them, and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one" (John xvii. 22, 23).

But what has all this to do with Holy Communion? Holy Communion is the symboland more than the symbol, it is the sacrament -of this unity of the Church in Christ, of this restoration of the brotherhood of man in Christ. St. Paul says (1 Cor. x. 16, 17): "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, being many, are one bread, and one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread." And in the passage already quoted, to which I called your attention in passing: "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body; and have all been made to drink into one Spirit." That is, the one loaf of which we all eat in the Holy Communion, and the one cup of which we all drink, are a symbol -nay, a sacrament-of our union one with another in Christ.

I can hardly put this aspect of the Holy Communion before you with adequate force without troubling you with a few words on a corresponding ceremonial in the sacrifices of the earlier

dispensation. In the case of the class of sinofferings, the sacrifice was entirely offered and consumed upon the altar; but there was another class of burnt-offerings, in which the sacrificer desired to ask some special favour, or to return thanks for some special mercy, or to give expression to his feelings of devotion. These were always preceded by a sin-offering, which procured free access to God. In the burntofferings only part of the sacrifice was offered upon the altar, and the remainder was eaten by the sacrificer as a solemn religious feast. The passover suggests itself at once as one great instance of the sacrificial feast. Every part of the Jewish ceremonial we know was highly symbolical, and the symbolical meaning of the feast on the sacrifice was this. The altar was God's table; this is a view of the altar which is universal both with Jew, heathen, and Christian. In the feast on the sacrifice God received the sacrificer at His table as His friend. We know the Eastern ideas of hospitality; they exist in some degree universally among mankind; they whom we receive at our tables are our guests and friends. God's portion of the feast was consumed by fire-which is the well-known

symbol of God's acceptance of the offering; the sacrificer ate his portion, with religious joy, as the guest and friend of God.

So in the Holy Communion, which takes the place of the whole system of the ancient sacrifices, we come to the Lord's table as God's guests and friends; we are invited to a feast on the sacrifice. The celebrant's communion is necessary to the due performance of the rite; it symbolically represents what the consumption by the sacred fire represented in the Mosaic sacrifice. And each communicant is there as God's guest and friend eating the heavenly food which God sets before him. Our Lord uses this figure where He promises the apostles that they shall "eat and drink at my table in my kingdom" (Luke xxii. 30).

With this explanation of the symbolical meaning of the eating and drinking, I have to point out to you that the communicant does not partake of the Holy Communion solitarily; the whole congregation receive it (or, rather, the whole ought to receive it) together. In the one case of solitary communion in ancient times, the communion of those who were sick,

or in prison, or for some reason unable to come to the assembly of the faithful, a portion of the one bread was sent to them from God's table, and so they were symbolically united before God with those present, and had communion with the brethren in the one bread.1

In the early Church this meaning of the Holy Communion was emphasised by the custom of the kiss of peace. St. Paul alludes to it over and over again. To the Roman Christians: "Salute one another with an holy kiss" (Rom. xvi. 16); to the Corinthians: "Greet ye one another with an holy kiss" (1 Cor. xvi. 20), and again (2 Cor. xiii. 12); to the Thessalonians: "Greet the brethren with an holy kiss" (1 Thess. v. 26); and so also St. Peter: "Greet one another with a kiss of charity" (1 Peter v. 14). Justin Martyr mentions it as taking place between the general prayers and the prayer of consecration: "We salute one another with a kiss." In the service in the Apos

1 St. Augustine elaborates the symbolism by reminding us how individual Christians are represented by the several grains of wheat, which, ground down (tribulated) by the discipline of life, and leavened by the Spirit, are united in the one loaf.

tolical Constitutions the celebrant says: "The Lord be with you;" and the people reply: "And with thy spirit;" then the deacon proclaims: 66 Salute ye one another with a holy kiss.” It is repeatedly appealed to by the Christian writers of those days; in some parts of Christendom it has descended to our own.

Now the Breaking of the Bread always was, and is, the mark of Christian profession, or of membership in the Church. As the twentyeighth article says: "The supper of the Lord is (among other things) a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one of another." So that you will see that the significance from the present point of view is that the Church of Christ is the restoration of the brotherhood of man, and that this brotherhood is in the unity of each with Christ.

It is not only a sign, but a sacrament of it, a means of giving it. Renewed love to God does not spring naturally out of our own hearts, it is God who by His Spirit restores to us faith and love; and neither do we naturally love our neighbour as ourself, it is God who-in the poetical language of Scripture-takes out of our breast the heart of stone and gives us a