternity rests by no means satisfied with Prayers for the Dead. She now holds an annual Mass for the Dead, under the name of a "Solemn Requiem." This service is announced every year in the October number of the Intercession Paper. The Confraternity believes, in common with the Church of Rome, that the faithful departed are benefited spiritually by the offering up by a sacrificing priest of consecrated bread and wine. It has held this view for many years. At its secret Annual Conference, May 27th, 1880, the Hon. C. L. Wood (now Lord Halifax) read a paper, which was afterwards privately printed by the Confraternity, in which he asserted that : ... "As the Cross sums up in one single act the atoning efficacy of the offering which Christ made throughout His whole life, and by his death upon the Cross, so the Eucharist, which perpetuates and applies that offering, enables us to offer up our whole souls and bodies in life and in death as an acceptable sacrifice to the Father of all. . . . Are we troubled about those who in the shadow of death are awaiting the Judgment? The blood of the Sacrifice reaches down to the prisoners of hope, and the dead as they are made to possess their old sins in the darkness of the grave, thank us as we offer for them the Sacrifice which restores to light and immortality." 25 Here we have, in reality, though the words are not used, Masses for the Dead to get them out of Purgatory, taught by the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament. In Suggestions for the Due and Reverent Celebration of the Holy Eucharist, privately printed for the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, the priest is directed, at page 9, to offer the following prayer : "Receive, O Holy Father, Almighty, Everlasting God, this pure Homily Concerning Prayer. Part third. Eighteenth Annual Report of C. B. S., p. xii. Oblation, which I, Thy unworthy servant, offer unto Thee, the Living and true God, for my numberless sins, offences and negligences; for all who are here present, as also for all faithful Christians, living and departed, that it may avail to our salvation unto life eternal. Amen." Who can doubt that here we have a Mass for the Dead? At the "Solemn Requiem" of the Society, on November 10th, 1890, the preacher, the Rev. E. de S. Wood, used the word Purgatory without a blush of shame. He said "The souls in Paradise are offering the homage of their spiritual sufferings in the realms of Purgatory, and are helped by our prayers and Eucharistic offerings on their behalf." 26 How different all this is from the teaching of the Church of England, which, in her Homily Concerning Prayer, instructs us that "These words [Luke xvi. 19-26], as they confound the opinion of helping the dead by prayer, so do they clean confute and take away the vain error of Purgatory." We learn more about the work and objects of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament from the secret Intercession Papers which it issues every month. To commence with the latest of these which has come to my hands, that for May, 1897, I find amongst the subjects for prayer: "That obstacles may be removed . . . to the celebration of the Holy Eucharist with the traditional and ancient ceremonial sanctioned by the Church." 27 Anyone who reads the Suggestions for the Due and Reverent Celebration of the Holy Eucharist, issued by the C. B. S., cannot doubt that by "the traditional and ancient ceremonial" is meant that of pre-Reformation times. The officiating clergyman is, in this pamphlet, required to have, for use at Holy Communion, amongst other things, "a clean Purificator," "Burse," "Corporals," "Cruets for wine and water," "a Perforated Spoon . . . for the removal of flies and other impurities from the Chalice." He is also required to say a number of secret and Popish prayers taken from Popish Missals, those 26 Church Times, November 14th, 1890. FASTING AND EVENING COMMUNIONS. 215 provided by the Book of Common Prayer being evidently not adequate for his purpose. The Associates of the Confraternity were required, on May 7th, 1897, to pray "That the Primitive and Catholic practice of Fasting Communion by priests and people may be generally recognized, and that obstacles to Fasting Communion may be removed." The late Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, though an old-fashioned High Churchman, had very decided opinions on this subject of Fasting Communion. " 28 "It is not," he said, "in a light sense that I say this new doctrine of Fasting Communion is dangerous. The practice is not advocated because a man comes in a clearer spirit and less disturbed body and mind, able to give himself entirely to prayer and communion with his God; but on a miserable degraded notion that the consecrated elements will meet with other food in the stomach. It is a detestable materialism. Philosophically it is a contradiction; because, when the celebration is over, you may hurry away to a meal, and the process about which you were so scrupulous immediately follows. The whole notion is simply disgusting. The Patristic quotations by which the custom is supported are mis-quotations." 29 On May 27th, 1897, the Associates of the C. B. S. were required to pray "That Evening Communions may cease." 30 We have already learnt, on the authority of the Roman Catholic Professor Kane, that in the Primitive Church Evening Communion was the rule. Singularly enough this testimony is confirmed by that of the Rev. "Father" Puller, head of the "Cowley Fathers," who, in the course of a paper which he read at the annual conference of the C. B. S., on May 28th, 1891, said :— "We have, I hope, got beyond the notion that the early Church objected to Afternoon and Evening Celebrations. The early Church in no sort of way objected to Evening Celebrations per se. She celebrated continually in the afternoon or evening. She had an Evening Celebration every day in Lent. In some Churches all through the year there were ordinarily three Celebrations in the week, 29 Ibid., P. 9. 29 Dean Burgon's Lives of Twelve Good Men, Vol. II., p. 56. First edition. 30 Intercession Paper, May, 1897, P. 24. namely, on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday; and two of these Ritualists are never tired of exhorting us to take the "As Holy Scripture does not help us [Ritualists] much in this Is not this a case of "Down with the Bible, and up with 31 Twenty-Ninth Annual Report of C. B. S., p. xxiii. "It is 33 Ibid., p. xv. 34 Ibid., 36 Ibid., |