• Biographical booklet
• Altar Card
• Golden Jubilee Book

• Rome the Goal of the Oxford Movement
• Loyalty to the Church of England
• The Cart of Abinadab
• Benediction in the Church of England
• Canterbury and York: Two Provinces of Rome

• Meditations on the Spiritual Life
• The Sacrament of Orders
• What is Catholic Authority?
• The Holy Ghost the Source of Infallibility
• The Popes and The Bible
• The Bishops of London and Benediction

There may be a number of small typographical errors in this transcription. The transcription has been created by a text-recognition scanning process and, although fairly accurate, some errors will inevitably remain. In due course I will check through the entire text and correct these errors manually but it has not been possible to do this in time to release the tract to co-incide with Father Monahan's 60th anniversary.

INTRODUCTION.

By Benediction we mean a certain service carried out before the tabernacle. The Blessed Sacrament is exposed in a Monstrance so that everyone can see the Sacred Host : or it is in a pyx or ciborium on the altar. There are many lights. In England is sung, 0 Salutaris, the Litany of Loretto, and Tantum Ergo. At the end of the service the priest assumes the humeral veil and taking the pyx or monstrance in his hand he makes the sign of the cross over the people with the Blessed Sacrament. That is what we mean by Benediction. Before settling down to the history I would make a few general remarks.

The first remark is that Benediction is not a Liturgical Service. It is not recognised in any of the Liturgical Books of the Church. It is not a service imposed by authority from above : it arose from, and is kept up by, the devotion of the people. At Rome the service preserves its old informal character. There, a priest exposes the Blessed Sacrament informally, and then quits the altar, leaving the people to sing their hymns. When the singing is over the priest reappears with cope and incense; the Tantum Ergo is sung ; the blessing with the monstrance is given ; and the service ends.

The second remark to be made is that Benediction is neither modern nor Roman, it is not modern inasmuch as its parts were in existence prior to any period to which the word modern could reasonably be applied. It is only modern in its present day dress : and because it is, in Catholic regions, the popular Evening Service, which meets the present day needs of souls. It is not Roman in its origln : although Rome, always alive to what is good, has the divine gift of gathering to herself and preserving everything that is of Catholic Truth and of devotional value to her people. The constantly reiterated statement that it is modern is due to the slavish and ignorant following of the Abbe Thiers who wrote in 1673. The Abbe is an authority on Benediction within well-defined limits. There is now no excuse for the repetition of such statements of his as have been shown to be erroneous. Such an erroneous statement is his to the effect that Benediction is modern because he could not find any instance of this form of blessing prior to the year 1573. That he could only carry the custom back for one hundred years prior to his own date serves to show that his authority is limited to that period. As we shall see, the evidence of Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament can be taken back for at least three hundred years prior to 1573. The Abbe did not search far enough. I greatly fear that many who delight in saying that Benediction is modern will feel their joy somewhat cooled by the knowledge that even on the estimate of the Abbe Thiers, Benediction is now no less than three hundred and sixty years old. The Act of Benediction is of such antiquity that its beginnings are lost in primitive origins. For the refutation of the erroneous statement that Benediction is Roman in its origin it is enough to quote the words of Edmund Bishop, the most learned English modern authority on Liturgies and on Devotional Service books. He says : "When I wish to find the origin of early examples of usages, devotions, piety, which friends or the public prints tell me are specially characteristic of "Modern Romanism," an acquired instinct sends me as it were naturally to Teutonic and Celtic sources." Mr. Bishop finds that other scholars follow the same instinct which leads him to seek for the origin of pious devotions in France and in Celtic and Teutonic countries rather than in Rome. Especially is this the case in popular devotions to Our Lady which are frequently and erroneously said to have a Roman origin. Prayers from Gallican Sacramentaries are found to be more popular than those of a genuinely Roman pedigree. The instinct of Mr. Bishop is to be commended for imitation to writers who are given to superficial remarks about Benediction being Roman and Modern. Mr. Bishop thinks that the roots of the Service of Benediction and Exposition are to be found rather in Northern Germany, and in the region from Poland to the shores of Holland, than in Italy. He repeats that much that is called modern Italian in devotion is really German. I would say that even though some of the elements of the service are found first in Italy, they are not found first in Rome.

The third general remark that I would make is that the Reformation, with a few verbal exceptions, as in Article XXVIII, left Benediction alone. Neither in the preface nor in the body of the Book of Common Prayer is there any reference to Reservation or Exposition. They are not referred to in any of the Statutes of Henry VIII or of Edward VI. In the face of the evidence produced later in this book it will not do to say that the silence of the Reformers was due to the total absence of Reservation and Benediction from our Churches. Not one word is said by the Reformers about the popular evening service of Salve when the people met around the Blessed Sacrament and before an image of our Lady to offer their greeting to our Lord and His Holy Mother. The reticence of the Reformers was due either to their determination to reject any change which, as they put it, "openly or secretly struck at any established doctrine or at any laudable practice of the Whole Catholic Church" ; or they were reluctant to interfere with the widespread devotions of the people, which might provoke a popular revolt like the pilgrimage of grace on a national scale. The Reformation cut us off from the stream of Catholic life : so that the development of devotions around the Blessed Sacrament was arrested before Benediction could become the regular popular evening service in England, as it was more and more becoming on the Continent. The people of England were deprived of Benediction not by any formal attack by the Reformers, nor directly by any reference to it, nor prohibition of it, in any of the reformed prayer books : but just by the fact that England by allowing Henry VIII to make himself her pope cut herself off from the Catholic life, with the result that till recently the children of the Church of England knew nothing of it. And even now the vast majority of people who still go to Church have no knowledge of, and have never received, this great Blessing of the Lord Himself. In the present day we find devotion to the Blessed Sacrament a mark of Catholic life In every country except England. Though making a late entry, may England outrun all others in devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.

A hundred years ago with the revival of Catholicism in the Church of England by the Tractarians there grew up a widespread devotion to the Blessed Sacrament not only in Mass, but, in certain places Benediction was given, and in many more there arose devotions around the Blessed Sacrament. The Reformation was the work of high-brow intellectuals who were out of touch with the people. The services of the Book of Common Prayer were designed for the educated classes, who had some acquaintance with the Breviary offices. They have never caught hold of the masses. There has never been a time when the Blessed Sacrament has not appealed to the simple folk. The growth of devotion to the tabernacle and of the homage paid to God under the form of bread in Exposition, is to be sought, not in official documents, but in popular practices ; not in the ruling powers of the Church, but among the praying people. The Reformers were against the devotions of the people, who rejected the finely-worded services imposed on them. It was because of the forcible imposition of the Act of Uniformity and of the Prayer Book that the devout sought an outlet for their devotional feelings in dissenting chapels and conventicles. The people never understood the attitude of the Reformed Church of England. Officialism and German Protestantism drove out from our Churches the Blessed Sacrament, and with it went the common people. Benediction is the outcome of the devotion of the people to the Blessed Sacrament in Mass and then as reserved in the tabernacle.

In England in our own day we know that the order of growth has been as follows : The Tractarian Movement led to the showing of the Host to the people at the time of Consecration, at the Elevation, and also when the priest turns to the people for Communion and says: "Behold the Lamb of God." Indeed, long before the Tractarians the rubric in the Book of Common Prayer ordering the priest to "break the Bread before the people" had the effect, where the rubric was observed by the priest, of showing the Sacrament to the people The main point is that once you show the Body of Christ to the people there comes a power of devotion which acts as an appetite and calls for more and more of what it craves. In this case it craves a nearer and more prolonged sight of Our Lord under the form of Bread. The Bread of Life once seen and tasted creates a taste for more. Devotion was created in the service of Holy Communion. When Reservation became general this feeling for the sight of Christ became like a great aching pain which seems to be eased only by Benediction. Benediction is to satisfy the craving of the popular heart for Our Lord's own Blessing. As He lifted up His Hands and blessed His disciples at the time of His Ascension, so all succeeding generations desire Him to bless them in His own Person. Benediction is not a thing provided by officials as something necessary to salvation, and as of duty and bare necessity. It is the hunger of pious souls and the craving of the simple heart that always has and always will draw Our Lord into their midst to give Benediction.

The Parts of the Service.

When we look into the service we become conscious that Benediction is a compendium of the Catholic Religion. The Blessed Trinity is worshipped in Benediction. Supreme worship is given to the Blessed Sacrament because it is the Divine Person of the Word. The Blessed Trinity is implied in the Blessed Sacrament inasmuch as the Son came by the operation of the Holy Ghost, and the Son implies a Father. Hence the opening sentences of the Litany are addressed to the Three Persons - Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Our Lord in the Incarnation is here as "Emmanuel God with us." The Atonement is also presented inasmuch as we get the Host by the Mass, wherein is the Sacrifice of Calvary. It is the Living God we worship under the form of Bread. Jesus is Our God. Jesus risen and glorified we worship at Benediction. In the service of Benediction with the Litany of Loretto, we have the great Christian dogmas of the Blessed Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atonement, and the dogmas of the Divine Maternity of Mary, of the Churchy and of Transubstantiation. Benediction requires Reservation and Exposition. Further, Benediction is united with a Greeting to Our Lady and with a Greeting to the Blessed Sacrament. In France the service is called "Salut" or "Greeting." And under all these pious practices there lie certain dogmas of the Faith, so fundamental and so practical that the testimony of great missioners is that Benediction is the most popular service for converting people to the Catolic Religion. I am all the more inclined to believe that this is the case when I see those who hate Catholics doing and saying all they can against Benediction. The devil has a sure instinct : and he directs his fiercest assaults against that practice and that part of the Faith which at this or that time is proving most effective in bringing the world to the Universal Truth.

The Order of Ideas.

I have decided after much consideration to proceed backwards with the subject in order of time, and to trace Benediction from 1934 back to 1000. The other way would be to trace its origins in early days and by progressive steps show how it came to be what it now is. I propose to reverse this method. According to my plan the order will be: Benediction, Expostion, Reservation, Transubstantiation, and Adoration. By separating the various elements of the Service this order will not obscure its history; while it will give a clearer conception of the way in which the parts were brought together through the ages.

CHAPTER I. Benediction.

The Blessing which is given at the end of the service, the priest holding the Blessed Sacrament in a Monstrance, is that part of the ceremony from which the whole service takes its name. Benediction in its present day setting misled the Royal Commission in 1906 to dismiss it as "an extravagance" which till then had "found little favour and which could be safely ignored." The Commissioners committed themselves to the statement that no trace of its existence could be found anywhere till about 1590. They were thinking of the present structure of the whole service. Since 1906 Benediction has made great strides in our midst, and there are many people who now know that the Commissioners did not show much knowledge of the subject, and that their history was greatly at fault. They were wrong in every particular. Benediction is not an extravagance. Benediction cannot safely be ignored: and it only needs to be known to be received with favour by the faithful.

The service of Benediction was among the devotions Of the Tractarians. Dr. Mason Neale had it somewhere back in the fifties. The Roman Catholics in England had it in private chapels any time since the reign of James II. It was sanctioned among them for open use in Churches in 1848. The reason why the service of Benediction has become so fixed in England, as to its form, is that this form is sanctioned in the Ritus Servandus for the Province, and also in the Manual of Prayers put forth by the Roman Catholic Bishops. In other countries the service is very elastic. In Ireland, Belgium, Italy, Germany and Austria there is great freedom of use. Tantum Ergo and the prayer following seem to be the only fixtures. Devotions of all sorts are interposed: as

The Rosary,
Salve Regina,
Te Deum,
Magnificat,

Prayers, Litanies and Hymns. Benediction is given several times at Mass in Austria. At the beginning: of Mass, at the Gospel, and after Mass as a final blessing. At Bruges there is one Benediction given when the Blessed Sacrament is taken from the tabernacle and another in the usual place of dismissal, or sometimes during the singing of "Glory let us give." The prominent place given to the Litany of Lorretto in England goes back to James II. Lights, incense, and Exposition were used in private chapels. The Litany of Lorretto cannot go back any further than 1590. This may have misled the 1906 Commissioners, when they confounded it with Benediction, and when they dated Benediction by the Litany. Benediction ocan be traced back through the Eighteenth and Seventeenth Centuries in old wills leaving money for candles at this service. There are local records which show that in the Eighteenth Century there was Benediction in France in various places. For example, at Sceaux, in 1757, there was Salut with Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament followed by an anthem of our Lady with Benediction, and "De Profundis" at the end of the service. In 1717, at Baigneux, there is a direction that the hymn "Ave Verum" is to be sung while Benediction is being given.

Going back to the Seventeenth Century it suffices to say that in 1673 Benediction was in general use, as witnessed by the Abbe Thiers, according to whom Benediction was then a hundred years old, he having traced it back to I573 so that it is now nearly four hundred years old even on the most ignorant modern hypothesis. There is no dispute about this service in the Eighteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. It was general everywhere in Europe except in these Islands. It is superfluous to produce instances of a thing which was everywhere. As we go further back into the past it becomes more expedient to advance definite evidence of the practice.

Come back to the year 1600. In this year the "Ceremonial for Bishops" was put forth by Clement VIII. It gives directions for Benediction after the Corpus Christi Procession. It runs: "After Tantum Ergo the versicle and Prayer, the Bishop shall ascend to the altar and taking the vessel with the Most Holy Sacrament, holding it upraised with both hands, he turns round to the people saying nothing. After which the Bishop shall set the Blessed Sacrament down again upon the altar and shall genuflect." Based on this "Ceremonial for Bishops" of 1600 are the "Clementine Instructions" of 1705 of a later Pope Clement, as well as all the later rescripts of the Congregation of Rites. The Clementine Instructions still govern the Forty Hours, and the directions for Benediction given therein are the same as those given in 1600. We must fully realize that Benediction is not a Liturgical Service : that authority has left it almost severely alone, and that it existed long before any authoritative instrument recognised its existence. But there you have it in 1600 receiving full recognition in the "Ceremonial for Bishops."

Going back another step we come to the year 1592; when the service of the Forty Hours was officially recognised. This official recognition took place sixty years after the Forty Hours had been in use at Milan, and forty years after its introduction unofficially in Rome. It is certain that Benediction was given long before the Clementine Instructions mentioned it.

Going back step by step we find that in the year 1590 the Litany of Lorretto was in use. This Litany is the latest addition to the service: and 1590 is the earliest date at which it is found. That the Litany of Lorretto should be confounded with Benediction is excusable in ordinary people in whose experience both the Litany and Benediction are frequently united in one service and in fact seldom separated. But it is" inexcusable in bishops and in even moderately learned persons. The 1906 Royal Commission allowed-themselves to make the egregious statement that no trace of the existence of Benediction could be found anywhere before 1590. This statement shows an ignorant confusion of the Litany of Lorretto with Benediction itself. It also shows incidentally how little the authorities know of such matters, seeing- that they cannot even pick for their commissions those who know. Those who sit on such commissions are called upon to pronounce on technical questions, which require in. the judg-es not only learning- but sympathy of belief. ^ It is something- to. be able to quote this commission as evidence-that Benediction was g-lven in 1590: and their evidence is all the more valuable up to this point, as it is g-iven unwillingly and with no desire to g-o further back, but. they are rather surprised to find it g-oes back so far. The confusion of the Commissioners spread like a plague to the Church Papers, and to the Parsonages of England.

For the sake of chronological sequence an interesting note may be inserted at this period. In 1587, at Augsburg-, certain wrong- uses of Benediction are forbidden; while the right use is to go on unchecked. The practices which were then prohibited were: "the moving- of the Body of Christ from Its proper place to bless the air with It," and for what are-called "superstitious benedictions and unlawful adjura-tions." And the Rifcuale g-oes on "but as it is customary to have the air blessed with It in certain districts we allow those prayers "for the calmness of the air."

The Blessed Sacrament was used for exorcisms. Possessed persons were blessed with It. The pyx or monstrance was sometimes placed on the energ-umen's head. It was used for stilling- tempests : and for various ways of bodily protection. The sig-n of the cross \vas made over the oobject or person to be blessed. In 1580, in Italy, in the time of St. Charles Borromeo, the Blessed Sacrament was used for blessing- the crops and for other blessings : as well as for blessing- the worshippers.

From 1592, the year in which the Forty Hours Devotion received official recognition, back to the year 1576, is a period of but sixteen years. In 1576 on the Third Sunday Benediction was given on the return of the Procession to Church. Processions of the Blessed Sacrament on the Third Sunday of every month had been ordered by a Bull of Paul HI. in 1539. There was a Confraternity of the Blessed Sacramenti at Mantua, and in the directions we find that "on the return to the Church the priest will place the Most Holy .Sacrament on the Altar, and he will adore and incense It. Then after the choir have sung- "Word made Flesh true Bread He maketh" and "Tantum Erg-o," and after the two clerics have said "Thou didst g-ive them bread from Heaven," etc., then the priest says "The Lord be with you," and "0 God Who in a wonderful Sacrament," and "The Lord be with you," "Let us bless the Lord." The people say "Thanks be to God." Finally, a cleric shall say in a loud voice: "Jube Domine, benedicere," "Master g-ive a blessing-." Whereupon the priest turns to the people and with the Most Holy Sacrament blesses them, making- the sig-n of the cross, and saying- "May He bless you, f Who liyeth and reig-neth without end." "Ille vos benedicat, j qui sine fine vivat et regnat."

Observe that we are getting- back to the time when besides making- the sign of the cross in Benediction ihe priest utters words of blessing". There is a relic of this practice at Bruges to the present day.

The Mantua Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament in 1576 in their manual refer to one of the duties of their members, namely, to accompany the Blessed Sacrament when taken to the sick. The manual explains w-hat the priest does. He takes two small Hosts, one for the sick-person, and one with which to give Benediction to the attendants upon their return to the Church. The rule runs : "On his return to the Church, placing the Blessed Sacrament on the altar, he turns round to announce the indulg'ence of two hundred days for accompanying the Blessed Sacrament, and he says the prayer "0 God Who in this wonderful Sacrament." "Then let him g-lve them Benediction with the vessel of the Sacrament, saying- "The Blessing- of God the Father Almighty, the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Communion of the Holy Ghost descend and always remain on you. Amen." Following- the stream up a few years we arrive at the year 1574. In this year Benediction was given in the Churches of Milan under St. Charles Borromeo. In the year 1574 St. Charles Borromeo had a service in the Churches of his diocese called "The Uninterrupted Prayer," of which Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament formed an essential element. The Blessed Sacrament was exposed for an hour in each parish of Milan in turn, so that the prayer went on in the city from dawn to sunset. The rubric is : "The senior priest will g-ive the Benediction of the people with the Blessed Sacrament and he w7!!! afterwards replace It while the people sing- what is printed on the card." Here then is an Instance of Benediction without a procession and in the year 1574. In 1573, at Milan, Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament was given in the Churches : while some benedictions with It were forbidden. A Council at Milan forbade the Blessed Sacrament to be taken out to bless the air, and to stop storm-clouds, tempests, whirlwinds or hailstones. "The vasculum or ciborium is not to be taken from the tabernacle for such a purpose. But the priest may open the tabernacle in which It is kept upon the altar and then he may piously and devoutly recite in Its Presence such litanies and other religious prayers as have been drawn up for the purpose." From this and from the instance already noted at Aug-sburg-we gather that when a wrong- use of Benediction is forbidden, the right use is to go on unchecked.

At this point I may remark that the actual giving Of Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament came long before the name of Benediction was given to the Whole service: and it was so natural that it was a long-time before any great emphasis was placed on this par-ticular act. In Milan the F'orty Hours Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was recognised and allowed in 1534; while the first written record of Benediction there is in 1573 and 1574. It is incredible that no Benediction was g-iven in the Forty Hours during- ail those years at Milan. I think you will agree with this conclusion when I have placed before you the evidence from processions and guilds of the Blessed Sacrament. For the present I am content to say that as there is evidence that the Blessed Sacrament w'-as frequently used in blessing- persons and thing's, we are confirmed in our belief that the blessing- would not be neglected, at least in the Forty Hours, where the devotions were specifically directed to the Blessed Sacrament.

In the Middle Ages priests had a habit of blessing the people with some holy thing to add impressiveness to their blessings. Relics were used on solemn occasions for this purpose. There is an instance of St. Hugh of Lincoln, after examining a relic of St. John the Baptist, lifting- it up and blessing the people with it. This was about 1180. An old ordo directs the priest to bless the people in the Church with the holy oil on his return from g-iving- extreme unction to the dying. Priests used even to bless the people after Mass with the holy vessels ; making the sig-n of the cross with them before they left the altar, and sometimes the Corporal even was used for this purpose. Blessing with a crucifix is still common. It is confidently asserted that the Devotion of the Forty Hours, thoug-h formally introduced at Milan in 1534, and at Rome only in 1551 by St. Philip Neri, can be traced back to 1506. People were sure to expect to be blessed with the Blessed Sacrament. Add to this the tremendous devotion there was to the Blessed Sacrament. In the same Sixteenth Century when Fr. Salesius of the Society of Jesus died at the hands of heretics while defending-the truth of the Real Presence, his companions felt that Our Lord singled him out for this honour because of his great devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. It was recalled that scarcely an hour of the day passed without him visiting- It. In the same century St. Peter of Alcantara said that Jesus. is the Companion of the Church in the Blessed Sacrament. As He wants her to have the best company He stays Himself. St. Philip Neri was noted for his devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. When receiving Viaticum, on seeing the Blessed Sacrament enter his room, he exclaimed : "Behold my Love, Behold my Love." This great devotion to tlie Blessed Sacrament was spread to the people through the Forty Hours Exposition. St. Philip Neri at Exposition beheld Our Lord in the Host g-iving- Benediction to the kneeling- crowd as thoug-h it were His customary occupation.

Remember that this outbreak of intense devotion to the Blessed Sacrament coincided with the attacks on the Truth of the Real Presence by Calvin, Luther, and by their English imitators, it was also coincident with the deadly religion of the time of Henry VIII. It was the Church's reply to heresy about the Blessed Sacrament.

To return to our chronological system we come back to the year 1520. In this year was sanctioned in Italy "The Priest's Book" of Albert de Costello. The practice of g-iving- Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament was pre-scribed both after the Sacred Host had been broug-ht back from the sick, and at the close of the Corpus Christi Procession. The directions for Benediction after Corpus Christi Processions are the same as in the Ceremoniale Episcoporum of Clement VtH. in 1600. In the year 1511 the Confraternity of Corpus Christi, at Venice, in the parish of St. Severus, it was the custom, and it was prescribed that "the brethren were always to accompany the Blessed Sacrament when It was borne to the sick, half their number g-oing- before It, and half following- behind It, holding- lighted torches in their hands, and with their banner -and bell to lead the way." Returning-, they escorted the Blessed Sacrament to the Church where they received a special Bene-diction with the Sacred Host and obtained the Indulg-ence of two hundred days. Both the Mantua and Venice Confraternities pledged themselves to hear High Mass on the Third Sunday in the month and to join in the Procession of the Blessed Sacrament. In this record we have clear proof ag-ain of the existence of Benediction arid a Procession of the Blessed Sacrament on the Third Sunday, and this was twenty-nine years before authority authorised it. The Bull of Paul was of 1539, the Venice Statutes are of 1511. The Holy Ghost first moves the people : and then the authorities step in to regulate their devotions. In this case practice preceded authorisation by twenty-eight years.

In the evening service of Benediction the hymn "0 Salutaris Hostia" was used in France in the year 1513. "Salut," as the title for the evening service, is not derived as some sug-g-est from the word "Salutaris" in this hymn. The name "Salut" is derived from "Salve" which occurs in a much older service in honour of Our Lady. The "Greeting" or "Salufc" of Our Lady was prior in time to the "Salut" or "Greeting" of the Blessed Sacrament. So that 0 Salutaris had not been written w^hen Salut was used for Salve. The hymn "0 Salutaris" is taken from the Lauds of Corpus Christi. It was composed by St. Thomas Aquinas for that office about the year 1264. It was brought into the evening-service of Benediction in the year 1513, by the Bishops of France, at the request of Louis XII. The King- was ill and their enemies were threatening- France. They made a solemn appeal to the Blessed 'Sacrament. It was sung- at Mass about the same date. Exposition was probably intro-duced generally in France at this time of national distress ; it was something- like the introduction of Benediction to Anglican Churches under cover of the national calamity of the Great W/'ar. Long before this they had an evening-service called "Salut of Our Lady" that is Greeting- or Salve 'of Our Lady, but after this time we find the term "Greeting-of the Blessed Sacrament" used for the evening- service, showing that Exposition and probably Benediction were linked on to the old service of Salve.

Rules for Benediction after the processions of the Third Sunday, and rules of the g-uilds for attending- the Blessed Sacrament when carried to the sick, and for Benediction on returning- to the Church, have enabled us to bring- our evidence within easy range of the year 1500.

Father Herbert Thurstan says that Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament "Was well-established and widely diffused as the ordinary way of concluding- the service as early as the year 1500." This conservative estimate may be confidently accepted. We can say that four centuries -and a half ag-o Benediction was well-established and widely diffused. Blessed Paula de Montaldo flourished in piety in 1480. She died in 1514. Of her it is said that during- her life she "would never willing-ly be absent when the Benediction of the Most Holy Sacrament was bestowed on the nuns in their Church." Blessed Paula de Montaldo must have enjoyed Benediction long- before the year 1500. In the British Museum there is a book of Hours which belonged to Philip the Fair before he succeeded to the throne of Spain (1506), it has a copy of the Mass. In an illuminated initial letter there is a priest in stole ani alb, his back to the Altar, his face to the people, holding- in his hand a Monstrance with which he is blessing- the people. It is a picture of a priest giving- Benediction with the Most Holy Sacrament, and with a Monstrance. This illuminated letter showing- a Monstrance uplifted by a priest carries us back to -a time prior to 1500. Philip the Fair probably had the book long before he became King: of Spain : and it is likely that the illumination represents an established practice in Spain.

Our evidence covers a spacious geographical area. Italy, France and Spain evidently had Benediction prior to the year 1500. I have not emphasised the g-eography of Benediction, because such a method would involve the danger of pro-lixitv. Nevertheless it would be erroneous to think that Benediction was confined to the three countries named : seeing that Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Austria afford ample evidence of the custom. The evidence with reg-ard to them will be adduced under a different heading-.

Benediction after the Corpus Christi Procession.

In 1404 the Dominican Processional gives directions for a Benediction after the Corpus Christi Procession. The Rhelms Consuetudinary of 1437 gives a similar direction And the Benediction is to be g-iven with the words "The blessing of God the Father Almighty descend upon you and remain with you always." Rudolph, Archbishop of Augs-burg, who died in 1345, complained that a custom prevailed of bringing- the Blessed Sacrament daily, from Corpus Christ! Day to the end of harvest, to the door of the Church and employing It. there in certain forms of blessing- and exorcism, for the safety of the crops. As we have seen, a similar practice existed in Italy in the time of St. Charles Borromeo (1580), Throughout Germany there was a custom of making- Four Stations "in the Corpus Christ! Procession to-read an extract from each of the Four Gospels towards the four points of the compass, and praying- against the scourge of an inclement season. The Blessed Sacrament was turned towards each point of the compass in turn, to ward off evil and protect from harm. In 1450 Felix HemmerI'm wrote a Tract on Blessing the Air with the Blessed Sacrament. He died in 1460. He wrote the tract on the whole question of the lawfulness of using- the Blessed Sacrament for Benedictions. He refers to practices which obtained in Switzerland and Southern Germany in 1420. This Tract would answer some of the objections which are urged against Benediction in the present day, as when it is said that it is an ignoble use for the Blessed Sacrament : and that It was not instituted for this purpose. Here is an extract from Hemmerlin : "If the blessing of a priest with his bare hand that is by laying- it on the head or lifting- it over a cong-reg-ation) avails anything, a blessing- with the sign^of the cross will avail still more. And most profitably of all is that blessing- with the Most Holy Body of Christ. And do not marvel as though it were something- monstrous that such a function of blessing should be carried out by the priests of Christ. Does it not happen every day, and especially on the Feast of Corpus Christi and throughout its Octave, that the pastors of Churches, when the service is over, take with their hands the monstrance or receptacle of the Blessed Sacrament and bless the people therewith adding- the sig-n of the cross? Yet this Holy Sacrifice was never instituted for this ceremony of blessing. But it is done that the blessing-given to the people may be more salutary, efficacious and devotional. Does it not happen every day that the faithful of Christ with eagerness, dillg-ence and recollection run together to see the Unveiled Sacrament (Nudum Sacramentum) and do they not steadfastly believe that this looking on the Host is profitable to the health of body and soul, and avails them more the nearer in the Church they are to It?" I may add that the Blessed Sacrament is put to many devotional uses other than those for which It was primarily instituted. It was primarily instituted as a Sacrifice, and then for Communion : and in either use It is to be worshipped. Why should He not bless us? He shed all His Precious Blood to impress us with His profusion of love, His g-enerosity and His munificence : although one drop of It would suffice to save a thousand worlds. Can you imag-ine a Saviour W^ho did this solely to impress us, refusing- His Body to be lifted up to bless us when He knows that nothing-else so deeply moves us with the sense of His love and favour? If He lovingly allowed Himself to be lifted up on Calvary by impious hands, and even rejoiced in that terrible lifting- up, is it conceivable that He would object to be painlessly lifted up by the loving hands of His priests, to bless the loving- subjects who adore Him for this mark of His condescension?

To return to the evidence. In 1400 the Carthusian Order had Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament on three occasions : after the Corpus Christi Procession ; after the Procession in the Octave ; and after Vespers in the Octave. This blessing- after Vespers is to be emphasised, as the 'Carthusians are very conservative and would be late in .adopting- anything- fresh. If they had arrived at the point of authorisation only in 1400 it is safe to say that they were probably one hundred years behind the rest of the Church. In the Middle Ages the people expected a blessing- after the procession, and they got it.

There is very little reference to Benediction in England since the Reformation. During- the times when it was a ocrime to be a Roman Catholic there is evidence of Reservation and of Exposition in a monstrance. But so far as I am aware there is no evidence of Benediction. The same is. largely true of Ireland. The history of Eng-lish and Irish Catholicism in the Seventeenth and Eig-hteenth Centuries is the history of a persecuted Church ; fig-hting- for its very existence. There were none of the luxuries of devotion. So that we are very much surprised to find that a Jesuit, Fr. Worthing-ton, imprisoned in the Prison Gate in London from 1615 to 1618, ventured, though seldom, "for fear of the-Jews," that is, from fear of spies and informers, to expose the Blessed Sacrament in a crystal box or case, shining with rays. In 1606 when Donna Luisa de Carvajal came to London from Spain, she was grieved to find that the Blessed Sacrament was nowhere reserved, not even in the Ambas-sador's Chapel. She ventured on Reservation in her own house : and she wrote to her cousin telling her so : and she continues : "This must not be mentioned on any account, not even to Spaniards, for it would cause us a hundred new difficulties. The houses of Catholics are the Catholic Churches in England, but scarcely anyone dares to keep the Blessed Sacrament except for a short time and in onlv some very secure place." The Venerable Nicholas Postgate reserved in the secret loft-chapel at Eaton Bridge. The place of the tabernacle is still to be seen in the wall. Ancient monstrances are to be heard of at Everingham, and in such inventories as that of Thomas Higgins, in London, on September 17, 1786. There are traditions in out of the way parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire of an unextinguished sanctuary light. But as a rule priests reserved the Blessed' Sacrament on their own persons, as missionaries still do in some countries, and as the Irish Clergy did till recent years. Venerable George Napper was carrying the Blessed Sacrament when he was seized at Kidlington in 1610. The persecutions of Henry VIII. and of Elizabeth were both thorough and bloody. The penalty of death was meted out to priests who said Mass : and all'Hearers of Mass suffered severely. It is wonderful to find evidence of the Reservation: and worship of the Blessed Sacrament in these awful times. It is necessary to give a few such details to prevent questions arising- which apply to all times of persecution. You do not find much evidence of the Christian Mysteries in any time of persecution. Even in the Church of England in recent years, Reservation has been carried on under conditions of secrecy which Dr. Darwell Stone says were not good : although he does by no means blame priests for hiding the Blessed' Sacrament from those in authority who act as though they were heathen magistrates of old. We do not blame the Christians for hiding their Bibles from the authorities, under the floors, we blame the authorities who are at such pains to persecute pious people. We do not blame priests for hiding the Blessed Sacrament from the danger of sacrilege at the hands of unbelievers in Its Divinity.

To return to Benedition. In 1319 there seems to have been a habit of Bishops to give Solemn Bendiction with the Blessed Sacrament at the end of Mass in England: at least, on great occasions. This seems to have been done by the Bishop of Norwich who said Mass for the Bishops assembled in London in 1319. He had the Blessed Sacra-ment before him, and out of reverence for It he appears to have given Benediction with It. There w^ere many Bishops present, and this Bishop seems to have preferred using- the Blessed Sacrament rather than his pastoral staff, in blessing-his fellow prelates. He did it out of reverence for the Blessed Sacrament, rightly thinking- It should be preferred to himself or his staff.

What we have learned, so far, is that Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament in connection with the service as we have it can be traced back to the year 1500 : that as early as 1340 Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament was regularly given after the Corpus Christ! Procession : and on getting-back to Church from sick visitation. We have carried Benediction back to about 1300.

CHAPTER II. Exposition.

Passing now from actual Benediction with the sign of the cross to Exposition, or the showing of the Blessed Sacrament, we are first to look out for the Monstrance. We find monstrances everywhere at the present day, and you can get monstrances offered you in shops abroad, of two hundred or two hundred and fifty years of age. We saw that Fr. Worthington used a monstrance in 1615.

Our next earlier date is 1539, and still in England. We find monstrances in England four hundred years ago. There was a custom of enclosing the Blessed Sacrament in :a cross on Good Friday and burying- it in the Sepulchre. And then on Easter Day the Blessed Sacrament was placed in an image of Our Lord and carried in procession with great solemnity and joy to the High Altar. The crosses were of crystal so that the Blessed Sacrament could be seen. The images of Our Lord or of Our Lady had a door of crystal or beryl or glass, and they were called monstrances. These images were common in England and on the Continent. They are mentioned in the inventories of Lincoln Minster and of Durham Cathedral. They were used in the Palm Sunday, Corpus Christ! and Easter Day Processions as monstrances for the Blessed Sacrament. In 1539 complaint was made to Henry VIII. that at Salisbury the people were allowed to kiss this image. The King had forbidden the worship of images. Now this image was probably of Our Lord and it contained the Blessed Sacrament and the popular feeling was sound and showed great veneration for the Blessed Sacrament, and the King's men were charged with sacrilege for trying to prevent the people worshipping It. The kissing of the image was an act of worship of the Blessed Sacrament. The veneraton of this image used as a monstrance, and of the Blessed Sacrament was in the afternoon and altogether apart from the procession and from Mass. The sadness of Good Friday was in those days deepened by the placing of the Blessed Sacrament in the Sepulchre where no notice was to be taken of It.

You can see what a difference the Reformation made in our realization of the desolation of Good Friday and of the joy of Easter Day. By discouraging these ceremonies of the Easter Sepulchre there was taken away the best way of keeping Christians in the right spirit. Where the Easter -Sepulchre now exists, after the Veneration of the Cross and the Mass of the presanctified, and the placing of the Blessed Sacrament in the Sepulchre without a public light, we realize the desolation of Good Friday. But even now we have not that Easter Joy of our forefathers with the great Procession of the Blessed Sacrament in Its great monstrance on Easter Day.

The use of the crucifix as a monstrance is still in vogue in parts of Germany and the Tyrol. Edmund Bishop gives instances of monstrances consisting of an image of the Blessed Virgin made of silver, in these cases the Blessed Sacrament was put in a monstrance held in the hand of the image. And the dates he gives range from 1520 to 1540. In England the Blessed Sacrament was enclosed in the breast of the image of Our Lord, behind a transparent door. The Blessed Sacrament was shown in one of these monstrances to Henry VII. on his deathbed. In 1560 a controversialist in Germany complained that: "Besides the Daily Elevation in Mass the Blessed Sacrament is exposed to men's gaze too much, and indeed, is generally left open to view : and there is at times unusual, continuous and almost daily Exposition, as they call it, of the Blessed Sacrament in transparent monstrances." It is evident that the man had no sympathy with Catholic worship. His testimony is good for Exposition. Most of the great Churches in England at the Reformation had these crosses of crystal and images of Our Lord as monstrances. And there are great authorities who hold it most probable that the monstrance is included among the ornaments of the Church which the Ornaments Rubric commands to be in use.

Under the year 1521 Edmund Bishop tells of a Church at Munster where on the feast of their dedication the Masses were celebrated in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament exposed in a monstrance placed over the altar. I saw at Constance Minster, about thirty years ago, one of the big-silver figures of Our Lady used for Exposition there on great occasions. There are still in Germany in some Lutheran Churches the old Sakramentshauschen for Perpetual Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. They are curious structures apart from the altars, in which there was Per-petual Exposition at an earlier date than we have yet reached. The Sacrament Houses are tabernacles of stone erected apart from the altar in places accessible to the people. The doors are of strong trellis work of metal, so as to give a view with safety to the transparent monstrance within, while they allowed of the precious treasure of the Body of Christ to be freely gazed on by the devout. Of course, in many places the metal has perished, leaving an open aperture.

To return to the crosses and images. In 1505 in the inventory of Angers Cathedral we read of "a silver gilt vessel with two angels supporting a cross upon which rests a lunette of gold in which the Sacred Host is wont to be enshrined upon th.e Feast of the Consecration of the Body of Our Lord." In 1402 St. Paul's, London, had "The cross of crystal to put the Body of Christ in and carry It upon the Feast of Corpus Christi and at Easter, with a crown of silver gilt beneath it studded with pearls." In 1452 a Council of Cologne forbids the practice of using- open monstrances except on the Feast of Corpus Christi. In 1416 a Council of Breslau says they had given permission for certain places, for the increase of devotion, that on some few days a week the Blessed Sacrament should be visibly exposed to public view7. But now being better advised they withdraw it, except, for the Feast of Corpus Christi. Continuous Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament is to be found in Germany in the year 1380.

There is no lack of monstrances from 1300 to 1400. There is a little one at Dantzig, eighteen inches high, made to hold a cylinder of glass or -crystal for the Body of Christ. It belongs to the fourteenth century Blessed Dorothea in 1380 lived near Dantzig. She had a great longing to see the sacred Host, and as there were not enough Masses to carry her through the day in the Presence of Our Lord, she used to go to Dantzig for her Masses ; and then to a little Chapel dedicated to Corpus Christi that "she might gaze upon the Body of Christ which was kept there open to view in a monstrance." And there was another little Chapel of St. Gertrude where the Blessed Sacrament was openly reserved in a Monstrance. This fashion of open Reservation was not of long continuance. It is found from 1380 to 1450. At this period there are great numbers of Spanish Monstrances. They date from 1350 to 1400. The Spanish monstrances are enormous. Examples found at Toledo, Seville and Barcelona are ten to twelve feet high, and they are one ton in weight.

In France monstrances were in general use at this time. An instance of a very early one is found in 1324. It is mentioned in an entry in the book of burials of the Church of Rheims : "On this day died Robert de Courtney, Arch-bishop of Rheims, who bequeathed to us three mitres, three crosses, staves covered with silver, a g-olden cross and a crystal in the middle in which is placed the Body of Christ and It is carried in procession on the Feast of the Most Holy Sacrament." Here is an unequivocal record of a monstrance in 1324. In 1319, John Triers gave to the Church of Mainz a monstrance of silver gilt with a crystal face. It v/as to be used for the Easter Sepulchre, and for Corpus Christi, and "in the other processions in which the Body of Christ is wont to be carried for special needs." John Triers was Archdeacon of Mainz. This is important as showing that open monstrances were used very soon after the institution of the Feast of Corpus Christi : also that the authorities valued them : and that there were other occasions than the Feast of Corpus Christi when the Blessed Sacrament was exposed for special needs. It was about this time. that the Bishop of Norwich g-ave Benediction at Mass as something- not unusual.

Thirteenth Century Monstrances are not Uncommon.

Some time between the years 1260 and 1300 there is in Germany notice of a tabernacle which was made in two divisions. Evidently the upper part was meant for Exposition : for it consists of a tower of tinted glass,. intended to give a view of the Host Inside. There is an inscription beneath : "They who eat this Bread shall live forever." There is a record of one in the year 1250, at Bari, in Italy, and it has on it, "Here is the Body of the Lord." LTnder the year 1286 there was procured from the Abbey of Herkenrode an hexagonal tower-shaped vessel surmounted by a crucifix and small statues, with the following inscription, "In the year 1286 the holy Lady Prioress of Dist in. Herkenrode caused this vessel to be made. The faithful should always remember her." There is a fresco of the year 1100 in the Church of St. Ambrose, Milan, which is of a priest holding a monstrance, which points to Exposition and even Benediction being-known there in the Twelfth Century.

It is gratifying to find that England was not behind the rest of Christendom in her devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. The Thirteenth Century would not have reached such a pinnacle of splendour in England without the Blessed Sacrament. It is remarkable that the people's services should be so common, because in England the monks were the chief movers in religion : for which reason the common people were not so well provided with popular devotions. Bishop Stubbs called the Thirteenth Century the golden age of English Churchmanship. It was the golden age of English Monachism. And the monks were chiefly recruited from the gentry, not from the aristocracy ; hence we do not expect to find the popular services in this age. Nevertheless, processions of the Host were general. The devotion to the Blessed Sacrament has always been connected with popular services like the Salve, and not with the Divine Office, which occupies and satisfies a monk. The friars came and stirred up the intellectuals to devotion, and made them share their devotions with the people. The people had more freedom of worship in Saxon and Early Norman times : and in those times we find religion not stiff and formal, but popular. Nevertheless, in England there were processions of the Blessed Sacrament in the Thirteenth Century: and there-fore monstrances were then the ordinary ornaments of the Church. Whether Exposition often or daily was common or not I cannot say. I do not know7. But this I do know, that in England there were plenty of monstrances for use at special times. In 1280 at Glastonbury there was a cross of crystal, evidently for Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, and a baldachino woven with leopards and gold, to carry over It in tlie processions. Glastonbury would be early in its adoption of the Corpus Christi Procession ; and it is quite likely that those who had the Good Friday crystal cross would use it on Corpus Christi and with it the baldachino as a canopy for the Blessed Sacrament.

In England the devotion of the multitude to the Blessed Sacrament was expressed widely throughout the country by processions of the Sacred Host, which could not take place without a monstrance. There was at Westminster a large nooster, or monstre. It is described as "a large vessel of beryl for the Blessed Sacrament." It is mentioned in the year 1387.

PROCESSIONS. The Corpus Christi Procession.

The Feast of Corpus Christi was sanctioned in the diocese of Liege in 1246, by Urban IV., and then allowed everywhere. In 1311 at the Council of Vienne it was imposed on the whole Church by Clement V. There is evidence of Processions of the Host in 1316. England took them up greedily. In 1325 at Ipswich the Gild Merchant speaks of a tabernacle in which the Body of Christ was carried in procession. In 1334 at Coventry there was a Procession of the Host. In 1349 there was a Corpus Christi Guild at Cambridge. And it was to educate enoug-h priests to sing-their Mass that the members of this Guild founded the College of Corpus Christi. The processions of Corpus Christi became general through the country. You have often heard it truly said that according to Western Church Law every parish priest has the right to have the Blessed Sacrament carried in procession on the Feast Of Corpus Christi. That is the custom of the West. It is interesting to note that it was in 1279 and 1281 that Packham's Constitutions were made, in which the Arch-bishop did so much to add dig'nity and solemnity to the Procession of the Blessed Sacrament to the sick : that is in the very century of the establishment of the Corpus Christi Festival.

The Good Friday Procession.

We have now to deal with the origin Of Exposition out of Mass. The Abbe Thiers proves that Exposition arose from the Processions and not the Processions from Exposition. The Good Friday Procession has already come in for some mention. In the Procession of Good Friday the Blessed Sacrament is naturally veiled. After the Veneration of the Cross a Procession was made in which the Blessed Sacrament was carried veiled, along with the cross, and both were laid in the Sepulchre. The people communicated in the old days, and the Hosts left over were taken to the Alter of Repose, while a special Host was buried with, and sometimes in, the cross, to be exhumed on Easter Day. In the year 1228 we find this in vogue at Salisbury where the Body of Christ was placed within the cross. The Custom of the Procession of the Presanctified on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday was inherited from time immemorial. There is little difference in procedure since the Ninth Century. The point is that in the Thirteenth Century we find evidence of something more being- made of these Processions. And there was a marked favouring of Imposition out of Mass. Between 1200 and 1300 in a Resurrection Play at Kloster Neuberg, it says : " In the holy night of Easter the bell rung for Mattyns, the Superior, taking with him some of the brethren, shall remove the Body of the Lord and the cross from the Sepulchre with devotion and reverence, sprinkling and worshipping them, and singing in hushed tones the responsory, " The Good Shepherd has risen Who laid down His Life for the sheep."

Palm Sunday Procession.

From 1166 to 1183 Simon, the Abbot of St. Alban's, had a casket in which the Blessed, Sacrament was carried in the Palm Sunday Procession, "that the people might see with what honour the Most Holy Body of Christ should be treated." In 1255 in the Consuetud'inary of Salisbury it is laid down "that a shrine shall be prepared with relics from which the Body of the Lord shall be suspended in a pyx whilst the branches of palm are being- prepared." The introduction of the Palm Sunday Procession to England was due to Archbishop Lanfranc and this Procession arose out of the controversy about the Real Presence in which Lanfranc was the protagonist of the truth of the Blessed Sacrament with the heretic Berengar in opposition. The great Archbishop was born in the year 1005. Berengar was born in the year rooo. Lanfranc became Prior of Bee. Berengar attacked the Church's Truth about the Blessed Sacrament ; he was professor at Tours, and he naturally came into conflict with Lanfranc, who was one of the out-standing- champions of that truth in France, where they both lived. This was in 1045. Berengar was jealous o'f Laniranc. Lanfranc tried without success to get Berengar to a conference that he might convince him of his errors. Berengar always refused, and he was condemned by four councils. Some time between 1050 and 1070 Lanfranc introduced the Blessed Sacrament into the Palm Sunday Procession at Bee, where he was Prior : and when he became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1070 he introduced the same thing- into England.

I consider that historically I have carried you from 1934 to the year 1000. Benediction carried us to 1300; and Exposition carried us to about 11OO. The Mass of the Presanctined and the Maundy Thursday and Good Friday Processions can be traced to the earliest times in the East . There is no controversy about them. Those Processions are Processions of the Host, and they are Primitive.

I must now give some further account of Exposition. Exposition had its origin in the sig-ht of the Host in Com-munion. St. Cyril in 325 told his First Communicants to bless their eyes with the Host before receiving- It in Communion, in which act we have a very early instance of Benediction of oneself with the Blessed Sacrament, somewhat as we now bless ourselves with Holy Water. There is Exposition also at the Elevation in Holy Mass. I do wt refer to the Elevation before the Lord's Prayer, which is not intended for exposition, but to signify the offering of the Son to the Father : but I mean the prior Elevation which takes place immediately after the Consecration, and which is for iso other purpose than to show Our Lord to the people. It is His showing- unto Israel. This was represented in the Early Liturgies, when the Great Doors were thrown open after the Consecration and the priest came out carrying- the Blessed Sacrament, and then he showed It to the people. This showing of the Blessed Sacrament to the people is in the following Liturgies: 'the Armenian Liturgy; the Modern Greek, which is the Liturgy of St. Basil and St. Chrysostom ; the Byzantine of the Ninth Century ; the Liturgy of the Presanctined of the Ninth Century ; and in the Syrian of the Fifth and Eighth Centuries. Here is an example from the Liturgy of St. Mark. The priest comes out holding- up the Blessed Sacrament and crying-: "Bow your heads to Jesus." The people bow and cry : "To Thee O'Lord." The'Prayer of Intense Adoration is said to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament as the priest elevates It. The Liturgy of St. James has the same prayer ; in which Liturgy Communion is ordered to be given from the priest's hand into the mouth of the Communicant. It is so ordered in the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. The Elevation is mentioned by St. Basil, St. Anastasius and Pseudo-Dionysius : and, of course, this is nothing but Exposition. Hence we are justified in saying that Exposition and Benediction, like the Christian Religion, had their origin in the East. People often say that the East have no extra-liturgical devotions to the Blessed Sacrament. It is not fair to say this if it conveys the idea that the Easterns are lacking- in devotion to the Blessed Sarament. It does little harm to those who have studied the Early Liturgies and who realize the intense adoration of the Blessed Sacrament which is given during the three hours at Mass. But for the benefit of those who are not thus learned it should be said that in the Orthodox Eastern Churches Benediction is given with the Blessed Sacrament after the Communion of the people. The Rev. I. Frank Buxton, lately an English Chaplain in Petrograd, gives the following- account of Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament as celebrated in Petrograd with the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom. He says : "After the Communion of the people, the priest and deacon are directed to return to the Holy Table, and to place the Blessed Sacrament there, and to cense It thrice. This censing is done by the priest. Then the paten is put on the head of the deacon, who holds it there ready to carry It to the credence table, while the priest takes the veiled Chalice containing the Blessed Sacrament in both kinds, mixed together, and going to the Royal Doors says, facing- the people, "Blessed be our God always, now and forever and world without end," and then according to the custom in Russia he makes the sign of the cross with the Blessed Sacrament, which is Benediction. In face of this It is untrue to say that Benediction is unknown in the East. In that part of the Church there is less need for extra liturgical devotions, after a Three Hours' Mass which has ended with Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament. A representation of the Eastern rite of Benediction may be be seen in "Pictures of Russian Worship," by P. H. Douglas, Faith Press. At the Serbian Mass at St. Anselm, Cambridge, during- the War, the priest came down from the altar outside the screen and held up the Blessed Sacrament, veiled, over the people. This amounts to Benediction in their Liturgy. From all this we are justified in saying that Benediction IS a universal custom of the Church. The East does it, even the Anglican Communion here and in America does it, some consciously, and a g-reat number in an unauthorised way. Those priests who do it consciously, do it as they give Communion, making the sign of the cross over' each communicant, only being careful not to take the Body beyond the circumference of the ciborium. This is according to the Roman rubric. Those who do it without authorisation do it r at "Behold tlie Lamb of God," by making an unauthorised sig-n of the cross. It is comforting- to think that in thousands of Anglican parishes Benediction is given one way or another at least on every Sunday. There "is probably not a diocese in the world where Our Lord does not secure that by some means or other He blesses His people under the Form He has chosen for His Life among- us-the Form of Bread.

The Elevation in the West.

When this began we do not know exactly. It may have originated about 850 to support the orthodox views of Paschasius Radbert, Abbot of Corbie, ag-ainst those whose views on the Blessed Sacrament were more or less heretical. Raban Maur, Ratramn, and even Scotus Erigena, all men of position and prominence, held views on the Blessed Sacrament which were new and inclined to heresy. The Church replied by putting Jesus up in front of His People. Whether this Elevation began in 850, or in 1050, as a protest against the heretical Berengar, it was certainly widely done at this later time and was probably done locally two hundred years earlier. It became more general in reply to the heresy of Peter the Chanter in 1199. Peter said the bread was not consecrated until the words had been spoken over the chalice also. It is still the case that it is the Host which is ordered to be lifted high enough for the people to see It, and the Roman Ritual forbids the raising of the chalice to such a height. The Church has ever met her enemies by exalting the Blessed Sacrament. Later, the successive errors of the Waldenses in the Alps (in Switzerland, Bohemia and Moravia) ; the Wickliffites in England ; and the Hussites in Prague ; had the effect of bringing the Blessed Sacrament to the front, and rivetted on the Church the love of looking- on Jesus elevated to confound His enemies. In the early part of 1200 the Elevation of the Host was universal. A hundred years later it was a cultus. Wickliff did not like it.. Errors about the Blessed Sacrament were always met by the faithful showing more devotion to It.

In the whole Church of the West there was widespread devotion of Jesus exposed at the Elevation. There came to be a sort of sacramental efficacy attached to looking upon the Blessed Sacrament. It is to this that we owe the squint holes of this time, so that the people outside could see the Elevation at the altar, which is just in the line of sight of the slits. Wickliffe protested against this devotion. (For a list of his errors see Darwell Stone Euch I. 365 and 366). Before Wickllffe's time the Lay Folk's Mass Book (1180) laid emphasis on " beholding the Elevation and doing reverence to Jesus Christ's own presence," and it directed the wor-shippers to "hold up both hands to salute the King Jesus." "The Ancren Riwie," the Rule for an Anchoress, written in the year 1210 by Bishop Richard Poore, has a long passage telling anchoresses to worship the Blessed Sacrament which is reserved over the High Altar, and also it lays special stress on the power of the Blessed Sacrament, and the virtue, of looking on Jesus at the Elevation. There is a great deal on the adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in this Thirteenth Century Book. Laying down the daily devotions of an anchoress, the Bishop says, speaking- of the devotions of the morning : "And think upon God's Flesh and Blood which is over the High Altar, and fall on your knees towards o It. Thus shall you do also when the priest elevates It at Mass, and before the confession, when you are to receive the Host." The Bishop places the Blessed Eucharist above all other helps to lead a life of prayer and penance. "Believe firmly that all the power of the devil melteth away through the grace of the Holy Eucharist, which ye see elevated above all, as oft as the priest says Mass and consecrates the Virgin's Child Jesus, the Son of God, W^lio in Communion descends bodily to your inn, and humbly taketh His lodging with you." In 1410, in a book entitled "Instructions to Parish Priests," by Myrc, we read : "Every day thou mayst see that same Body that died for thee." "If anyone has seen God on any day there is no need for them to have Viaticum that day should they be called to die, the sight would stand instead of Viaticum" : "The sight of Christ's Body the day It is seen preserves the sight" : "The sight of the Blessed Sacrament doth subdue all evil thoughts." It was even discussed among- theologians whether it was lawful for one in mortal sin to fix his eyes on the Body of Christ, it was decided that it was profitable to the soul of the sinner. Henry of Hesse (Langenstein) flourished in 1350. In his book "Secrets of Priests," he tells how "priests held the Host aloft for a long time, and even totter and nearly lose their balance looking up at It. Some wave the Host, and turn It this way and that for the people in the transepts to see." It appears that some priests held their fingers in such a way at the Elevation that people behind the altar could not see the Host: and the people felt so bound to see It that they owere compelled to come round to the front of the altar or hear another Mass. A German writer tells of a custom in his day in some places, that after an infant had been baptized, the priest fetched the pyx with the Blessed Sacrament ; he lifted up one of the Hosts for the Godparents to see, replaced It, washed his fing-ers, and gave the water to the infant to drink. This is a survival of the ancient custom of giving- the Precious Blood to infants. The point is that great virtue came to the Godparents and to the Infant from seeing' the Blessed Sacrament. That this is a sound devotional instinct is proved by the fact that the Church offers special blessings (indulgences) to all who look on the Sacred Host at this Elevation in Mass and strike the breast thrice and say with each stroke "God be merciful to me a sinner." The habit of burying the face in the hands throughout all prayer time and at the Consecration is confined to Church of England folk : and it is not a Catholic habit. I have been told several times by devout Catholics that both at the Elevation and during Exposition the eyes are drawn to the Sacred Host as by an irresistibe attraction. Happy eyes to be so sensitive to the presence of God ! About Christmass. time in 1929 a woman motoring to Mass was attacked by extreme pain and fatigue of the glands. She wondered whether she would be able to drive home after Mass. At the time of the Elevation she looked up at the Sacred Host and she felt the pains in her neck fading" rapidly downwards and away. She had no thoug'ht of being cured, when she lifted her eyes. The cure came unsought : but it came with the sight of the Great Healer in the Blessed Sacrament. Such Instances are by no means rare.

Giraldus Cambrensis in his "Gems of the Church," writing about 1200, relates a story of Maurice, Archbishop of Paris, in his last mortal sickness. It is a story which shows how sensitative Saints become in their sensing- of the Presence of the Sacred Host. The Archbishop desired Viaticum. His Chaplain, remembering that he had received Communion three days before, and deeming it unsafe in his state of exhaustion for him to have the Blessed Sacrament again, broug-ht an unconsecrated host to his bedside : so that if he failed to sw^allow it no harm would be done. But the Arch-bishop, raising himself to look was not deceived, and he cried, "Ye are deceivers. I should never have thought it of you. It is not this thing that I asked of you, but the very Presence of my Lord Jesus Christ. I desire that Christ may come to me in His own proper Person." When a true Host was brought he threw himself on the floor adoring, and said : "This is It, this is indeed what I crave, that upon which I build all my hopes. This is indeed in very truth the longing of my soul." This story illustrates several things. It proves Reservation ; it shows the power wdiich Exposition has on the soul through the eye ; it shows the importance attached to Viaticum, and it shows the reverence given to the Sacred Host, both by the Chaplain, who feared that sickness would hinder Its reaching Its destination, namely, digestion ; and by the s'ck Archbishop, who, though in mortal pain, prostrated himself on the floor in the sacred presence of the Host. It also illustrates the great importance which is to be attached to fixing the eves on the Sacred Host. And when it was impossible through absence for the eve to see Him, the ear was called into action, so that even the absent were expected to adore at the Elevation when they heard the bell in the Church tower. In 1281 in Peckham's. Constitutions it is ordered, " Let the bells be tolled at the Elevation of the Body of Christ, that they who have not leisure to be daily present at Mass may bend their knees and gain the Indulgences granted by many Bishops." A Sacring-Bell was rung in the Church to the end that all eyes might be lifted to g'aze upon the Lord of Glory under the covert of bread. The Sacring Bell is one of the ornaments ordered by the Book of Common Prayer. In all the text-books of Canon Law there is an earnest admonition to the faithful to kneel and adore at this place in the Mass. We find this practice as late as 1444 at Eton. The Statutes of Eton, issued in the name of Henry VI. in 1444, order that when the bell gives warning- of the Elevation at Hig'h Mass the scholars are to leave their tasks and enter the Church and falling- down adore the Body of Christ saying- "We adore Thee 0 Christ and we bless Thee, because by Thy holy Cross Thou didst redeem the world." The rule in St. Paul's School was somewhat different. At the Sacring Bell of the Chaplain's Mass all the scholars in the school were to kneel in their seats and with uplifted handspray at the time of sacring', and "after sacring when the bell knelleth again they shall sit down again to their books learning." From noo there grew up this devotion to the sight of Jesus in the Sacred Host in Mass. It eventually grew so strong that, as we have seen, it led in Germany to Perpetual Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament unveiled, and in the Catholic Church generally to Exposition at P^vening Prayer.

We have in our survey covered one thousand years. We have pushed our way back to somewhere between 900 and 1000 A.D. We have dealt with Benediction, Exposition and Processions. There remain some very interesting- and fundamental thing-s to be considered. For thing's of fundamental importance there remain Reservation, Tran-substantiation and Adoration. For interest and fascination few thing's can surpass the matter of Popular Evening-Services : which come under the head of Salut, which means Greeting- to Our Lady, or to the Blessed Sacrament.

Popular Evening Services. When we look at the parts of which the service of Benediction is made up, we always find in Eng-land some devotions to Our Lady. When the Litany of Loretto is said, as it g-enerally is, we notice that a ,g-reat part of the time is taken up with Salutations to Our Lady. This has come about by the process of growth. The orig-inal stock on which our service of Exposition and Benediction is grafted is the afternoon or evening- services of the Middle Ages in which the laity took part. -When only monks and nuns knew how to read, the laity con-Id not join in .the evening- offices of Vespers and Compline. It came about that some parts of those services which they heard, sung- by Relig-ious became known to them by frequently hearing- them. And then there g-rew up the pupular Evening- Service quite. odistinct from Vespers and Compline, which was very short, consisting- of the Salve Reg-ina and Night Prayers, and very brig-ht because many candles were lit around the imag-e of Our Lady, or at the Lady Altar. The whole service lasted perhaps a quarter of an hour, and the Salve was sung-. The Rosary was said and beads were used from verv early times. Lady Godiva of Coventry in 1040 left a string- of beads on which she used to say her prayers, and it was to be hung- on the statue of Our Lady. The evening devotions to Our Ladv were used by g-uilds and confraternities. They were set to popular tunes and sung-. They were in the vernacular. Exposition came later. Evening- Services or in the country nnd in early days, afternoon services, were popular. And when the devotion to the Blessed Sacrament became strong-and widely spread, seeing- It there in the tabernacle with a lig-ht burning- before Tt, it was only natural that the devout would wish to set eyes on the Sacred Most in their beloved Evening- Devotions. So Exposition came to be associated with the Evening- Prayers, consisting- as they did very largely of devotions to Our Lady. There is evidence of these Evening- Services in Eng-land, in Belg-ium, in France, and more especially in Italy. In ItaSv they were called Laudi ; in Belg-ium they were called Lof, Love or Praise ; in France they were called Salut, Greeting- ; and in Eng-land they w-ere called Salve, or Hail. Exposition and Benediction made their way into the Salve or Service of Our Lady. The authorities allowed them as a concession to the "popular feeling- of love for the Blessed Sacrament." The original part of the service still survives in the Litany of Loretto ; that is to say, the more ancient past is represented by the Litany. It is easy to see how the service grew into its present form when the Blessed Sacrament was exposed to view. First there was the Salve and Rosary, then Tantum Ergo and the Prayer, and then 0 Salutaris. Both of these hymns are by St. Thomas Aquinas, who is also the author of the Corpus Christi Mass ; and they were made for the Feast which was sanctioned in 1264. The Salve was the people's Divine Office : it followed the'analogy of popular devotions. The Rosary with 150 Aves was the Psalter in miniature ; the Stations of the Cross were a pilgrimage to Palestine in miniature ; the Angelus was a shortened form of the Three Prayers of the monk. So Salve is the people's Vespers and Compline. It is interesting- to note that these services of praise, love and personal greeting- were firmly established institutions as early as the year 1200. The Laudi was a fixed service ; so was Lof, as well as the service of the Greeting- or Salut derived from Salve, and Salve itself : all were fixed and had the same purpose. In Italy the Laudesi, or popular sing-ers of the praises of Our Ladv, met at the Franciscan Church of Cortona. They flourished from 1200 to 1500 ; and the service spread to F'rance as Salut and to Flanders as Lof. The services were in the vulgar tong-ue. In 1500 the maidens of Pisa were accustomed to sing- the praises of Mary before her picture every evening-. In 1233 the Guild of the Laudesi developed into the Order of Servites or Servants of Mary. It was while singing- Laudes (praises of Mary) in their Chapel at Florence in 1233 on the Feast of the Assumption that the Seven Founders felt a common impulse to renounce the world. In England the Salve was the Anthem of Our Lady sung at Vespers and Compline. We have a relic of it in the Book of Common Prayer in the Anthem or Antiphon. In the year 1344 at St. Magnus, London Bridge, there was a Confraternity of Our Lady of the Salve Reg-ina. William Double, Henry Boseworth, Stephen Lucas, and other burghers, "of their great devotion and to the honour of God and His Glorious Mother Our Lady Mary the Virgin made a chantry to sing an Anthem of Our Lady called Salve Reg-ina every evening-. Five wax lights for the five joys of Our Lady are to be burned during- the Anthem, for reverence of the five joys, for exciting-people to devotion, and the more to merit to their souls." At this Church certain priests and clerks were paid a stipend for singing- the Lady Mass ai°|d the Salve. There were "Masters of the Salve" in England and there were "Masters of the Lot" in Antwerp. Arnold's Chronice gives these facts under the year 1344. In 1392 the Salve was sung at St. Nicholas, Bristol, at St. Paul's, London, and at St. Thomas's, Sandwich. It was also sung at St. John Baptist, Sandwich. In all these cases money was left for lights during the Salve every night. In 1348 William Palmer left money to St. Catherine's, Smithfield, "for lights (5 gaudyes) for Salve." At the Church of the English Canonesses of Bruges there is a candle lit at Salve to this day, with some little ceremony. It is a custom which they have carried on from the days of Elizabeth in 1600 and which they brought with them from England in that year. The Salve Regina is sung: the candle is known as Our Lady's candle : it is in a huge candle-stick standing in choir. When Salve is ended the candle is outed. In the Church of St. Swithun, Worcester, in a will of Nicholas Pyper, of 1399, twenty pence is left "for the light before the image of Our Lady where the people sing their Evening Salve." These Evening Services were sung in our Churches before the Reformation : the Reformers killed them with Evensong : which no one wants now if we may judge by empty Churches in the weekday Evening Services. Fr. Victor de Buck says there were Confraternities of the Salve Regina in Belgium and the Netherlands in the year 1479. There was such a Confraternitity at St. Mary's Church, Antwerp. A lot of money was paid to those who carried out the duties. The chief business was "to chant the Praises (Laudes) of the Most Glorious Virgin Mary every evening m choir, before the image of the Blessed Virgin, after ringing the bells, and after singing, and playing of the organ." The antiphons were taken from the Breviary, a priest said a prayer at the end ; then nine Hall Marys were sung and the bell was rung nine times. "Lof Masters" were a fixed institution.

Now comes a very good link In our chain : in 1566, in the same Church of St. Mary, Antwerp, instead of the Lof to Our Lady they had a Lof to the Blessed Sacrament. This Praise to the Blessed Sacrament is our modern Benediction Service. It was said in the year 1566 and onwards to 1700 ; and to this day they have Exposition on Saturdays. In 1502, at St. Bavan/ at Ghent, they had Praises to the Blessed Mary sung daily to music. In 1610 Bishop Miraeus, of Antwerp, ordained the revival of the Saluts : and on solemn feasts the "Laudes" of the Blessed Sacrament were to be added. Probably Exposition took place then. Money was left in wills for Salut in various places in France. In 1648 at Bagnolet, a man left money that "on the Thursdays of every week a Solemn Salut should be held in honour of the Blessed Sacrament and on the day of the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament and on the Octave Day and each day in the Octave there shall be similar Saluts. At each of which the Blessed Sacrament shall be set up and exposed on the High Altar of the Church." In 1557 money was left for Salut -with Te Deum and organ. In 1537 money was left so that every Sunday after Vespers and Compline there should be sung Salve Regina or other anthem suitable to the season ; also "De Profundis" and "Fidelium" for the .souls of the benefactors named. In 1527 money was willed for Salut at 7 p.m. on the Eve of the Annunciation. And in 1501 at the College of Montaign in Paris, students were fined for being late for Evening Salut. It is not far wrong to say tliat the Benediction Service of to-day has come from having Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament at the Salve Service, and putting in hymns of praise to it. Perhaps the order of odevelopment was, first Salve, then Exposition, and the Sacrament Hymns, and lastly Benediction. Or perhaps it was as follows : first Salve, Laudi, Lof or Salut, and then possibly Benediction in noo in Italy, and Exposition at the same date. But it is most likely that Salve drew Exposition to itself; and in the age of processions of the Blessed Sacrament, that is, from 1250 to 1350 when a blessing was .given after the Procession of Corpus Christi, people began to ask for a Benediction after Salve and Exposition. The coming of the monstrance had a great deal to do with bringing in the Blessing with the Blessed Sacrament so as to become an established part of the service. The service is derived from Salve, and the act of Benediction from the procession in which a monstrance was used.

There was a reaction in England against Salve in 1555. At Bristol, Lichfield, Salisbury, London, Middleham, and elsewhere, a Jesus Mass and a Salve of Jesus took place on Fridays ; just as in most places there was a Mary Mass and a Salve Regina. This reaction is illustrated in a Salve of Jesus from a Catholic Prymer of 1555. It was a bit of reformed contrariness : based on the popular Salve Regina : and a caricature of it. I mention it as a palmary proof that Salve or Salutation was a popular service of those days. You can only parody the well known.

Remembering, as we have seen, that Benediction With the Blessed Sacrament was widely diffused in 1500, and putting our various pieces of knowledg'e together we may be sure that Benediction was always given at Salve from the time that Exposition became prevalent. Experience teaches that you cannot stop at Exposition, you must have Benediction. Dr. Hensley Henson is a very shrewd and fearless man ; he said that if Reservation was permitted Benediction would soon spread throughout the whole Church of England. I agree with him. It is in accord with my own experience and it is, as a matter of fact, the usual course of development of devotion to the Blessed Sacrament in the soul. The devout soul craves for a sight of the Host. It is a wholesome craving and should be satisfied. And then when it sees the Host it desires and even clamours for the Blessing-of Jesus. In France, Benediction is called Salut still ; you greet the Blessed Sacrament and then you get Benediction. Thev had Benediction at Salut long before there is any written mention of it.

At the risk of tediousness some of the most important statements may be repeated. To sum up : We saw that the Maundy Thursday and Good Friday Processions are Primitive. Then came the Elevation at Mass for the purpose of showing the Blessed Sacrament to the people. This P-^levation is not to be confounded with the Elevation which comes later at the Consummation of the Holy Sacrifice : and which was always there : just before the Lord's Prayer. Then there followed the Corpus Christ! Procession of the Host. Out of which grew Exposition either temporary or perpetual. At the same time Benediction was given after the Corpus Christ! Procession ; and on the return to the Church from the Communion of the Sick. It is safe to say that the origin of giving Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament is closely connected with the dismissal with a blessing, and with the Corpus Christ! and other processions. In con-firmation of these conclusions we recall the facts that in 1319 the Bishop of Norwich gave Benediction at the end of Mass to the Bishops assembled in London : also that it was usual to give a blessing with a relic, w^ith holy oil, with the holy vessels, or even with a biretta, as often now. As for the connection of Benediction with the Corpus Christ! Procession we have the evidence of the Carthusian Order, a very conservative body, having Benediction on three occasions in the year, namely, after the Procession on Corpus Christ! Day ; after the Procession on the Octave Day ; and on the same Day after Vespers. And this was their rule as early as the year 1400. There has always been Benediction one way or another. Jesus is the Benediction. In early days people blessed themselves with the Blessed Sacrament as they do now with holy water. St. Cyril witnesses to this custom. In the East the Early Liturgies are witnesses to Benediction in Mass. And the Modern Greek Liturgy is evidence for Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament in Mass at the present day. In the West, Benediction is the usual Service after Mass, in the afternoon or in the evening.

It may be of interest to those who desire to pursue the subject to know that the authorities on Benediction are Abbe Thiers, Fr. Victor de Buck, and Fr. Herbert Thurston who wrote the article on "Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament" in the Catholic Encyclopaedia, to which is appended a Bibliography of the subject. I take this .opportunity of acknowledging my indebtedness to Fr. Herbert Thurston for certain items included in the present work.

Fixing our thoughts on Our Lord Himself giving His Benediction in His' Own Person under the Sacramental Species, we proceed, in the succeeding chapters, to deal with Reservation of the Blessed Sacrament, and ^ with Transubstantiation, which is the Great Truth on which is based the dutv of Adoration. We proceed to handle the subjects of Reservation, Transubstantiation, and Adoration.

CHAPTER III. Reservation.

The practice of reserving the Hosts for future^use "involves the truth of a real objective Presence of Christ's Body and Blood in a Sacrament. Justin Martyr says that "a portion is sent by the hands of the deacons to the absent" (Apol. I; 67). Eusebius quotes an Epistle from St. Irenaeus to Pope Victor in which he speaks of those Bishops who^ kept Easter on different days, some according to one tradition, .and some according to another ; nevertheless they all sent the Eucharistic cake to each other in token of unity and peace. (Euseb. V. 24). Whether this was really the Body of Christ or only blessed bread is a question. Of ^ the following instance of Reservation there is no question. Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, tells of how an old man, Serapion, who had sacrificed to idols in the persecution, when dying, after an otherwise irreproachable life, sent his grand-son to a priest for the Reserved Eucharist. The priest being ill, the boy went to the Bishop, and Dionysius says, "I gave the boy a small portion of the Eucharist telling him to dip It in water and to drop It into the mouth of the old man, which the bov did." This custom of keeping It in houses, and of sending the Eucharist by anyone became so prevalent that there was danger of profaneness ; and it was forbidden by Ratherius, Bishop of Verona. This incident of Serapion shows that in the reign ol' Decius, about the year 250, the Blessed Sacrament was reserved and .was in the custody of the priests. No doubt the persecution made it dangerous to keep It in the Church and therefore it was kept in the priest's house as it was in Ireland before the Bill of Catholic Emancipation. St. Cpyrian, about the same time, referred to the little boxes in which lay people kept the Hosts for their own use (De Lapsis). This permission was also due to the persecution of Decius, and it was probably a purely temporary practice. The normal way would be for Reservation to be in the Churches. That it was so reserved seems probable from the passage in Tertullian "On Prayer'' where he uses the word "Reservare" of the Eucharist. The Thirteenth Canon of Nicea laid it down that even the lapsed should not be deprived of "the last and most necessary Viaticum," but, "the old Canonical Law shall be observed. Let the Bishop, upon examination, give the oblation to all who desire it at the hour of death." About 368, Optatus says the Donatist Bishops were horribly profane because they threw to the dogs the Eucharist which they found in Catholic Churches. St. Chrysostom in 404 (in his Epistle to Innocent) complains of the soldiers breaking into the sanctuary of his Church and "spilling upon their clothes the Holy Blood of Christ." St. Jerome says tlie faithful at Rome communicated daily (Ep..ad Licinium Boetius, etc.). Catalan! says that in the Fourth Century, in St. Jerome's time. Mass was not celebrated daily. So that Communion from the tabernacle must have been given dally out of Mass. "We can with some confidence say that in the East there was, from very early, if not from Primitive times, a custom of giving Communion from the tabernacle on all days of Lent, except Saturdays and Sundays and on the Feast of the Annunciation. I feel pretty certain that in the East it was of Primitive Tradition from the Apostles to give Communion from the Tabernacie with a Mass of the Presanctified on all days of Lent, except Saturdays and Sundays and on the Feast of the Annuncia-tion. There came to be some slackness in the matter of saying- a Liturgy. This slackness was pulled up by the Two Councils of Lateran and Trullo, which ordered to be said a Liturgy and Mass of the Presanctified. Whether the habit of daily Communion was kept up by those who neglected to have a Mass is uncertain. In 314 the Council of Lateran ordered that in the Holy Feast of Lent there should be a Liturgy of the Presanctified and no Consecration except on Saturdays, Sundays, and on the Feast of the Annunciation. It was enacted by the Council of Trullo in 692 that a Mass of the Presanctified should be said on all days except those above named. In this it but repeated what Lateran had ordered before. Socrates relates that the Mass of the Presanctified was ordered at Alexandria on Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent. The probability is that the Lateran Council was but keeping up a Primitive Custom and condemning the slackness of those who gave up Mass on all but the three days. There appears to have been no Universal Custom of East and West on this point. Tertullian, Ambrose and others indicate that in the Latin Church Consecration and Communion were customary every day in Lent. From these facts it will be seen that there was a difference of custom in East and West regarding Daily Mass. One thing was of Universal Custom both in East and West, namely, that there should be no Consecration on Good Friday, Mass of the Presanctified being used throughout the Whole Catholic Church. This alone is sufficient to prove the acceptance by the Whole Church of the principle of Reservation. The Good Friday Mass of the Presanctified is Primitive. The Custom of the Roman Obedience is to have no Consecration on Good Friday, and I think until com-paratively recently there was no Consecration on Holy Saturday. Now the Mass of Easter is said by anticipation, where the Holy Saturday ceremonies are carried out. The Mass of the Presanctified is so general in Christendom, and derived from such early times that it is a great wonder that the Reformers who thought themselves expert in things Primitive, and prided themselves on restoring the same, should omit this Primitive and Catholic practice from the Prayer Book.

In favour of Reservation for the purpose of Adoration it is refreshing to be able to quote a. sound English Church-man like Dr. John Henry Blunt. In his "Theological Dictionary," written prior to 1870, he says: "The Consecrated Elements remaining that which they were made by Consecration, and their presence being the Sacramental Presence of Christ, that adoration of Christ which is proper to the Eucharist is also to be continued. Hence piety appears to suggest that the Reserved Sacrament may be openly kept in the Church for the perpetual Eucharistic adoration of the faithful." (Blunt's quotation ends). The "Clementine Constitutions" direct the Reserved Sacrament to be carried by the deacon to the "Pastophoria," which was probably a Chapel for the purpose of the reverent keeping of the Reserved Sacrament. Very early there came to be used a clborium in the open Church, or a columba (dove), or what we call a flying or hanging pyx, or a turris or tabernacle, or an armarium at the foot of the cross. The armarium corresponded with our tabernacle on the High Altar. The word armarium was applied to a receptacle of the Blessed Sacrament, as it certainly was applied also to the libraries of the Abbeys. The purpose of the tabernacle was to place the Blessed Sacrament in the most prominent and honourable place in the Church, and the most accessible and obvious for the adoration of the faithful. There is some doubt as to the time when this custom became general. Certainly it was not later than 450. And we cannot be far wrong in supposing that it was in existence, among the more devout, for a few hundred years earlier. It was probably prior to the Council of Nicea in 325.

Once more it is Interesting to find in Blunt's Dictionary a discussion as to whether the Blessed Sacrament may^be carried out of the Church for the purpose of the Communion of the Sick. He rightly says that "the proper place for the Reserved Sacrament is in the congregation assembled in Christ's Name." I may add that Our Lord promised to be in the midst where two or three are gathered together in His Name : and how more patently can He fulfil His Promise and make His Presence felt than under the Sacramental Form ? Keeping the Blessed Sacrament in private houses can only be justified for special reasons, such as fear of persecution or of profanation. The Church discourages the custom : and she encourages and orders that the Blessed Sacrament Reserved should be kept in the tabernacle on the High Altar.

Blunt argues that "when the Congregation leaves the Church for the purpose of Worship it w^ould seem that the Sacramental presence, the centre of their Unity, may piously be borne with them. It is not difficult to conceive a body of Christian men in procession bearing with them the centre and symbol of their unity in Christ." (Quotation from Blunt ends). A Procession is an Act of Worship on the Grand Scale for the Public Good. To have Our Lord with us in the place of honour is not only the Christian instinct, but in suitable circumstances, tt is a spiritual necessity. For we can often say when going" into the Public Procession through the streets, with our Sacramental King "If Thou go not with us, carry us not up hence."

The evidence for Reservation is voluminous. Some short striking instances must suffice, although it is really unnecessary to adduce further evidence of Reservation. The existence of various sorts of receptables for the Blessed Sacrament in all parts of the Church witnesses to the Catholicity of the Custom. What has been written under the head of Benediction and Exposition presupposes Reservation. St. Justln's Apology was written forty years after the death of St. John. St. Just-in knew those who knew the Apostles, and he would take care to keep the Institutions of the Apostles. Those Apostolic practices were far more strictly kept than are the institutions of P'r. Lowder, at St. Peter's, London Docks. In St. Justin we find Reservation. It was everywhere. It was Catholic. It was in One Kind. It was not only for the Sick. It was for others who were .absent from Mass. To limit it to the Communion of the Sick is not Primitive. To reserve in Both Kinds is not Primitive. To refuse to reserve is not Primitive. To refuse to adore is not Primitive. To give Communion out of Mass is Primitive. To reserve is Primitive. To wait for leave from the Bishop is not Primitive. Every priest with cure of souls was expected, nay, compelled to reserve. The same iurisdiction by which he says Mass gives him the right to reserve the Blessed Sacrament. And we may add it also .^oives him the right to bless with the ciborium or monstrance. Tertullian witnesses to Reservation, and St. Cyprian witnesses to it. St. Cyprian objects to a Christian going to "the Shows" because it is unseemly that he should mix with the obscene bodies of the courtesans while on his way home from Mass and while he, as the custom is, has upon him the Eucharist, the Holy Body of Christ. Great stress was laid upon giving Ephodion or Viaticum. Ignatius, the Martyr, longed for it at his death. St. Perpetua refers to it. St. Denys the Great tells the story of Seraplon receiving Communion just before death from the reserved Sacrament. St. Mary of Egypt was given Viaticum by St. Zosimus ; solitaries of the desert kept a stock of It ; recluses had It bv them in all parts of the world. In 530 St. Senan had It at Kilkenny. In 680 Caedmon the first English poet, as Bede relates, was given Viaticum from the reserved Sacrament. Bede, relating the deaths of St. Chad and St. Hilda is careful to tell that they received Viaticum from tne Reserved Sacrament. The custom of Reservation was so universal, and so conscientiously observed by the pastors that no canons were needed to urge them to their duty. It was in places where they were negligent that we find canons enacted to impel them to reserve, and to keep the Hosts with reverence. Between the years 600 and 700 two Councils of Toledo refer to the reverence due to the Lord in the Reserved Eucharist, and how the sick are to be given Viaticum. Incidentally it was in Councils of Toledo that Communion in One Kind was sanctioned, Fasting Communion enjoined, and the use of ordinary bread for the Eucharist condemned, and special bread ordered. It was a Council of Toledo that ordered the Blessing of the priest to be given before, and not after. Communion. No doubt out of reverence to the Blessed Sacrament.

There is a goodly array of canons in England dating from Egbert in 740 to Peckham's Constitutions in 1281 laying down the duty of the parish priest to have the Reserved Sacrament in the Church and noting certain ways of showing reverence to "the Lord of Glory under the covert of bread." No new canon was needed at the Reformation. None has been made. Peckham's Constitutions remain Church Law in England. Statute 25 Henry VIII. indlrectly confirms it. By this statute it is enacted that all old canons then in force should remain so until revised. The only revision, that of 1603, does not touch Peckham's Constitutions.

From the year 700 to 1000 the evidence of Transub-stantiation, Adoration and Reservation is found to be in the Canon Law and in the Missals and Rituals of Churches. The practice of the Church is undeniable. The Schism between East and West had not yet taken place. Reservation is Ecumenical, that is to say, it is of the most comprehensive Catholicity. As spokesmen in testimony of the practice in the East you have the undoubted and powerful words of St. Chrysostom and of St. Cyril. The former is called the Doctor of the Eucharist. And the latter says in reference to Reservation, "I hear that some say that the mystical blessing fails to retain its power of consecration if any portion be left to another day. They are mad who say such things ; for Christ, is never other than Himself, nor does His Holy Body suffer change, but the virtue of the blessing-and the life-giving grace remain constantly." Too much is made of the lack in the East of dally evening services in honour of the Blessed Sacrament. It is supposed to be a great point against Adoration, and it sounds imposing to say Easterns do not have them : or that Our Lord likes to be worshipped in the morning at Mass, but not in the evening at Benediction. He is the Same Jesus in the East and in the West, in the morning and in the evening : in Mass and out of Mass, "Jesus Christ is the Same yesterday, to-day and for ever." The East cannot be disparaged in regard to reverence for the Reserved Sacrament. The Mass of the Presanctified alone gives the lie to her detractors. I can do no more than mention the Mass of the Presanctified in passing. It is CEcumenical : it is Primitive : it requires Reservation : and it implies Transubstantiation. The Host was adored always, and It was used In Benediction. For Transubstantiation, Reservation, and Adoration I have given ample evidence from East and West up to about the year 700.

Intinction.

A short statement about Intinction may be of value to the Clergy, and timely, in view of the favour shown to this forbidden practice by English Bishops to-day. Intinction may be described as a method of administering the Sacrament by putting the Sacred Host into the Chalice and administering both Kinds in a spoon. It comes from the East. The Western Church has always opposed this practice. To English people it would come as a great shock to have Holy Communion ministered to them in a spoon : although it is by far the most reverent way of intinction. There are very serious reasons against the practice. It was never the ordinary practice even in the East. Communion at the Altar from earliest times was given in both Kinds separately by two different persons, one giving the Sacrament under the form of Bread and the other giving It under the form of Wine. Bona says that the practice of Intinction was forbidden by Julius I. (337-352), whose decree as given by Gratian (Distinctions II. c. 7) speaks of it as a practice not warranted by the Gospel, in which Christ is represented as giving first His Body and then His Blood to the Apostles. The Third Council of Braga (675) forbad it in their first canon ; the words used being identical with those of Julian I. And it is a curious and striking thing to note the sentence with which both Julian and the Council conclude their decree. Thev both refer to the fact that it was only to the traitor that' the Sacrament was given sopped : to show who it was that should betray Him. Their words are : "Nam Intlnctum panem aliis Christum non praebuisse legimus excepto lilo tantum discipulo quern prodltorem ostenderet." "We do not read that Christ gave the dipped bread to the other disciples but only to that disciple whom He would indicate as the traitor." Surely no. Christian would willingly be singled out as a probable traitor by having the Host given to him sopped, as it was thus given only to Judas.

There are some decrees of Popes which show that ;i variety of practices existed : some reserving the Sacrament in One Kind, and others reserving in Both Kinds. There is 110 doubt as to which practice prevailed in the end. Reservation in One Kind became the Catholic Rule in the West. It is however only fair to quote the decrees ordering the Precious Blood to be given so as to enable the priest to say "The Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ grant thee remission of sins and life everlasting." The doctrine of concomitance enables the priest to say the Sacramental words without Reservation in both kinds. Pope Urban 11. (1088-1099) forbad Intinction except in cases of necessity. Pascal II., his successor, forbad it even in such cases, laying it down that when the solid could not be received the liquid should be administered only. Ivo of Chartres about the same time gives a canon of a Council of Tours in which it was ordered that priests should always keep the reserved oblation "intincta in Sanguine Christi ; ut veraciter Presbyter possit dicere infirmo, Corpus et Sanguis Domini nostri Jesus Christi proficiat tibi in remissionem peccatorum oet vitam aeternam." "The reserved Host, dipped in the Blood of Christ ; that the priest can truly say to the sick : "May the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ profit thee for remission of sins and life everlasting." In England no method of Intinction was tolerated. In spite of the decrees of the above-named popes the Convocation of Canterbury in 1175 distinctly forbad the practice in the words : "Inhibemus ne quis quasi pro complemento Com-omunlonis intinctam alicui Eucharistiam tradit." Here it is forbidden to give the Eucharist dipped, sopped, or intincted to anyone as though the Precious Blood under the form of W^ine were needed to make the Communion complete. In oother words it is really ordered to give the Sacrament under the form of Bread only, and it is forbidden to dip the Host ;as though It were not Itself the WTiole Christ. This may seem a big step forward for Canterbury. But why should Canterbury be always behind the rest of Christendom ? Blunt says of Intinction that "There can be no doubt that the Western Church always set its face against the practice." (Theological Dictionary. Article "Intinction.") In our own time Anglican Bishops who do not hold the doctrine of concomitance insist on an Argyle pyx for both Kinds, or they encourage a practice which can be described as Intinction only in name- They suggest that one Host be slightly tinged with the Precious Blood, and that with It all the other Hosts be touched. This way can only be described as humbug. Someone has said that such a practice is nothing- but "monkeying" with the Blessed Sacrament, for the purpose of being able to say that they only allow It to be given in both Kinds. This is not in both Kinds. For no one could say of a Host thus tinged "Drink this." I have been told by priests who were temporarily induced by Bishops to use the Argyle pyx, a vessel made so as to hold fluid below and solids above, that it is in practice impossible to avoid some danger of profaning the Sacrament, and that in any case the reserved form of wine changes its nature in twenty-four hours.

CHAPTER IV. Transubstantiation.

A person seeing Benediction would naturally note Exposition : and then thinking how the Blessed Sacrament came to be there, he would think of Reservation, and seeing the adoration given to the Sacred Host, he would ask, on wdiat grounds of Truth do you do such things? Take away Reservation and you do away with Benedictlon-out-of-Mass. Take away Transubstantiation and you do away with Adoration, Exposition, and Benediction. When we use the word Transubstantiation, it is essential that we attach to it the Church's meaning and no other. To Homoousios we attach the Church's meaning, to Theotokos we attach the Church's meaning, and to Transubstantiation we attach the Church's meaning. The Church has taken these words from philosophy and made them her own. All we need to do is to keep them to her meaning. By Homoousios we maintain the Lenity of God, by Theotokos we maintain the One Person of Christ, by Transubstantiation we maintain the Divinity of the Blessed Sacrament and the One Person in It, and also the unity of the Church. In Benediction we have the Blessed Trinity, the Father, of One Substance with the Son, and the Holy Ghost proceeding : we have Transubstantiation, God with us; and we have Theotokos, the Mother of God showing her Son, as she showed Him to Israel. The whole of Christianity rests on these three words: Homoousios, Theotokos and Transub-stantiation are a compactum of the Christian Religion. We must show that Transubstantiation was held from the first ages. We may divide the Christian Era into three -great epochs, Patristic, Mediaeval, and Modern. And the three epochs correspond with three great aspects of the Blessed Sacrament : as a Sacrament, as a Sacrifice, and as an abiding Presence. In the Patristic Epoch the Eucharist was emphasised as a Sacrament, in the Mediaeval Epoch the Eucharist was emphasised as a Sacrifice, in the Modern Epoch the Eucharist is emphasised as an Abiding Presence. The development of practice and devotion corresponds with the three aspects. In the first epoch they emphasised the duty of Communion, in the second of Worship, and in the third there is the practice of Benediction. In the first they developed the Penitential System so as to make a good Communion, in the second they developed their Liturgies so as to offer an acceptable Sacrifice, and in the third there is to be a development of Popular Services so as to admit the people to the secrets of religion. The doctrine underlying all these developments and practices is called Transub-stantiation, It may be useful to set out this idea in tabular form.

The first age is the Patristic. It is roughly divided into two periods : 1 to 325, and 325 to 700.

Transubstantiation up to 325.

The Fathers of the first age had the same reverence for the Blessed Sacrament, and they believed the same thing about it, as the Catholic Church does now. Their teaching and reverence are expressed mostly in the connection of mating and drinking the Flesh and Blood of the Son of Man, and in exhorting to Communion as the means of getting our souls and bodies transformed and immortalised. We do not oexpect the grandeur of ritual and ceremonial with which the Church of a later day surrounded her Divine Lord. And we do not expect the preciseness of definition of later days. The Apostles were unlearned and ignorant men: their successors were learned and polished philosophers, and they were engaged in apology and defence, and in teaching the Being of God, the Commandments, and Penance. God supplied His Church with just the sort of champions who 'could undermine the intellectual strongholds of Paganism.

Philosophers like Justin, Irenaeus, Dionysius the Areopagite, Tertullian, Origen, and later great doctors like Augustine, Chrysostom and Ambrose, were engaged in the intellectual battle. The Disciplina Arcana, or the guarding oof the Secret, imposed silence regarding the Eucharist. Justin Martyr is the only one of all the Apologists who lifts the veil, and discloses to us the order of the Mass. Persecution drove the Church underground. They had none of the luxuries of worship. But they had the Lord their God oday by day upon the altar tombs of the martyrs : and in their homes for Communion. Catholics in the Church of England oought to realise how it was with the early Christians : for it has been somewhat the same with us in the Church of England. Wnen the blight of the Reformation eclipsed the light of faith, and the Lord of Glory under the covert of bread was hidden from our eyes; when for hundreds of years Jesus was not lifted up for worship in English Churches, what was the comfort and stay of the religous people? It was Communion. It was our all. To-day it is the same in some respects. In many a parish they dare not show Jesus in a monstrance "for fear of the Jews" : that is for fear of those whose religion is all Old Testament. In those parishes He is carried to the sick through the slums, clasped tightly to the bosom of the priest : no bell or cross going before : no lights : no vestments of glory and no attendant. All of them arc ordered ; but an unbelieving people is not worthy of them. They are works of God rendered impossible because of unbelief. The future historian would be wrong were lie to conclude from this silence and secrecy that we do not adore the Blessed Sacrament just as He was adored in the Middle Ages. And we should be wrong if we concluded that Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Anicetus and the early bishops had not the same doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament and the same veneration for Him as we have now. That doctrine we call Transubstantiation. It is a w^ord that makes division. "I am not come to send peace but a sword." This is the sword Excalibur-Transubstantiation. Consubstantiation in whatever form is heresy as is Zwinglianism. All doctrines other than Transubstantiation can be ranged under one or other of these rival heresies. The Council of Trent closely adheres to Scripture and teaches that the words of Our Lord "This is My Body" agree with Transubstantiation, and are disagreeable to any other tenet. "WTiat He offered He declared to be truly His Body, and on this account it has always been a firm belief in the Church of God, that by consecration of the bread and wine a conversion is made of the whole substance of- bread" (Trent). We Cannot know what the substance of anything is: it is a purely intellectual thing; God only knows it. We know its appearances, we know nothing more. When we say Our Lord changed bread into His Body and Blood, we do not mean that He changed water, wheat, and salt into His Body and Blood. The appearances of bread remain after the change, the change itself is only known to faith.

This change of substance is called by the Greeks-Metousiosis and by us TransubstantJatlon. This word condemns the heresy that bread and wine as well as Christ's Body and Blood are both in the Eucharist, which is the heresy of Consubstantiation. There are not two things in. the Sacrament, but only one. The one. thing is Christ's Body. Christ's Body is not bread. If you ask me after Consecration, "is this bread" ? I reply, without hesitation, in the language of the Catholic Church and Archbishop Cyril, of Jerusalem, that "I am fully persuaded that what seems bread is not bread, even though it seems so to the taste .; but Christ's Body." This is the language of a saint and a Primitive Archbishop. In using the word Transubstantiation the Church condemns the heresy that there is no change at all. It also condemns the heresy that the bread and "wine are merely figures of Christ's Body and Blood, which, say the heretics, if they be received with faith Our Lord will come -spiritually to the soul.

Wickliffe has provided many Anglican Divines with a son of English brand of Consubstantiation. Rather than use the. word-Rome has-boldly adopted, they fly in panic fear into the arms of the enemies of the Truth. ' The Docetae, the Appearance men, held that Christ's Body was not solid and real : and it involved them in looking upon the consecrated Bread and Wine in the same way, as not really the Body of Christ. Ignntius the Martyr (died 115) said "the Docetae abstain from the Eucharist and prayer,because they do not confess that the. Eucharist is P'lesh of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, the Flesh which suffered for our sins, which the Father in His Mercy raised up again. The reality of Christ's Body and Its identity with the Blessed Sacrament is thus well expressed by the Saint. The English brand of Calvin's heresy is docetism. It is a denial of the Reality of Christ's Body in the Blessed Sacrament. Justin Martyr (A.D. 150 says) "We have been taught that the food which has been made for Eucharist by the prayer of the Wtord which came from Hint, is both Flesh and Blood of that same Incarnate Jesus." And again Jesus is identified with the Blessed Sacrament. The awful heresy of Wickliffe has worked havoc in the. minds of the ' English Church people : whose idea of the Real Presence is based on a fiction of the imag-ination, which they call a spiritual presence, whatever that may mean. ^ Whereas Jesus and the Blessed Sacrament are One and the Same Thing. Clement of Alexandria in A.I). 200 savs "The Lord is the food of His People." "God commands us to receive Christ, to place Him in ourselves, to hide the Saviour in our breasts." Numerous passages can be quoted from Tertullian to the same effect. "By bread the Creator makes His own very Body to be present." And he insists on worship of the Blessed Sacrament, not -i particle of which must be allowed to fall. St. Hippolytus in A.D 238 savs "The Bishop is to give them the Body of Christ saying 'This is the Body of Christ' : 'This is the Blood of Christ.' And they are to say Amen." "He hath given us His Sacred Flesh and His Precious Blood to eat and drink for the remission of sins." The Church of England fiction leads to Modernism and to the denial of the foundation Truth of Christianity that Marv is God's Mother, and that Jesus Christ is God. The Divinity of Christ and the Divinity of the Blessed Sacrament stand or fall together. St. Irenaeus in A.D. 180 says "How can they be assured that the bread whereon thanks have been given is the Body of the Lord, and the cup that of His Blood if they ^do not acknowledge Him the Son of the Creator of the 'World" ? Our own Catechism and Communion Office are only compatible with Transubstantiation as against all its rivals.

In a letter of the year A.D 248 against the Waterites, the Teetotallers of that day, St. Cyprian says that "Without wine there cannot be made the Blood of Christ," and he asks "How can we shed our blood for Christ if we are ashamed lo drink His Blood"? Dionysius of Alexandria, called Denys the Great (A.D. 248 to 265) speaks of "touching" the Body and Blood of Christ in Communion. The great pre-occupation of controversy at the time was Holy Baptism. It is only incidental that anything is said of the Eucharist. In a letter to Sixtus II. St. Denys calls It the Sacred Food. It is the Body and Blood of Christ. And he hesitated to baptize one who had had baptism among the heretics, but was now in the congregation of Catholics. His baptism was not like the Catholics. Denys hesitated about re-baptizing him because for some time he had been a communicant : lest he should dare to imply that in receiving the Communion he had not received His Saviour unto salvation. In the work which goes by the name of Adamantius, because he is the chief speaker in the dialogue, we have the views of Pamphilus of Caesarea, covering the years 280 to 311. In this work the Eucharist is called the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ. And from this lact he draws a proof that creation is the work of a Good God. Because if it were not, there would be an identity between Light (the Body of Christ) and darkness (the Bread and Wine). As there is this identity between the bread and the Body of Christ, it proves that the material elements even before Consecration were created by a Good God. He seems to mean that for bread to have the noble destiny of being-made into the Body of Christ, is a clear proof that it is the product of a Good Creator : and that it is not darkness made into light.

All the above noted evidence has a geographical significance and extent. It practically covers the whole Christian World. It covers the North Western regions of Africa, with Carthage as centre, with Tertullian and Cyprian as witnesses. It covers the North Eastern regions of Africa, with Alexandria as centre, and with Clement, Orig-en and Dionysius as witnesses. It covers Asia Minor, with St. Ignatius, St. Polycarp and St. Irenaeus of Smyrna as witnesses. It covers Syrian Palestine, with Tustin Martyr and Pamphilus of Caesarea as witnesses. It covers France, with St. Irenaeus of Lyons as witness. It includes Rome, with Justin Martyr and Hippolytus as witnesses.

The Ante-Nicene Church was transubstantialist (1-325). The Post-Nicene Church was transubstantialist (325-700). When persecution ceased and the protection of the State was given to Christian Teachers, the volume of written teaching increased. St. Cyril of Jerusalem (A.D. 355) is "fully persuaded that what seems bread is not bread, even. though it seems so to the taste, but Christ's Body : and what seems wine is not wine, even though the taste will have it so, but Christ's Blood." The Fathers teach that a change is wrought by consecration. Cyril of Jerusalem says : "Our Lord Himself therefore having" declared and said of the bread, "This is My Body," who shall dare to doubt hence-forward, and He Himself having laid it down and said "This. is My Blood," who shall ever doubt saying "This is not His Blood." Is He who once at Cana of Galilee changed water into wine, which is akin to blood, undeserving of belief when He changed wine into His Blood"? This comparison shows, that St. Cyril holds that the Substance of bread and wine are changed by Consecration.

Now comes the witness of five great Bishops, men who were born almost at the same time, and who reigned over their Sees at the same time, they are all great witnesses to the truth of Transubstantiation and to the worship, due to the Blessed Sacrament. They are Basil the Great, and his friend Gregory Nazianzus, Ambrose, Augustine, and Chrysostom. These men, one and all, were giants of faith. It would be tedious to quote largely from them. They range from the year 360 to the year 420. Ambrose (A.D. 380) says "We this day adore in the Mysteries the Flesh of Christ, the same which the Apostles adored in the Lord Jesus" ^ "The Lord Jesus Himself cries out "This is My Body" : "Before the benediction of heavenly Words a different species is Indicated, after the Consecration it is His Body that is indicated. He Himself declared It His Own Blood. Before the Consecration it is a different thing, after the Consecration It is His Blood. And thou sayest "Amen" that is, "It is true." St. Chrysostom is a witness of such weight that it may not be tedious to repeat some of his words about the Mystery of Our Lord's Body and Blood. St. Chrysostom is called the "Doctor of the Eucharist" or "the Eucharistic Doctor." His writings supply the most vivid language about the Blessed Sacrament. In 404, in his Epistle to Innocent, he complains that the soldiers broke into the Sanctuary and desecrated the Sacrament, having "their clothes purpled and dripping with the red Blood of Christ" : ."the lips of the priest partaking of the Chalice are ensanguined and reddened with the Precious Blood of Jesus" : "This is My Body" : "this Word changes the thing-s that lie before us, so that Christ lies there slain." St. Augustine (A.D. 380 to 430) says that "No one ventures to eat the Flesh of Jesus Christ without having- adored It, and so far from sinning by adoring It, he sins if he does not adore It."

John Damascene, about A.D. 800, indicates the belief .of the East. He said, "The bread itself and the wine are changed into the Body and Blood of God." At the same time in the West the Church was perfecting her Liturgies and leading on to the lull statement of Transubstantiation and preparing the way for its expression in Mass, Exposition and Benediction. The Paschasian Controversy between the years 850 and 900 prepared the wav for the word Transubstantiation. For nearly 200 years prior to the year 1000 the Church was defending' her very life. against the Northern Pagans. It is an incontrovertible fact that the whole Church was horrified by the heresy of Berenger and that In reply to him she explicitly professed Transubstantialion. From the Paschasian and Berengarian controversies the word Transubstantiation disentangled itself from merely philosophical applications, and it became established as the Church's chosen casket in which to preserve the Truth of the Blessed Sacrament. The General Council of Lateran in the year 1215, and Lyons in 1274, and many Synods onwards, approved the word, and finally Trent in 1551 defined it more clearly. Gerson said that Transubstantiation Is confirmed by a thousand and a thousand miracles.

I have avoided philosophy : although nearly every Revealed Truth suggests some philosophy. True philosophy helps the Faith. Faith comes first. Many of the problems of philosophy take their rise in Theology. In the Ninth and Tenth Centuries the quarrel about Predestination raised the oquestion about Human Liberty and its relations to Divine Providence and Divine Justice. The Paschasian controversy on the Real Presence brought forth dissertations on Sub-stance and Accident. Transubstantiation and the Divine Simplicity led to the examination of the philosophy of change. Sound theology has always been on the side of Truth and is the friend of philosophy : but philosophy based on wrong or on very imperfect views of God, and ignorant of the ways He has chosen to reveal. Himself is not one that theology need fear. Of such systems of philosophy it can be truly said :-

Let me repeat that the practice of reserving the Blessed Sacrament for Communion and for Worship implies the Divinity of the Blessed Sacrament. It implies a change of the Bread and Wine into the Body of Christ. If the Reserved Sacrament is not the Body of God, it would be impious to offer It for Communion : and it would be wicked to adore It with divine, worship. It would be senseless to reserve mere bread and to surround it with Catholic ceremonies as ordered by the canons. If the Reserved Sacrament is not Christ's Body any piece of bread would do as well to give anyone sick or whole. Reservation implies Transubstantiation.

Passing on to the subject of the next chapter it mav be stated here that Adoration implies the doctrine of Transubstantiation. It would be idolatry to adore as God that which is not God. Latreia can only be given to Almighty God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost The worship given to the Blessed Sacrament is the same is that which is given in Heaven to the Eternal Son of God Jesus Christ our Lord. There He is in the Form of His Glory as man, and here He is the Same God-Man under the Form of Bread.

CHAPTER V. Adoration.

The testimony for Transubstantiation can be carried on under the head of Adoration. As we saw before, St. Augustine says that no one eal-s the Flesh of Christ before adoring It. W/'hen you realise how widespread was the primitive habit of Reservation, and that people still com-municated themselves at home, you will see how Christians worshipped Our Lord at Mass and out of Mass just the same We must never let anyone create the notion in our minds that the Easterns or the Westerns had to worship the Blessed Sacrament in Mass, but not out of Mass. It is the same Jesus in all places. Chrysostom said "Adore and communicate." That their Adoration was in connection with Communion is no more against Benediction, than our Adoration at Benediction is against Communion, Mass was the only service then. It is not the only service now.^ How they would have thronged our Churches in the evening for Benediction, as they thronged their own for Mass ! Our practice of adoration is founded on the belief of the Apostles and their hearers and successors that Jesus Christ is God ; and that the Blessed Sacrament is Jesus, and therefore worthy of Divine Worship. St. Ambrose said : "We adore the Flesh of our redemption in the mysteries of the altar" : "The Flesh that redeemed us is what we worship in Mass. St. Ambrose was the first to use the word "Mass" for the Liturgy. In the year 399 after his death many people had visions of St. Ambrose prostrate before the altar where the Blessed Sacrament was reserved. It is told among other things of a like kind, and along with various miracles connected with the Saint. It is quite incidental, no point is made as though it was strange to adore the Blessed Sacrament : nor is it told to prove that he adored It. It does show that St. Ambrose was accustomed to worship the Blessed Sacrament out of Mass time. Such a vision would be incredible about, a Presbyterian, a Methodist, or a Low or "Broad Churchman, among whom such worship is unknown. A similar event in the life of St. Columba, about 590, is told as follows : "It was Saturday, the Monks were accustomed to go into the Church at 12 o'clock at night. St. Columba was always in the Church praying- when he was not studying. He went before the others into the dark Church, there were no lights, and he-knelt at the foot of the Altar. Dermott, his faithful attendant, followed the old man, and groping about the Church for him and not being able to see him, he cried, "Father, dear Father, where are you"? A feeble moan guided him to where the Saint lay. The other monks came in bringing torches, and they found Columba dying, grasping the foot of the Altar, dying- under the very eyes of that Lord God he loved so well, dying, with a heart long since broken with the love for the Lord Jesus ; and himself feeling in his soul the Blessing of Him Who dwelt on the Altar, he raised himself for a last effort, and said, "Come around me my sons that I may give you my last blessing." There died a Saint worshipping the Blessed Sacrament in the Chapel.

Gregory Naziansus in A.D. 380, relates how his sister, Gorgonia, visited the Blessed Sacrament at night, and while praying to It at the altar, and blessing her body with It, she was cured of cancer, or some such disease. This instance also shows that prayers were directed to, and answered by, the Blessed Sacrament. You can yourselves call to mind the numerous instances in the early times of Saints wishing to be taken into the Church that they might die there. Such things puzzle us. WTsy should anyone want to die in an ordinary Anglican Church or in any Chapel bare of the Sacred Host in the tabernacle? The reason the Saints wanted to die in Church becomes quite clear when you recollect that there was in those early Churches the feeling created by Jesus in the tabernacle, and Saints would like to spend their last hours on earth in the Company of their Divine Master. Many are the instances of Saints gaining' their requests by praying- before the Blessed Sacrament reserved on the altar. Here is a thoroughly Eucharistic story from Ireland in the Sixth Century, about the year 570 : Kenny and Columba.

It is told in the life of St. Columba that the Saint was in a boat at sea. A great storm burst upon them. His disciples in the vessel besought his prayers. He replied : "It is not for me to pray for you to-day, but for the holy Abbot Kenny in his house at Aghaboe (Kilkenny). Now at that very time Kenny was in the refectory, it was 3 p.m., and he was eating the bread of the Eulogia, w-'hen suddenly he heard the voice of his friend Columba crying to him to help him as he was in great difficulties. Kennv at once jumped up from table with only one shoe on, and 'crying- to his monks, "This is no time for eating whilst Columba is tossing on the sea," he ran to the Church, and falling on his knees before the altar, prayed God to deliver the Abbot of Iiona. At. that moment Columba turned to those who were rowing in the heavy sea and said : "Cheer up, God has looked on the zeal of Kenny running to the Church to pray for us, and with only one shoe on his foot." Kenny and his monks were eating the blessed bread which had been sent for love by a neighbouring Church. It is called the Eulogia. This was not the Blessed Sacrament, but bread blessed at Mass. It is thought that the three crosses which the priest makes with his hand over the Host and Chalice just before the Elevation, used to be made over unconsecrated bread placed on the altar for the Eulogia. Kenny did not of course pray to this Eulogia, but to the Blessed Sacrament which was reserved in all Monastic Churches on the altar. Had he been eating the Eucharistic Bread he need not have rushed to the Church to pray before the Altar, as he could have done it where he was.

The Conclusion.

We have traced Benediction back from 1934 to about 1300, and Exposition in a Monstrance to about the year iioo. The Corpus Christi Processions go back to about 1300: and the Palm Sunday one to 1100. While the Good Friday Procession is lost in antiquity. All our practice about the Blessed Sacrament is founded on the doctrine of Transubstantiation. We have found our forefathers in the Faith practising Reservation from the first, and adoring our Eucharistic God both at Mass and Exposition. Our Lady is by the Holy Ghost associated with Benediction because she was the first human being to worship Jesus in His Sacred Humanity. When Our Lord told the blind man that He was God, the man fell down and worshipped Him. When Our -Lord said "This is My Body" the Apostles and Our Lady fell down and worshipped. Our Lady was the first to comprehend fully the Divinity of the Blessed Sacrament. After the Ascension she worshiped It. Our Lady was chosen by God to bring His Son into the world and to show Him lo Israel. And it, is God the Holy Ghost W\w chose her to be the means of showing Him more fully to the Church in Exposition and Benediction. Our Lady always leads her clients to her Son. The Church sang a Greeting to Our Lady in the Evening Salut, and went on doing- it for ages. And then the Blessed Sacrament appeared in the midst : and took the chief place at Salve. Just as Our Lord found our Lady and the Apostles together and "Jesus came and stood in the midst" and took the chief place among them. Look at the gatherings of simple folk in the Middle Ages at Salve. "These all," like the Apostles, "continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women, and Mary the Mother of Jesus, and with His brethren" : "And Jesus came and stood in the midst." It. was clients of our Lady who procured Exposition at the Evening Services, and at ihe Forty Hours, and they got Benediction. It is testified that sixty per cent. of the cures at Lourdes, w'-here people go to honour our Lady, are wrought while the Blessed Sacrament passes in procession, or in connection with the numerous processions of the Blessed Sacrament which take place. Thus does Jesus honour Mary at Lourdes. Crowds of people spend the night before the tabernacle and numbers are converted and make their First Communion there. Thus does our Lady of Lourdes lead her clients to her Son, and so we can say to our Lady what God said to Abraham : "In thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth receive Benediction." Our Lady really brought us Benediction. She stood by the Cross when her Son was lifted up in scorn by sinners. She offered Him to the Father for us. And she was overwhelmed with sorrow as He was shown to the Ages on the Monstrance of the Cross. It is meet that such a Mother should be near such a Son when the love of Priest and People draw Him from the Tabernacle and set Him on His Monstrance Throne for Worship : and it must stir the Mother's heart to see her children reverently waltng till her Lord and Son blesses them in His Own Person.

Benediction is a Popular Service and should be kept so. The blight of official interference has not fallen on it. Variety and elasticity combined with reverence and devotion are its characteristics. It is not so much a Service as an Action. The Service may vary infinitely, tlie Action is alwavs the same. The testimony of Roman Catholic Missioners in England is that converts are drawn to God not by the Mass, which many of them do not at first understand,' and which they even dislike; nor by sermons, but by Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. One Missionei- said that there is no other power on earth like unto It for drawing sinners to God and His^Church. Benediction is an Epitome of Christianity : It is a Compendium of Truth : it is a mysterious abridgment or an^ abridgment by way of a Mystery of all the doctrines of the Gospel, aSl the institutions of the Fathers and all the Counsels of perfection. It is to the Lay Folk, and especially to the unlettered, what his office, is to the Priest and to the Religious. It is the mirror in which the unlearned catch at a glance and at once the Splendour of God and the mystery of His Childhood and of His Manhood. Here they realize Bethlehem, Nazareth, Calvary and Olivet. They' feel the Greatness and the Littleness of Jesus, His Majesty and His Humility, His Eloquence and His Silence. Here Strength finds its exercise and weakness its support. Here the people get their hearts warmed to fortify their wills : here they get repose for their weariness and energy for their work. They look at Jesus and Jesus blesses them.

The Blessed Sacrament is a great protection against foes, physical and spiritual. When a German Invasion of England was expected at one time during the Great War, for one month there was Perpetual Exposition carried out by a succession of Churches in a line from the North of England to the South. It was not organised by the Episcopate. When the Saracens attacked Assisi and the Convent of St. Damian, St. Clare flew- to the Chapel, and threw herself before the Blessed Sacrament, and she heard a Voice say : "Fear not, I will keep you safe." And although some'of the enemy had begun to scale, the wall something happened to put them to flight, and St. Clare and her nuns were left in peace. What happened was that St. Clare advanced upon them with the Monstrance of the Blessed Sacrament in her hands. There are at Assisi two statues to commemorate this event of the rout of the Saracens by the Blessed Sacrament. One is in the Cathedral: the other is outside the Convent. They represent St. Chiara (St. Clare) holding up the monstrance in her hands with the Blessed Sacrament in it, as she held it up at the wall of the Convent and by it stopped: the advance of the enemy.

Many people have the faculty of being able to tell by the feeling- of a Church whether the Blessed Sacrament is there or not. In Syria virtue went out of our Lord Jesus and healed many, so now virtue goes out of Him in Benediction. In those days the people who wanted to come at Him were not satisfied while the walls of a house divided them from Him" and they pressed to get into His Presence, some of them even taking off the roof. And He praised those who touched Him and worshipped Him and who made efforts to break down barriers to get a sight or feel of Him. W/'hy should He be supposed to be different now ? W/'hy should He be the same to those who do not wish to see Him, as He is to those o who do wish to see Him ? He is not the same to those who are content that the tabernacle be closed, and who are satisfied with Jesus veiled. He will surely do more for those who take the roof off, so as to remove everything that separates them from the sight of Him W/'hom their souls love. It is His Will to be lifted up now in the Monstrance as He was once on the Cross. And He wills to be lifted up for those who come to the priest and say what the Greeks said to St. Philip: "Sir, we would see Jesus." And it is His Promise, "If I be lifted up I will draw all men unto Me."

The Blessed Sacrament has always been the rallying point for the union of believers. When Raban Maur and Ratramn said It was a figure, Paschase preached Its Reality. When Berengar said the Host Itself was not to be worshipped, the Church elevated the Host in Mass and lifted Jesus up in the Palm Sunday Procession. When the Waldenses and Wickliffites taught that there is not a change of Substance and that the Bread remains bread after the Consecration, the Church replied by setting her Lord upon the Monstrance in the service of the people and by giving them Benediction. To the Lutheran, Zwinglian and Con-substantialist heretics she shows that the love of the Christian people is for the Blessed Sacrament and that "where the Body of the Lord is, there will the eagles of faith be gathered together."