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directed to say The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ" and "The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ." Then in the prayer of thanksgiving we use the words: "that Thou hast vouchsafed to feed us who have duly received these holy mysteries, with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ." All of this is so strikingly clear and definite and unmistakable that it seems capable of only one interpretation.

In the rubric just before the priest gives Communion to the people he is directed to give it “To the People also in order, into their hands, all devoutly kneeling." This requirement that the people should kneel when they receive the Blessed Sacrament caused great searchings of heart among the Puritans in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They made frequent attempts to persuade the authorities of the Church to abolish this requirement and to permit people to sit in their pews when they received the Sacrament. They were pleading not for greater ease or convenience. The Puritans had no desire to make people more comfortable. They were pleading for language that would commit the Church to a belief that the bread and wine were simply symbols of an absent Christ. The fact that the Church steadily refused to accede to their

requests is strong evidence that the Church has always adhered to the traditional Catholic belief in the Presence of our Lord in the Eucharist.

Finally in the first of the two long Exhortations at the end of the Communion Office we find these beautiful words: "Wherefore it is our duty to render most humble and hearty thanks to Almighty God, our heavenly Father, for that he hath given his Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, not only to die for us, but also to be our spiritual food and sustenance in that holy Sacrament." No words could express more clearly the belief of Catholic Christians that our Lord, in the words of S. Paul, was both "delivered for our offences and rose again for our justification." The Catholic religion holds that our Lord not only died for us upon the Cross, but also gave Himself to be our Food in that Blessed Sacrament, so as to convey to us His justifying grace. Protestantism, in former days, believed that He died for us upon the Cross; and that we appropriated the benefits of His death by faith only. Modern Protestantism has largely given up even the belief in the atoning merits of the Cross. The words quoted from the Exhortation show plainly that the Prayer Book teaches the Catholic rather than the Protestant doctrine.

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THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE

'ROM primeval days every human tribe has offered some kind of sacrifice to its god. We all have in our nature some traces of these primitive tribes. In the average modern congregation most of the tribes of the ancient AngloSaxon world are represented. Our ancestors came from various nations in Europe; and far back in the remote past, antedating even the birth of Christ, our ancestors in those European countries, in the hills of Ireland, by the Lakes of Britain, or in the forests of Germany,- were wont to gather together before an altar; and at that altar there stood a priest, who as their mouthpiece and representative offered a sacrifice to some god.

Whenever therefore we assemble in church to take part in the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist, we instinctively feel akin to peoples of all races and all times. Buried deep in the innermost being of every one of us is the instinct which tells us that it is right and fitting to gather to

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gether to offer some kind of sacrifice to God. It is in the blood, we cannot help it; no matter what our religious beliefs may be, there is that deep inborn instinct, coming down through countless generations from primeval ancestors, which leads us to assemble before an altar, to speak through the priest as our mouthpiece to God, and to commission him as our representative to offer for us a sacrifice to God.

It is an interesting study to try to discover what the offering of sacrifice has meant in the past. If we investigate the history of the ancient races of the world, we shall find that in the infancy of many of these races there prevailed the horrible repulsive practice of human sacrifice. This practice is still observed to-day by some of the more ignorant races of the world, the offering of human blood upon an altar to God. More frequently however we find traces of the offering of the blood of animals upon the altar; and in many instances the offering of the fruits of the earth, the wheat and the corn and other products of the harvest,— as a thank-offering to the particular god in whom that race or tribe believed. There has always been the sense that the sacrifice was to be made to one who was feared and loved, and out of that which cost something to the giver. Thus we find always, underlying the sacrifice, a

recognition of the power and over-lordship of God. This was a right instinct, however it manifested itself, whether in the sacrifice of human life, or of animal life, or of the fruits of the earth. Now the Christian sacrifice which we offer in the Holy Eucharist does not destroy, it rather continues the religious traditions of the race; but all that is gruesome or cruel in the practise of human and animal sacrifices has passed away. We come to God as did our forefathers, or the people of other races and tongues, to offer our sacrifice, our holy gifts, in this sacrifice of the New Covenant instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ.

And what is it that we offer to God in the sacrifice of the Eucharist? We offer primarily the Lamb of God who was slain for the sins of the world; and in so doing we offer the one, true, pure, and perfect sacrifice. We plead before God the sacrifice He made upon the Cross for the sins of the whole world, and in doing that we are offering to God the most complete and acceptable offering that could be offered by human hands. But the sacrifice which we offer is not wholly objective. We offer in union with that sacrifice ourselves, our souls and bodies, "to be a reasonable, holy and living sacrifice to God." We offer ourselves in Christ, sanctified by His merits, puri