the evangelists except St. John record, and said, This is my body," and wine, saying, "This is my blood," and told them to receive these, and to continue to do what He had then done, in remembrance of Him.

Here again, of course, I know it is said that His words were only to be taken in a spiritual sense; that He meant "This represents my body, or my blood," and nothing more.

Perhaps; but if so, is it not rather strange that He should have allowed them to misunderstand Him, as they seem certainly to have done? Even if it is claimed that the Apostles and first Christians had the present views of Protestants about this matter, it must be conceded that the words of Christ were understood literally very soon afterward; that this literal sense is brought forward and insisted on repeatedly by the Christian writers of early times, and that there is no trace of any protest against it up to the times of the Reformation. Christendom seems to have been more singularly in accord about this matter than about any other; the quarrels and controversies of the growing Church did not concern it; all agreed and took for granted that Christ was really present in the Holy Communion, or Eucharist, of which all partook; that the consecrated bread and wine became indeed and in truth His Body and His Blood.

It seems hardly credible that Almighty God should have allowed such a gigantic delusion to fasten itself on the Church in its very cradle, and to remain in it for fifteen centuries, inducing all Christians to the worship of bread and wine. One word from Christ Himself at the beginning would so easily have stopped it; and afterward some one, at least, could have been raised up by the Holy Spirit to protest against it.

But so far was this from being the case that even Luther himself, the great apostle of the Reformation, believed in it as firmly as any one else, as did also many others who protested against Rome. Zwingle, however, does raise his voice against it; but his doctrine is looked on with horror by his fellow-Reformers, so deeply has the belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the consecrated elements become embedded in the very structure of Christianity.

It is true that doubts in a certain way had been raised about this matter about three centuries previous, principally by Berengarius. But these doubts did not concern the Real Presence itself, but rather the way in which the Church held this doctrine. There were doubts about what is called "transubstantiation" (what this is will soon be explained); but they never took any real hold on the belief of the faithful, and were repudiated later even by Berengarius himself.

It is time now that we should understand more clearly just what the Catholic faith does teach on this head.

It is, then, that Christ not only in the Last Supper made Himself really and truly present in what He gave to His Apostles at that time, when He said "Take, eat; this is my body," and "Drink ye all of it; this is my blood of the new testament (Matt. xxvi. 26-28, and similarly Mark xiv. 23-24 and Luke xxii. 19-20), but that He also empowered them to repeat the same thing which He had done, as indeed distinctly stated by St. Luke, "this do in remembrance of me" (xxii. 19).

That this rite has been celebrated from the .very foundation of Christianity is unquestionable; and in fact all Protestant denominations have retained it. It has also been generally, indeed almost universally, allowed that a qualified minister of some sort was needed for this sacred rite; that it was not a thing to be undertaken by any believer in general. So it is plain that Christians have never held that this was something to be done only by the Apostles themselves, during their lifetime; but that there were to be others to whom this office should be transmitted.

The Catholic faith holds that those who have succeeded in this respect to the office of the Apostles are the bishops and priests of the

Church. To perform this rite has been always regarded as the principal essential office of the priest.

He performs it in what is manifestly the principal service of the Catholic Church; what we call the Mass; this corresponds to what Protestant denominations generally call the Communion service.

The Mass consists first of various prayers, with the reading of a part of one of the Epistles, and of one of the Gospels of the New Testament. This portion varies according to the day of the ecclesiastical calendar, or the feast which is being celebrated. Then follows the offering of the bread and wine which are to be consecrated; and then comes the more solemn part of the service, in which the consecration of the bread and the wine is made, using the same words which Christ Himself used at the Last Supper, as recorded in the Gospels. The consecrated elements are elevated for a moment for the adoration of the people; then follow some other prayers, after which the priest receives Communion, which is afterward distributed to such of those present as may come forward for it. After a few more prayers, and the blessing of the priest given to those present, the ceremony is concluded.

Now what do we hold is accomplished by the consecration? We hold that the substance of

the bread and wine which has been offered passes away, though the qualities, or qualities, or "accidents" as they are called, remain, such, for example, as the shape, color, taste, etc. For the substance of the bread is substituted that of the Body of Christ; for the substance of the wine, that of His Blood.

To explain accurately what is meant by substance would require some knowledge of metaphysics; but I think every one can see that there is such a thing, and that it is different from the form which this substance may assume. When the substance takes a new form, we call the change transformation; when the substance itself changes, the form remaining the same, it is naturally called transubstantiation.

I have said that Luther himself taught that Christ was really present in the consecrated elements; the divergence of his doctrine from that of the Church was that he maintained that the substance of the bread and wine remained together with that of the Body and Blood of Christ. His doctrine was therefore known as consubstantiation. But both agreed, you see, as to the Real Presence of Christ,

The Church further teaches that the Real Presence of Christ remains as long as the form remains uncorrupted; when, however, that becomes changed-as, for instance, if the taste