coursing in the 6th chapter of St. John, and St. Paul writing "o the Corinthians, though treating of different subjects, under varied circumstances,—should have adopted similar, figurative, and most unusual language? But take the simple interpretation which the Catholic does, and from first to last there is not the slightest difficulty; there may be some struggle against the senses or feelings-it may appear new, strange, and perhaps unnatural to you; but so far as biblical interpretation goes, so far as the fair principles for examining God's word are concerned, all is consistent from first to last. You believe the expressions to be literal throughout, and you believe the very same topic to be treated in every one of these passages; and consequently, you have harmony and analogy from first to last on your side. Whereas, on the other hand, you must find different explanations of the same imagery and phraseology on those various occasions; and you are driven to the miserable expedient of chusing some little word or phrase in a corner of the narrative, and persuading yourself that it overthrows all the obvious consequences of the narrative itself, and balances the clear evidence of a connected and consistent proof.

To give an instance of this process:—it is said that, in the case under consideration, we still find the names "bread and wine" applied to the elements after consecration: and that, consequently, all that long line of argument which I have gone through is worth nothing; this one fact overthrows it all. Why, we Catholics call it bread and wine after it has been consecrated; and will any man thence argue, that we do not believe a change to have taken place in the elements? These names, then, may be employed, and yet the doctrine which we hold be maintained. In the 9th chapter of St. John, our Saviour performs the cure of a man that was blind; he restores him perfectly to sight; and there is a long altercation between him and the Jews on the subject, which beautifully demonstrates the miracle. The blind man is called in, and questioned again and again, as to whether he had been blind; they bring forward his parents and friends to identify him;

they all testify that the man was born blind; and that Jesus, by a miracle, had cured him. But reason in the same way here as in our case. Verse 17, we read, "They say again to the blind man ;"-he is called blind after the miracle is said to have been wrought; therefore, the whole of the reasoning based on that chapter is worth nothing; the fact of his being still called blind, proves that no change had taken place! Precisely this reasoning is used against our doctrine; all the clear, express, incontestible, expressions of our Saviour to the Apostles are of no value, because, after the consecration, He still calls the elements bread and wine! We have a similar instance in the case of Moses, when his rod was changed into a serpent; and yet it continued to be called a rod; and are we then to suppose that no such change had been made? But it is the usage, the common method in all language, when such a change occurs, to continue the original name. It is said, in the narration of the miracle at the marriage feast, when, therefore, the master of the feast had tasted the water made wine." It could not be both water and wine; it should have been called simply wine, but it is called "water made wine," so as to preserve the name which it had before. These examples are sufficient to show that such expressions as these must not be taken by any sincere enquirer, as the ground of interpretation for the entire passage, nor made to outweigh the complicated difficulties that attend its being taken figuratively.

We naturally must desire, on a question like this, to ascertain the sentiments of antiquity. Now, in examining the opinions of the early Church on this subject, we meet with a most serious difficulty, resulting from the circumstance which I made use of on a former occasion, as a strong corroboration of the Catholic rule of faith; that is, the discipline of the secret, whereby converts were not admitted to a knowledge of the principal mysteries of Christianity until after they had been baptised. The chief practical mystery of which they were kept in ignorance, was the belief concerning the Eucharist. It was the principle, as I observed on that occasion, among

the early Christians, to preserve inviolable secrecy regarding what passed in that most important portion of the service, the liturgy, of the Church. For instance, there is a distinction made by old writers between the Mass of the catechumens. and the Mass of the faithful. The Mass of the catechumens was that part to which they were admitted, and the Mass of the faithful was that portion from which the catechumens were excluded. Consequently they, and still less the heathens, knew nothing of what was practised in the Church during the solemnization of the mysteries. This is.manifest from innumerable passages, especially where the fathers speak of the Eucharist. Nothing is more common than to find such expressions as these: "What I am now saying or writing is for the initiated,"- "the faithful know what I mean.” “If,” says one of them, "you ask a catechumen does he believe in Jesus Christ, he makes the sign of the cross, as a token of his belief in Christ's incarnation and death for us; but if you ask him, have you eaten the Flesh of Christ, and drank his Blood, he knows not what you mean." We find this extraordinary passage in St. Epiphanius, when wishing to allude to the Eucharist:-"What were the words which our Saviour used at his Last Supper? He took into his hand a certain thing, and he said, it is so and so." Thus, he avoids making use of words which would expose the belief of the Christians. Origen expressly says, that any one who betrays these mysteries is worse than a murderer; St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, and others, affirm that they are traitors to their religion who do

so.

The consequence was, as Tertullian observes, that the heathens knew nothing whatever of what was done in the Church; and when they charged the Christians with various orrible crimes, as if there perpetrated, these contented themselves with asking, how they could pretend to know any thing about mysteries, to which they were not admitted, and of which such pains were taken that they should know nothing. This authority sufficiently proves, that this discipline was not of later introduction, as some have pretended, but had

been received, as early writers tell us, from the time of the Apostles. For, it would have been vain later to attempt concealment, if all had been open at the beginning. We have a remarkable illustration of this discipline in St. John Chrysostome. In a letter to Pope Julius, he describes a tumult in the Church of Constantinople, in which he says, "they spilled the Blood of Christ." He speaks plainly, because writing a private letter to one of the initiated. Not so Palladius, when relating the same circumstance; for he says, they spilled “the symbols known to the initiated;" he was writing the life of the saint, which was to go abroad to the world, and was careful, consequently, to avoid communicating the mysteries to the uninitiated. There is another instance in the life of St. Athanasius, who was summoned before a court for breaking a chalice; and the Council held at Alexandria in 360, expressed a horror of the Arians, for having brought the mysteries of the Church before the world through this accusation. The same feeling is still more strongly expressed, in a letter from the Pope to him, written in the name of a Council held at Rome. He says, "We could not believe, when we heard that such a thing as the cup in which the Blood of Christ is administered, had been mentioned before the profane and uninitiated; and until we saw the account of the trial, we did not think such a crime possible."*

This feeling and practice, as you cannot fail to observe, must necessarily throw a considerable veil over what is said in early times on the Eucharist; and it is only where accident enables us to pry under it, that we are really able to see what the doctrine of those ages was. The means by which we discover it are various. The first is, the calumnies invented by the enemies of Christianity. We find it asserted by several old writers, and among them by Tertullian, the oldest Father of the Latin Church, that one of the most common calumnies against the Christians, was, that in their assem

See my friend Dr. Döllinger's learned treatise," Die Lehre von der Eucharistie."

blies, or sacred meetings, they murdered a child, and, dipping bread in its blood, partook of it. He alludes to this charge repeatedly. St. Justin Martyr tells us, that when he was a heathen, he had constantly heard this of the Christians. Origen, likewise, mentions it, as do most writers who have refuted the accusations of Jews and heathens against the Christians. In what way could this calumny have arisen; this fiction, that they dipped bread in the blood of an infant, and eat it, if they simply partook of bread and wine? Did it not imply that something more had transpired among the

eathens, and that the Body and Blood of our Saviour were said to be partaken of on these occasions? Does not the calumny itself insinuate as much?

Secondly, we gain additional light by the manner in which these calumnies are met. Suppose that the belief of the ancient Christians had been that of Protestants; what was more practicable than to refute these accusations? "We do no such thing as you imagine," would have been the reply, "nothing that can even give rise to the charge. We do no more than partake of a little bread and wine, as a rite commemorative of our Lord's passion. Come in, if you please, and see.” Would not this have been the simplest plan of confutation? Instead of it, however, they meet the charge in two ways, both very different. In the first place, by not answering it at all; by avoiding the subject, because they would have been obliged to lay open their doctrines, and expose them to the ridicule, the outrage, and the blasphemy of the heathens. Although there would have been nothing at all to fear from the disclosure, had they merely believed in a commemorative rite, their belief was manifestly such as they durst not disclose; they knew to what obloquy the confession of their doctrine would expose them; and consequently, they avoided touching on the subject. A remarkable instance we have in the case of the Martyr Blandina, commended by St. Irenæus. I have not the passage here; but he tells us, that the heathen servants of some Christians having been put to the rack, to make them