As to decency, each one's sense of propriety will remind him that the communicant's dress and person should present nothing unseemly or disorderly, and that the whole demeanour should be modest and respectful.

CHAP. CI. On the Obligation of receiving Communion. SACRAMENTAL communion is, by divine precept, necessary to salvation, where it may be had, for all adults, and more probably the implicit desire of it is absolutely necessary for both adults and infants. Our Lord says, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." As the natural life of the body cannot be sustained without its proper nourishment, so neither can that of the soul. Unless we are united to Christ we cannot be saved: "For if a man abide not in Me he is cast forth as a branch and is withered" (St. John XV. 6); and the Holy Eucharist was ordained to complete the union between the soul and Christ (St. John vi. 56). It is the consummation of the spiritual life, the end of all the Sacraments, and so it is included in baptism, which is the entrance to the Sacraments, the beginning of the life of grace. Thus are infants, through baptism, made partakers of the Eucharist; and as they believe by the faith of the Church, so they desire the Blessed Sacrament by the intention of the Church, and thereby receive its grace.

Adults are bound to receive communion: (1) in proximate danger of death; (2) on several occasions during life. The Church prescribes once a year, at Easter-time; but those who are exposed to great temptations, and find they cannot persevere by going so seldom, are bound to communicate oftener.

CHAP. CII. On the Minister of the Holy Eucharist.

PRIESTS alone are the ministers of the consecration of the Eucharist, and consecration by any other person is invalid. For to His Apostles alone, and to their successors, Christ said, "This do ye in commemoration of Me." And although

these words apply indirectly to all the faithful, and are a precept commanding them to communicate and join in the sacrifice with the priest, yet, primarily and fully, they apply only to those who were at first addressed. Unless they be so limited, laymen, and even women, would be bound to celebrate, which no one supposes. The Catholic Church has, from the beginning, taught that to the Apostles, and their successors in the priesthood, the power was delivered of consecrating, offering, and administering the body and blood of Christ (Coun. of Trent, sess. xxiii. c. 1). It will be seen, further on, that the power of consecrating validly, implies the power of offering sacrifice,-in other words, the priesthood. Any priest, whether heretical, schismatical, excommunicated, or suspended, can consecrate, because the priestly character, or power of orders, cannot be lost. Further, all priests, whether they have the care of souls or not, are bound to celebrate sometimes; for the command of Christ, "This do in commemoration of Me," obliges all the faithful, the priests directly in themselves, and the laity through the priests. The ordinary and legitimate minister for dispensing the Holy Eucharist is the priest. The Eucharist, as a Sacrament, from its nature, admits of being validly given by any one. In the earliest ages the deacon used to administer both kinds, and later on, the chalice only; but according to the present discipline of the Church, the dispensation of the Holy Eucharist is, except in cases of necessity, strictly confined to the priest.

Since it follows, as a necessary consequence, from the doctrine of the Real Presence, that the Blessed Sacrament is to be adored with the highest kind of worship, before leaving this part of the subject it will be fitting to speak of the different practices of devotion, sanctioned and encouraged by the Church, in honour of the Holy Eucharist.

CHAP. CIII. On Devotions connected with the Blessed
Sacrament.

THE virtue of religion, spoken of under the first commandment, teaches us the worship of God; and not merely

the internal worship of Him in our minds, but also His external worship, such as it has ever been practised in the Catholic Church. The greater part of this external worship is not left to our own choice. The Church has taken the matter into her own hands and appointed feasts in celebration of the great doctrines and mysteries of religion. She directs Mass to be said, and obliges, on certain days at least, the attendance of the faithful; she lays the obligation of the divine office on all her clergy, and many other things of the same kind. Besides, however, the public Liturgy of the Church, there are certain forms of public prayer, certain pious exercises, instituted or approved by the Church, yet not of obligation as to the time or place in which they are to be performed, but left to the free-will and good aspirations of her children, and which, therefore, commonly go by the name of devotions.

These devotions, however, are a part of the external worship of God, and have therefore the same objects in view; namely, (1) to teach and inculcate some doctrine of the Church, by practically and publicly recognising it; (2) to be a means of manifesting internal devotion; and (3) to be a means of increasing it. For though these external devotions are only meritorious so far as they proceed from internal devotion, yet because we consist of body as well as soul, we are far more easily moved by that which is external and strikes the senses; and hence these external devotions may be made a great means of nourishing and increasing internal devotion.

Devotions are of different kinds, according to the particular object of them. Here we are to consider the devotions connected with the Blessed Sacrament, or which have the Blessed Sacrament for their object.

All devotions depend on some doctrine or another, of which indeed they are only a practical manifestation. And the doctrine on which devotions to the Blessed Sacrament rest is that of the Real Presence. The Council of Trent, when speaking of the worship and veneration which is to be paid to the most Holy Sacrament, says, "There is, therefore, no room for doubt, that all the faithful of Christ, according to the custom ever received in the

Catholic Church, should venerate this most Holy Sacrament with the same supreme worship which belongs to the One True God. Nor, because it was instituted by Christ our Lord to be received as food, ought it on that account to be any the less an object of adoration. For we believe that in it is present that same God Whom when the Eternal Father brought into the world He said, Let all the angels of God adore Him; Whom the wise men falling down adored; and Whom, lastly, the Apostles, as Holy Scripture testifies, adored in Galilee" (Trid. Conc. sess. xiii. chap. 5).

When our Lord was about to die for us He instituted the Holy Eucharist, and the last words He spoke before ascending to heaven, as related by St. Matthew, were a promise to be with His disciples all days, even to the consummation of the world; referring in these words, not merely to the coming of the Holy Ghost, who was to abide with them for ever, but to His own real though invisible presence with them in the Holy Sacrament; so that, as in the Temple at Jerusalem and the Tabernacle in the the wilderness there was a Divine Presence, which Moses and the priests could ever have recourse to in times of difficulty and trouble, so, still more, God manifest in the flesh might be always within reach of His faithful people, to present themselves before Him with their requests and in their troubles. And, indeed, the different forms of devotion to the most Holy Sacrament are only so many different ways of doing this, either privately by ourselves, or in an act of public homage and adoration.

There are five or six different devotions connected with the Blessed Sacrament. One of these is that, common enough in Catholic countries, but which can seldom be practised in our own, of attending the Blessed Sacrament when carried through the streets to the sick, or joining in the more solemn processions of the Blessed Sacrament which are made on the feast of Corpus Christi or at other times. In this country such processions, publicly made, are illegal, and would besides expose the Holy Sacrament to insult and profanation from the unbelieving multitudes, and so it is generally carried to the sick in

silence and secrecy; and public processions, except under very favourable circumstances, are, out of reverence for the Sacrament, avoided. But in countries where the population is mostly Catholic, there is no devotion to the Blessed Sacrament more natural and simple than that of escorting the priest who bears in his hands the Body of our Lord. Just as our Lord, were He again upon the earth as He was at first, would be attended wherever He went by crowds of the faithful, who out of reverence and love would be anxious to be near Him and to show Him every sign of honour; so, because it is our Lord who is present in the Holy Sacrament, it is but natural for us to show Him the same reverence and love, though we cannot see Him with our outward eyes.

Another form of this devotion is in visits to the Blessed Sacrament. This practice, so familiar, says Cardinal Wiseman, to every one in Catholic countries, "declares at once the simple, hearty, practical belief in the Real Presence; not a vague surmising opinion, not an uncertain hope that the Lord of glory may be there; but a plain conviction, that as surely as a king dwells in his palace, and may there be found by those who are privileged to enter in; or rather, that as certainly as He Himself once dwelt in a stable, making it His first palace upon earth, and was there visited' by kings from a distance, and by shepherds from the neighbourhood; that as truly as He abode in the houses of His friends, and was 'visited' by Nicodemus for instruction and by Magdalen for pardon,-so really does He now dwell amongst us in such sort, as that we may similarly come before Him and have recourse to Him in our wants."*

But while "visits" to the Blessed Sacrament have rather the nature of a private devotion, Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament is a devotion in which the Blessed Sacrament is adored publicly and solemnly. In a visit we go to our Lord secretly, whereas in Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament He, as it were, sits on His throne, to receive public homage, and give audience to all who come. This is the idea of Exposition. And in accordance with Essays, vol. i. p. 481.