tained by pleading God's promises and putting Him in remembrance, and asking for His help (Ezek. xxxvi. 37), how much greater is our Faith and Hope when we put Him in remembrance in This chief and special way of His appointing!

Thus, then, the first meaning and intention of the Holy Communion is, to bring the One all-atoning Sacrifice of Christ our Lord upon the Cross, in remembrance before God;

To offer a solemn, visible Memorial of that His precious Death before the eyes of the Father;

In obedience to the Lord's own command, "This do'-or better, 'This offer-for a Memorial of Me' (1 Cor. xi. 24).

And thus in the Holy Communion we do show forth before the Father the One all-prevailing Sacrifice of His well-beloved Son our Lord, as our only plea for Grace, Mercy, Pardon, Peace;

We offer the Memorial before God in holy worship;

We present the very token and pledge of the New and better Covenant, concerning which the Lord Himself said, 'This Cup is the New Testament [or New Covenant] in My Blood, which is shed for you' (S. Luke xxii. 20).

And doubt not, but earnestly believe, that as our Blessed Lord hath promised (S. Matt. xviii. 20), so much more will He manifest His Presence and make Himself known to us in the Breaking of the Bread, when we are obediently fulfilling His dying command.

Yes, at every Celebration of the Holy Communion, our dear Lord, the True Priest (Ps. cx. 4), is the real Celebrant invisibly present; we do but minister in His Name, in virtue of His unchangeable Priesthood (Heb. vii. 24); and as we make the Memorial He has commanded, He lifts It up on high, and presents It before the Mercy-Seat of God.

(ii.) What is the Holy Communion as regards ourselves? It is a Holy Feast upon the Sacrifice. For first we present the Memorial before God, and then we feed upon It.

For like as in days of old the Jewish worshippers brought their Sacrifice of the Passover, killed it in the place which God did choose, poured out the blood, and then all partook of it: so now the Holy Communion is a Sacred Feast upon the Sacrifice offered unto God, yea 'the Lord hath prepared a Sacrifice, He hath bid His guests' (Zeph. i. 7). He, the Eternal Wisdom, saith, 'Come, eat of My Bread, and drink of the Wine which I have mingled' (Prov. ix. 5). This is the Bread which God giveth you to eat throughout your journey in the wilderness, for the Bread of God is He which cometh down from Heaven, and giveth life unto the world' (S. John vi. 33), for so He saith, 'My Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed,' and 'he that cateth Me, even he shall live by Me' (S. John vi. 55, 577). This Blessed lifegiving Food is to be partaken of by all, even as the Lord Himself said at the first Institution of the Holy Eucharist, 'Drink ye all of It' (S. Matt. xxvi. 27; S. Mark xiv. 23).

.

No Christian is exempt from this command, Do this for a Memorial

of Me' (I Cor. xi. 24). We all have need of It; for This is the true 'Wine that maketh glad the heart of man, This the true Bread that strengtheneth man's heart,' that a man may eat thereof and not die.

In this Holy, solemn, and most blessed Feast, God gives not common food, but Himself to be our spiritual Food and sustenance,' Ist Exhort.

For when He had nothing greater, stronger, more quickening, or more efficacious to impart, He gave to us Himself to be our Food, saying, 'Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it' (Ps. lxxxi. 11). If He fill Heaven and earth, how should He not satisfy us? (Ps. ciii. 5).

(iii.) What is the Holy Communion as regards our fellow-Christians? It is the very Bond of Love, the Bond of Perfectness, uniting, binding, and knitting all firmly together in the unity of the One Body, in the fellowship of the Gospel; causing all the members to have the same common hopes, aspirations, sympathies, desires, and objects, and to have the same care (1 Cor. xii. 25) one for another in the unity of the Faith (Phil. ii. 2).

The Holy Communion is, as it were, the cement which binds together the living stones (1 S. Pet. ii. 5; Ephes. ii. 19-22) of the one temple; The sap which flows through all the living branches of the True Vine (S. John xv. 1, 5, 6);

The life-blood which nourishes, sustains, and throbs through all the healthy members of the mystical Body of Christ (1 Cor. xii. 27).

As spokes of a wheel all meet, and centre in, and are held together by, the nave, so the Holy Communion unites Christians one to another in the Fellowship of the Gospel, for 'we being many are One Body in Christ,' etc. (Rom. xii. 5).

If you feed one tray of silkworms on lime leaves, another on lettuce leaves, and a third on mulberry leaves, you will find that the three several trays will each spin silk of a different colour; and that the worms fed on the same food will have a common likeness, and spin silk of the same colour; so the fact that the same Holy Food is partaken of by all, that the same life throbs through all, unites and welds the several members of Christ into One; for the Cup of Blessing which we bless, is it not the communication of the Blood of Christ? the Bread which we break, is it not the communication of the Body of Christ? For we being many are One Bread and One Body, for we are all partakers of that One Bread' (1 Cor. x. 16, 17).

3. Regard, then, the Holy Communion in this light, as our solemn 'bounden duty and service,' to be performed towards God, towards ourselves, towards our fellow-Christians.

To God, as the offering up of the great Memorial Sacrifice;
To ourselves, as a Sacred Feast on Heavenly Food;

To our brethren in Christ, as the Holy Cement binding all His Church in one.

Make earnest, humble, loving Preparation beforehand for drawing nigh unto the Altar of God (Heb. x. 22; Ps. xxvi. 6, xliii. 4).

And then (Ps. ciii. 2) forget not earnest, humble, and devout thanksgiving for (Ps. 1. 23), and keep thy mouth with all diligence, that no one rob thee of thy Treasure!

II. The Object and Entention of the Eucharist.

Ex. XII. 26. What mean ye by this Service?'

In days gone by, or at least, as I trust, fast going by and passing away, there was a very great and widespread neglect of the Holy Eucharist throughout the English Church. In many parishes the churches were shut up all the week from Sunday to Sunday, and had become in consequence damp and dirty, the abode of owls and bats and other abominations, the Bells were unrung, the Altar unspread, the Holy Communion uncelebrated, the people unfed with the Bread of Life.

For though the mind of the Church of England was clear and unmistakeable on this point, that the Holy Communion should be celebrated regularly and constantly, on Sundays and Holy Days at least, if not indeed daily; although she ordered, 'in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches and Colleges, where there are many Priests and Deacons, they shall all receive the Communion with the Priest every Sunday at the least, except they have a reasonable cause to the contrary' (4th Rubric at end of Communion Office),—thus implying that the opportunities for so doing would be even still more frequent; although she directed that every Parishioner shall communicate at the least three times in the year, of which Easter to be one' (8th Rubric at end of Communion Office), yet in actual practice how few were the celebrations of Holy Communion: in some parishes it was celebrated once a quarter, in others only three times in the whole year—thus making it quite impossible for those who were unable to communicate on any one occasion, by sickness or other urgent cause, to communicate the bare and legal thrice in a year. And how many professing Churchmen and Churchwomen were there-and, alas ! must we not still say, are there— who made no attempt to obey the Lord's command, 'Do this for a Memorial of Me' (τοῦτο ποιεῖτε εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν, hoc facite in Meam commemorationem, Vulg. S. Luke xxii. 19; 1 Cor. xi. 24, where see A. V. marg.).

Now, thank God! there is a change for the better; a weekly celebration of Holy Communion is fast becoming the rule rather than the exception, even in the country; and in London in this year of grace 1885 there are 546 churches where they have a weekly celebration; whilst in many churches throughout the length and breadth of England

the Pure Offering (Mal. i. 11) of the Holy Eucharist is offered daily, S. Paul's having the high honour of being the first amongst the Cathedrals of England to restore the daily Sacrifice. Whilst communicants are now counted by hundreds and by thousands in many parishes, at the greater Festivals.

Are we better, then, than our fathers? That I dare not say. But this I do say, 'Be not high-minded, but fear' (Rom. xi. 20; 1 Cor. x. 12), for (S. Luke xii. 48m) the greater our privileges and oppor. tunities, the greater will be our responsibilities.

Seeing then that the Holy Eucharist was formerly neglected because it was regarded as the privilege of a few, rather than as the duty of all, Christians, and because many held low, imperfect, and degrading views of the Sacrament of the Altar itself, and that through this neglect, however caused, God was dishonoured and souls were starved, it is well that we should endeavour to get some clear ideas respecting this Blessed Sacrament, and that we should be able to make answer to the question T.

I. What is the Holy Eucharist? It is the Thanksgiving (sixa. poría). It is the Church's chief and highest act of worship. It is the One only Service expressly ordered and enjoined upon us by our Blessed Lord Himself, when He said (S. Luke xxii. 19; 1 Cor. xi. 24, and see marg.), 'Do This offer This-for a Memorial of Me,' 'for as often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup, ye do show forth (xaray. γέλλετε, stronger than merely ἀγγέλλετε would have been, as till forth is stronger than merely tell) the Lord's Death till He come' (1 Cor. xi. 26).

By celebrating the Holy Eucharist, we do show forth mystically the Lord's Death, His Passion and all-atoning Sacrifice

(i.) before God.

And now, O Father, mindful of the love

That bought us once for all, on Calvary's Tree,
And having with us Him that pleads above,
We here present, we here spread forth to Thee
That only Offering perfect in Thine eyes,

The One, True, Pure, Immortal Sacrifice.

For lo! between our sins and their reward
We set the Passion of Thy Son our Lord.'
-Hymns A. and M., 322.

(ii.) before the Holy Angels,

'Give us, O Lord, the eye of faith

The inner world to see,

Then Holy Angels we shall view

And their blest ministry.

Angelic faces we shall see,
Angelic wings o'erspread

Above Thy Holy Altar, Lord,

And Thee, the Living Bread.'

-Wordsworth's Holy Year, cii. 4, 6. (iii.) before our fellow-men, gathered together with one accord in God's House.-3rd Exh. in Com. Off.

T What is the Holy Eucharist? It is our solemn 'bounden duty and service' which we owe unto God (Ps. ciii. 2, cxvi. 11, 12): a duty so binding upon all Christians, and so universally recognised by them in the early ages of the Church, when Love was warm, when Faith was strong, and Religion was a moving principle for which they were ready to die (Rom. v. 7; Heb. xii. 4), that no one pretended to call himself a Christian unless he obeyed the Lord's command by receiving the Holy Communion; for then the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul' (Acts iv. 32), then they continued stedfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in the Breaking of the Bread, and in the Prayers' (Acts ii. 42); then to be no communicant was to be no Christian. (The case of those to whom the penitential discipline of those days forbade communion for a time is obviously such an exception as only serves to prove and strengthen the rule; for had they not been communicants it would have been no penance to deprive them of the Holy Con munion.) Of such importance is This chief and central Rite of our Holy Religion, that there was vouchsafed unto S. Paul an express and special Revelation as to the way in which our Blessed Lord first instituted It (1 Cor. xi. 23 ƒ; Gal. i. 11, 12).

Whilst the Christian Mysteries were ever carefully guarded and jealously concealed by the faithful from the knowledge of the heathen and profane. (See Fleury's Manners of the Christians, Eng. transl., chap. xv.)

2. T What is the Holy Communion?

This is the Bread which the Lord hath given you to eat (Ex. xvi. 15/). This is the True Bread which cometh down from Heaven' (S. John vi. 32, 50) to strengthen us on our pilgrimage, that a man may eat thereof and not die. And like as Holy Baptism is the Sacrament which quickens into life, even so is This Holy Communion the Sacrament which sustains our spiritual life.

For the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar is 'no mere bare sign of an absent thing' (Homilies, I. Pt. of Serm. Conc. Sacrament, p. 476, S.P.C.K. ed. 1852), but It is the Bread of Life (S. John vi. 35), even the most Precious Body and Blood of the Lord (2nd Coll. or Thanksgiving after Communion in Com. Office).

How can these things be? How can This Man '-JESUS Christ, our Lord and God-give us His Flesh to eat?' (S. John vi. 52). I cannot tell you how, for that is a mystery. Indeed, I care not to pry into what God has not revealed (2 Tim. ii. 23; Ecclus. iii. 21, 197; Wisd. ix.