sion shown in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, or in the toleration and justice due to those who are of another religion, as in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, they, whether they be Christian in name or not, whether they have or have not partaken of the sacrament, have thus received Christ, because they have received that which was the essence of Christ, His spirit of mercy and toleration.

It is the simple fact, which no one of whatever creed disputes, that Christ has been, and is still, the Soul of Christendom, and to His life we go back to recover our ideal of what Christianity is that wherever we meet any good thought or deed, any suffering or want to be relieved in any part of the world, there we touch a hand that is vanished there we hear a voice that is silent. It is the hand, it is the voice, of our Redeemer. Other teachers, other founders of religions, have cared that their names should be honored and remembered. He cared not for this, if only Himself, His spirit, His works, survived if to the poor, the suffering, the good everywhere, were paid the tenderness, the honor, due to Him. In their happiness He is blessed, in their honor He is honored, and in their reception He is received. It is the last triumph of Divine unselfishness, and it is its last and greatest reward. For thus He lives again in His members and they live in Him. Even those who have most questioned and most doubted acknowledge that "He is a thousand times more living, a thousand times more loved, than He was in his short passage through life, that He presides still day by day over the destiny of the world. He started us on a new direction, and in that direction we still move." "1

It used to be said in the wars between the Moors and the Spaniards that a perfect character would be the man

1 Renan, Vie de Jésus, p. 421.

who had the virtues of the Mussulman and the creed of the Christian. But this is exactly reversing our Lord's doctrine. If the virtues of the Arabs were greater than the virtues of the Spaniards, then, whether they accepted Christ in word or not, it was they who were the true believers, and it was the Christians who were the infidels.

When the Norman bishops asked Anselm whether Alfege, who was killed by the Danes at Greenwich, could be called a martyr, because he died not on behalf of the faith of Christ, but only to prevent the levying of an unjust tax, Anselm answered: "He was a martyr, because he died for justice; justice is the essence of Christ, even although His name is not mentioned." The Norman prelates, so far as their complaint went, were unbelievers in the true nature of Christ. Anselm was a profound believer, just as Alfege was an illustrious martyr. When Bishop Pearson in his work on the Creed vindicates the Divinity of Christ without the slightest mention of any of those moral qualities by which He has bowed down the world before Him, his grasp on the doctrine is far feebler than that of Rousseau or Mill, who have seized the very attributes which constitute the marrow and essence of His nature. When Commander Goodenough, on one of the most edifying, the most inspiring, death-beds which can be imagined, spoke in the most heroic and saintly accents to his sailors and friends, there were pious souls who were deeply perplexed because he had not mentioned the name of Jesus. It was they who for the moment were faithless, as it was he who was the true believer, although, except in a language they did not understand, he had not spoken expressly of the Saviour with whose Spirit he was so deeply penetrated.

Such are some of the ways in which the life of Christ is still lived on the earth.

CHAPTER III.

THE EUCHARIST IN THE EARLY CHURCH.

We now pass from the original institution to its continuance in the Apostolic age and in the two centuries that followed.

The change had already begun. The Paschal elements had dropped out. The lamb, the bitter herbs, the sop, the hymn, had all disappeared; the idea of the last parting of friends had also vanished. Three — possibly four-examples of it are given in the first century. In the Acts the believers at Jerusalem are described as partaking of a daily meal, in their private houses, as part of their religious devotions.1 At Corinth the same custom can still be traced as part of a meal.2 At Troas, on the Apostle's last journey, it is again indicated in connection with the first distinct notice of the religious observance of the first day of the week.3 On the voyage to Rome it can be discerned, though more doubtfully, in the midst of a common meal.4 One characteristic these accounts possess in common. The earthly and the heavenly, the social and the religious, aspect of life were not yet divided asunder. The meal and the sacrament blended thus together were the complete realization in outward form of the Apostle's words, perhaps, in fact, suggested by it," Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God; " " Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him."

1 Acts ii. 42.

2 1 Cor. xi. 20.

8 Acts xx. 7.

4 Acts xxvii. 35.

Perhaps the nearest likeness now existing to the union of social intercourse with religious worship is to be found in the services of the Church which of all others has been least changed in form, however much it may have altered in spirit, from ancient times- the services of the Coptic or Egyptian Church of Alexandria. There is, indeed; even less of a supper in the Coptic Eucharist than there is in that of the Western Churches; but there is more of primitive freedom and of innocent enjoyment, the worshippers coming to meet each other and talk to each other, to be like a family gathering, than is ever seen in any European Church.

But even in early times, even in the Apostolical age, the difficulties of bringing an ideal and an actual life together made themselves felt. As the faults of Ananias and Sapphira profaned and made impossible a community of property in Jerusalem, so the excesses and disorders of the Corinthian Christians profaned and made impossible a continuance of the primitive celebration of the Eucharist. The community of property had vanished, and so had the community of the sacrament. The time was coming when the secular and the spiritual were disentangled one from the other; the simplicity and the gladness of the primitive communion could no longer be continued, and therefore the form is altered to ease the spirit. This we shall endeavor to unravel in detail.

Its festive character.

I. The festive character of the meal, which was its predominant character, in the first age, lasted for some time after the change of its outward detail began to take effect. In some respects it had been enhanced and emphasized by its combination with Gentile usages. It was like the dinner of a club, or, as the Greeks termed it, an eranus a fraternity.

This was one of the peculiar experiments of Greek social life. The clubs-sometimes called erani, some

times thiasi of Athens, of Rhodes, and of the Ægean isles were savings banks, insurance offices, mutual help societies. They had their devices engraven on tablets. They had their common festive meals-usually in gardens, round an altar with sacrifices. They were the centres of whatever sentiments of piety, charity, and religious morality lingered in Greek society. "A common meal is the most natural and universal way of expressing, maintaining, and as it were notifying relations of kinship. The spirit of antiquity regarded the meals of human beings as having the nature of sacred things." If, therefore, it sounds degrading to compare or connect the Christian Communion to a club dinner, it is owing to the fact that the moderns connect less dignified associations with meals than the ancients did, and that most clubs have a far less obvious dignity than the first Christian society. When men of different degrees or nations received together as from the hand of God this simple repast, they were reminded in the most forcible manner of their common human wants and their common character of pensioners on the bounty of the Universal Father.2

In the Communion of the first and second centuries this character of the Grecian club was evident in its very outset, for each brought, as to the common meal, his own contribution in his basket, each helped himself from the common table.3 So we see them in the catacombs, and in a bas-relief in S. Ambrogio at Milan, sitting round a semicircular table, men and women together, which so far was an infringement on the Greek custom, where the sexes were kept apart. More than once a woman presides. Two maidens appear; we can hardly tell whether

1 See the authorities quoted in Renan, Les Apôtres, pp. 352, 353.

2 Ecce Homo, pp. 173, 174.

8 This was changed before Tertullian's time (De Corona, 2, 3).