so have ever taught the wisest of our Anglican Doctors.

They have commonly held, as Bishop Andrewes teaches, that, in rigor of speech, neither the Jews nor we have a sacrifice; for, "to speak after the exact manner of Divinity, there is but one only sacrifice properly so called, i. e., Christ's death. That sacrifice was but once actually performed at His death; but ever before represented in figure from the beginning, and ever since repeated in memory to the world's end."

The Cross, so teaches the bishop, is a centre where the lines of the Jews and our own meet. Before the sacrifice was offered on Calvary, the hope of it was kept alive by sacrifices which prefigured it. Now that it has been offered, the memory of it is kept alive by the commemoration of it in the Holy Eucharist.

To offer to God an acceptable sacrifice, it needs not that we bring victims to be slain. He is willing to accept the "calves of our lips," a very bold figure. We need not come empty; we offer to God a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; we present to Him ourselves—our souls and bodies-and we further renew the memory of the one only proper sacrifice, and plead it and present it anew before God. All this constitutes the Eucharistic sacrifice, and a better and more

effective sacrifice is this than the offering of all the hecatombs wherewith Solomon inaugurated the services of the ancient temple.

It is hard to tell what the Church of Rome does hold in this matter. She speaks of the Eucharist sometimes as of "a visible sacrifice, representative of that of the Cross and applicatory of its virtue," and presently maintains that the same Victim is repeatedly offered, and that the same Sacrifice offered on Calvary is renewed and perpetuated daily at her altars. Against such an error the first sentence in our Prayer of Consecration is an emphatic protest.

But surely we will not, because she has thus erred, reduce our Holy Eucharist to the level of a mere love-feast, or of an eloquent teaching by symbol. In the utmost sense of the words, there is but one priest and one sacrifice. He has entered within the veil, and sprinkles the blood of atonement upon the mercy-seat of God. But He has made us all priests, in a certain sense, and permits us to offer sacrifices of praise and service. He has left, moreover, in His Church, a priestly order, authorized in some things to act in His behalf and in ours. We fail to catch the true meaning and intent of the celebration unless we realize that we are rehearsing before God the old, old story of the Cross; offering to

Him holy gifts, reminding Him of the satisfaction so fully made, pleading with Him to remember the body broken and the blood poured out, whereof we present Him the symbol and the memorial.

LETTER XVI.

THE FEAST UPON THE SACRIFICE.

"Bread of Heaven! on Thee we feed,
For Thy Flesh is meat indeed;
Ever let our souls be fed

With this true and living Bread."

-Sarum Hymnal.

E have seen that the Holy Eucharist is a sacrifice, not in the strictest sense

of the word, but according to a common use of it, commemorative of the one true sacrifice, and pleading it before God as the one argument for the exercise of clemency to us sinners, who justly deserve to be punished.

But observe that the Holy Eucharist is a feast, as well as a sacrifice. We not only continue a perpetual memory of the Victim once slain, but we feed upon Him. Christ, our Passover, or Paschal Lamb, is sacrificed for us. His blood has brought us deliverance from death; the angel of justice looks upon it, and passes us over, so that we die not.

But you remember that the flesh of that lamb

slain in Egypt had its use and value. It was consumed at a common table, by a family gathered around it, eaten with a certain religious observance, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. In the strength of that meat the journey toward Canaan was undertaken, and still, as the journey was prolonged, the provision was continued, the type only being changed for man did eat angels' food, and He gave them bread enough. They drank of that rock which followed them, and that rock was Christ.

Very expressive is this parable of the mercy vouchsafed to us in Christ. Besides delivering the soul from death, our Lord makes provision for the preservation of the soul's life. His loving care was not content merely to restore the daughter of Jairus from death. Before He left the house, He "commanded that something should be given her to eat." And we have been dead and now are quickened; surely He will feed us. We, like the Israelites, are brought out of the house of bondage and rescued from the avenging sword. But the country is wilderness; our flocks and herds will not suffice us for food; therefore the flesh of the victim slain must be our sustenance, and we must feed upon it with the bitter herbs of penitence, and with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.