in the least. It was very affecting, and quite real; and the people seemed to feel that it meant something real, and, to all appearance, were edified by it, as I was myself. After it was over, the patriarch, standing and leaning on his crosier, made a short address to the people, explaining the symbolical character of our Lord's act, and dwelling particularly on St. Peter's wish, that not his feet only should be washed, but his hands and his head.

This was the first great Church ceremony we had seen since we came abroad; and I looked in vain for the "mummery," disgusting repetition, childish arrangements, and so forth, which one reads of in modern travellers; who, for the most part, know nothing of the Roman service-books, and consequently understand nothing of what is before them. A heathen might say just the same, as the Puritans did say, of us, if they entered one of our cathedrals, and saw us sit for the Epistle, stand for the Gospel, turn to the east at the Creed, bow at our Lord's Name, recite the Litany at a faldstool between the porch and the Altar, make Crosses on babies' foreheads, lay hands on small squares of bread; or if they saw men, in strange black dresses, with huge white sleeves, walking up and down the aisles of a country church, touching the heads of boys and girls, or wetting the head and hand of our kings and queens with oil, or consecrating buildings and yards. There may, of course, be very sad mummery in Roman services, as there is very sad irrever

ence oftentimes in English services; such, for instance, as dressing up the Altar in white cloths, with the plate upon it as if for the Holy Communion, when it is not meant there should be one, which is sometimes done in cathedrals, where the clergy themselves are in sufficient number to communicate, and strangers who have wished to stay have been told it will be very inconvenient if they do so. It may be hoped there are few Roman churches where such theatrical mummery as that is practised. However, whatever be the amount of Romish mummery, the gross ignorance of ecclesiastical matters exhibited by many modern travellers, who have spoken the most confidently about it, may make us suspect their competency to be judges on the matter. When we see that precisely the same common-place and offensive epithets might be applied with equal justice to us, by one who was a stranger or an enemy to our services; and, whatever changes people may wish for, the English ritual, characterized by a simplicity of which Christendom for many a century has not seen the like, will hardly be charged with mummery. All ritual acts must, from the nature of the case be symbolical, being either a reverential imitation of sacred acts, or the sublime inventions of antiquity whereby the Presence of God and His holy Angels is recognized and preached to the people, or fit and beautiful means for affecting the imagination of the worshipper, and giving intensity to his devotion. All service, not excepting the simple and

strict imitation of our Blessed Lord's action at the institution of the most solemn rite in the world, must be dumb-show to a looker-on, who knows nothing of what it sets forth and symbolizes; and this dumb-show such a looker-on, if he were pert and self-sufficient, would call mummery. The existence of Romish mummery is or is not a fact; and must, of course, be so dealt with; and its extent also is or is not ascertainable as a fact. But the improbability of its being nearly so extensive as modern travellers represent it is so monstrous, considering that the Romanists are Christians, and Christians too at worship, that the vague epithets and round sentences and the received puritan vocabulary of persons ignorant of Breviaries and Missals cannot be taken as evidence. Indeed, in these days, we may justifiably require beforehand that a traveller shall know so much of what external religion is, and what are its uses, that he can comprehend and subscribe to the simple philosophy comprised in Wordsworth's definition of it:

"Sacred Religion! Mother of form and fear,
Dread arbitress of mutable respect."

It is to be regretted extremely that it is not customary with us to have the Holy Communion on the Thursday in Passion Week, as has been the practice of almost the whole Church in all ages; it being the day on which our Blessed Lord instituted that holy, life-giving Mystery, and powerful memorial of His

death. Anciently, in those parts where the Eucharist was always received before any other food had crossed the lips that day, an exception was made in favor of this Thursday, inasmuch as the Blessed Supper was not celebrated generally on that day until after the evening meal, the time of its first institution by the Lord. In England, so far are we from thus celebrating the Holy Supper on the day of its institution, which would be most natural and touching, that it is in many places usually celebrated on Good Friday. One would think people's feelings would be jarred by such an arrangement. Good Friday is a day of intense gloom, and the services breathe a very saddened spirit: it is a fast, not a day for the most joyous of all feasts. I believe it is correct to say, that in most parts of Europe it is usual to consecrate the Eucharist three hundred and sixty-four days in the year, the one day excepted from the exercise of that great privilege of the Church being the anniversary of the Lord's Crucifixion: insomuch that in some places, in order to provide for dying persons wanting the Communion on that day, enough is consecrated the day before to meet such exigencies. In the Greek Church indeed there is no consecration during Lent, except on the Saturdays and Sundays and the Annunciation of our Lady. In England, the custom of celebrating it on Good Friday may arise from the Thursday's Communion being thrust forward into Friday; especially, if (which may have been the case) it was celebrated in England on the night of Thursday,

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custom would be likely to remove it into the next day, nocturnal services not being agreeable to the temper of the Reformation. Or it may be a remnant of old English practice; for our Church at the close of the tenth century received the code of Theodulph of Orleans, wherein it is made imperative upon all the people to receive the Holy Communion every Sunday in Lent, also on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Eve and Easter Sunday, though I believe even then no consecration took place on Friday.

Or perhaps the cause may lie less deep than that. Men might see that Good Friday was one of the greatest days in the year, as surely it is; and not being in the habit of distinguishing between fasts and feasts, they have thought it well to have the Communion on it. Of course Good Friday is a great day, so great, that if the Church had intended the Holy Communion to be celebrated upon it she would doubtless have appointed a proper preface for it, seeing there is one, not for Christmas and Easter only, but for Whitsunday, Trinity Sunday and Ascension Day. The fact of her not appointing a proper preface for Good Friday is in the present state of things a tacit discountenancing of a practice so out of keeping with the spirit of ritual harmony and arrangement. Some again defend it by saying that every one should receive the Sacrament at Easter, and certain members of each houshold are necessarily absent on Easter morning. Of course every one should receive the Sacrament at Easter;