in the Ancient Liturgies) they were offered by the congregation and by the minister, and when they were called by the name of "sacrifice," or " victim," they represented only the natural products of the earth It was as if the early Church had meant to say "In Pagan and Jewish times there were human sacrifices, animal sacrifices. In Christian times this has ceased; we wish to express to God our thankfulness for the daily bread that strengthens man's heart, and the wine that makes glad our hearts, and we express our gratitude by bringing our bread and wine for the common enjoyment and joint participation of the whole Christian community.”

The sacrifice of beneficence.

2. This brings us to the second idea of sacrifice, that is, the rendering of acts of kindness to our brethren. The offering, the contribution of bread and wine which formed the original sacrifice or offering of the Eucharist, essentially partook of this idea, because the Eucharist in those early times was the common festive gathering of rich and poor in the same social meal, to which, as St. Paul enjoined, every one was to bring his portion. And further, with this practice, of which almost all traces have disappeared from all modern modes of administering the Lord's Supper, there was united from the earliest times the practice of collecting alms and contributions for the poor, at the time when our Christian communion and fellowship with each other is most impressed upon us. This is the practice which is called, in the English Church and others, the offertory, that is, the offerings, and which is urged upon us in the most moving passages that can be drawn from the Scriptures to stir up our Christian compassion. Here again, it is clear that the sacrifice, the offering, is made not by the priest, not by the minister, but by the congregation. It is not the clergy who give alms or offerings for the people, it is the people who bring alms or

offerings for one another or for the clergy. They make these sacrifices from their own substance, and in those sacrifices, so far as they come from a willing and bountiful heart, God is well pleased.

3. The service of the Sacrament, in whatever form, expresses the sacrifice, the dedication of ourselves. Even if there were not words to set this forth, it could The sacrifice not be otherwise. Every serious communicant of self. does at least for the moment intend to declare his resolution to lead a new life, and abandon his evil self. But in the English Reformed Church, this, the highest form of sacrifice, is, and was formerly much more than in the present form, brought out much more strongly than either in the Roman Church or in most other Protestant Churches. There is a solemn Prayer at the close of the service, in which it is said, "Here we offer and present unto Thee ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto Thee.' But in the first Reformed Prayer Book of Edward VI., this true spiritual Protestant sacrifice was even still more forcibly expressed, for this dedication of ourselves was not as now, at the close of the service, but was introduced into the very heart of the Consecration Prayer, and made the chief and turning-point of the whole Liturgy. It was this on which so much stress was always laid by one of the profoundest scholars and the most devout men of our time, of whom one of his friends used to say that he was essentially a Liturgical Christian the late Chevalier Bunsen. It is this which is present in the Scottish and the American Prayer Books, and, contrary to the usual opinion entertained of them, places them in the foremost rank of Protestant forms of devotion. In this Prayer it is evident that this the most important of the sacrifices of Christian Religion is not offered by the clergy for the people, but is the offering of the people by themselves,

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that when the clergyman says, "we offer," he speaks not of himself alone, but of himself only as one of them, with them, acting and speaking as their mouthpiece and representative, and they speaking and acting with him and for him.

These are the three ideas, the three meanings of the sacrifice of the Eucharist. There is no other sense of sacrifice in the Eucharist than these three, and these three meanings absorb all others. No doubt the realities of sacrifice which they are intended to express are not there or in any outward sign, but in actual life, as when we speak of "a heavy sacrifice," of "a self-sacrifice," and the like. But the outward sign reminds us of the spiritual reality, and often in the Lord's Supper the two are brought together.

When we see the bread and wine, the gifts of the parish or people, placed on the Table, this should remind us of the deep and constant thankfulness that we ought to feel from morning till evening for the blessings of our daily bread, of our happy lives, perhaps even of our daily sorrows and sicknesses and trials.

When we drop into the plate our piece of gold or silver or copper, as the case may be, this prelude of the Lord's Supper, slight though it be, should remind us that the true Christian Communion requires as its indispensable condition true Christian beneficence; beneficence exercised not it may be at that moment, but always, and wherever we are, in the wisest, most effectual mode which Christian prudence and generosity can suggest.

When we dedicate ourselves at the Table in remembrance of Him who dedicated Himself for us - when we

1 By a strange solecism the Eucharist is sometimes called "a commemorative sacrifice." This is as if the Waterloo banquet were called "a commemorative battle." Still the sacrifice of Christ which it commemorates is of the same kind as the sacrifice of the worshippers, viz. the sacrifice of a spotless life for the good of others.

come to Him in order to be made strong with His strength the act, the words, the remembrance should remind us that not then only, but in all times and in all places ought the sweet-smelling savor of our lives to be ascending towards Him who delights above all things in a pure, holy, self-sacrificing heart and will.

Other ideas no doubt there are besides in the Eucharist. But so far as there is any idea of sacrifice, or thanksgiving, or offering to God, whether we take the English Prayer Book, or the older Liturgies out of which the Prayer Book is formed, it is the threefold idea which has been described, and not any of those imaginary sacrifices which, whether in the English or the Roman Church or in other churches, have been in modern days engrafted upon it. And this threefold sacrifice of prayer and praise, of generosity and of self-dedication, are in the Eucharist, because they pervade all Christian worship and life, of which the Eucharist is or ought to be the crowning representation and exemplification.

Such are the ideas which, imperfectly and disproportionately, but yet sufficiently, pervade the early service of the Eucharist.

CHAPTER V.

THE REAL PRESENCE.

IT might have been thought that in a religion like Christianity, which is distinguished from Judaism and from Paganism by its essentially moral and spiritual character, no doubt could have arisen on the material presence of its Founder. In other religions, the continuance of such a presence of the Founder is a sufficiently familiar idea. In Buddhism, the Lama is supposed still to be an incarnation of the historical Buddha. In Hinduism, Vishnu was supposed to be from time to time incarnate in particular persons. In the Greek and Roman worship, though doubtless with more confusion of thought, the Divinities were believed to reside in the particular statues erected to their honor; and the cells or shrines of the temples in which such statues were erected were regarded as "the habitations of the God." In Judaism, although here again with many protestations and qualifications, the "Shechineh" or glory of Jehovah was believed to have resided, at any rate till the destruction of the ark, within the innermost sanctuary of the Temple. But in Christianity the reverse of this was involved in the very essence of the religion. Not only was the withdrawal of the Founder from earth recognized as an incontestable fact and recorded as such in the ancient creeds, but it is put forth in the original documents as a necessary condition for the propagation of His religion. "It is expedient for you that I go away. "If I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you."