the dedication of the heathen Pantheon at Rome as a Christian Church, was first set forth the closing Holy-day of the Church's Year, All Saints' Day; whose Gospel is the Beatitudes, and whose Collect and Epistle speak of the Final Blessedness which awaits all " them that unfeignedly love " their Lord. The roll of communicants in the Parish who have passed into Paradise during the Year is often read at this Service. By the teaching of the last four of the greater Holy-days of the Church's Year (Trinity, Transfiguration, Michaelmas and All Saints), we are fairly carried away from earthly associations into the realm of things unspeakable.

The familiar emblems associated with the Apostles and Martyrs of the Calendar are various, and generally indicate, figuratively or otherwise, the weapon or mode by which each is supposed to have suffered; as the Sword for St. Paul, the inclined Cross for St. Andrew, and the Serpent in the poisoned Cup for St. John. The four Evangelists are denoted by such symbols as designate the characteristics of their respective Gospels. St. Matthew is typified by the Lion, as he wrote to the Jews of whom Our Lord was "the Lion of the tribe of Judah "; St. Mark by a Man, as treating of Our Lord's more personal history; St. Luke by the Ox, as that Evangelist emphasizes His sacrificial work for our redemption; and St. John, whose inspiration mounts up on loftiest pinions into the regions of the ineffable, by the Eagle. St. Paul is also sometimes represented by a Church building, and St. Peter by a bunch of Keys, as indicating their great constructive work. Six simple forms of the Cross are familiar: the Latin, the Greek or St. George's, the Maltese, the St. Andrew's, the Tau (named from its resem

blance to the Greek letter of that name), and the Chi-Rho, or Cross of Constantine, a monogram of the first two Greek letters of the name Christ.

One other Festival remains to be noted, that of Thanksgiving Day, as appointed by the National and State authority late in November and generally on its last (though formerly on its first) Thursday. There is no such Service in the English Book, which, however, has a form of Prayer and Thanksgiving for the anniversary of the Accession of the sovereign; while ours still lacks one for Independence Day. It is a time of special family and neighbourly rejoicing, and its Service, printed by itself near the beginning of the Psalter, dwells very largely on the material blessings of God's providence. The Opening Sentences are from the Old Testament, and the Anthem (in place of the Venite) is a part of the 147th Psalm. It has Proper Lessons, and a form of Special Thanksgiving to be used after the General one; and its Altar-Service emphasizes the practical duties and virtues of every-day life. The decorations of the Chancel should be from the representative fruits of the earth, the chief of which are those divinely appointed for spiritual Consecration in the Holy Eucharist. In some localities, though not prescribed, a Harvest Home Service is held at an earlier date (and none is so appropriate as Michaelmas); accompanied as here by a distribution of nature's bounties to those who have the less cause for Thanksgiving.

XVI.

THE HOLY COMMUNION.

"An outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us; ordained by Christ Himself, as a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof."-The Catechism.

"Almighty God, unto Whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from Whom no secrets are hid; cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of Thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love Thee, and worthily magnify Thy Holy Name, through Christ Our Lord."-The Collect for Purity.

THAT which in her doctrinal aspect preeminently dis

tinguishes the Church from all Protestant bodies of Christians is the prominence and emphasis that she attaches to her sacramental teaching; and the exalted honour which she pays to the Two Sacraments of Our Lord's own appointment, which are from their very nature the "extension of the Incarnation," or the mode of the indwelling of Christ in His visible Body. The significance of Baptism, as the sacred rite once for all administered and the door of Christian entrance, is reserved for its proper treatment as the first of the Occasional Offices. We are now to consider at length the meaning of the Holy Eucharist, the only continual service of worship of Christ's own formal injunction, the Sacrament of perpetual obligation "till He come."

The word "sacramentum" is that which describes the military oath taken by the legions of Ancient Rome. Its "outward sign" was then the lifting of the right hand and the given pledge; its "inward grace" was loyalty. The same sacramental principle runs through all nature; the visible object is the sign or token of the subjective truth, whether spiritual or otherwise. A Sacrament is a mystery, because it relates to the mystery of Life, and all life is a mystery. He to whom mystery is a stumbling-block logically recoils from the mystery of his own bodily functions, whose working is ill understood after all the ages since their original creation. Much more mysterious, because higher in its import, is the union between the tangible body and the intangible soul of man. But most mysterious of all is the blending of body and soul, of humanity with divinity, in the Person of the world's Redeemer, and of the spiritual union of our frail, sinful, mortal natures with the Perfect and Sinless One in the ordinances of His Own command. And the greatest evil of such a false doctrine as that of Transubstantiation is that it is a purely human and therefore a grossly misleading attempt to solve an insolvable Mystery.

As the Holy Communion is ordained for all who will, both learned and ignorant, rich and poor together, the only requirement as to its mental apprehension is a simple yet lively faith. In the old homely phrase

"What Christ the Word doth make it,

That I believe and take it."

There is indeed great need of reverence but no room for superstition. The result of too great effort at mere intellectual apprehension is that the Sacrament of Christ's love

and of Christian Brotherhood has often proved the chief subject of contention between Christians; and the central Act of Worship has unhappily become the central and fruitful cause of strife. True sacramental doctrine is simply the truth of Scripture, and wherever that is properly apprehended, there the sacramental system extends its healing influence, and works its fruits in the lives of its votaries through the increased frequency and reverence of its reception.

As the Bible carries us to the beginnings of the human race, so the teachings of the Liturgy take us back to the dawn of Christianity, and beyond it into the elder and prefigurative symbolism of the Hebrew Dispensation. No other channels of grace have been ordained to obscure the preeminent position which the Sacraments occupy, and none other, however potent, can do their beneficent work. And the Gospel has not clashing truths but counter truths, each supplementing the other. Another has said, "The work and mission of the Holy Ghost is to make Christ's work perfect, by Baptism, by the Holy Communion, by sealing up Christ's testimony for the Church's guidance. Sacramentalism alone is the body without the soul, a sin against Christ; while Evangelicalism alone is the soul without the body, a sin against the Holy Ghost. Neither Church nor Sacraments have any heavenly power apart from Christ."

The primal necessity that Christ's Body and Blood should have been ordained as a healing Food is not revealed; but certain it is that His human Nature which is perfect, in constantly sustaining our sinful natures, will also heal their imperfections. In this view His death alone is