from our own, we have the authority of Bishop McIlvaine, of Ohio, for saying that the following alternative form is permitted, and almost invariably used: 'Take thou authority to execute the office of a Priest in the Church of God now committed to thee by the imposition of our hands, and be thou a faithful dispenser of the Word of God and of His Holy Sacraments. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." In every edition of the Prayer Book of the American Episcopal Church from 1785 to 1896 this alternative form is found.

In the Roman Ordinal the bishop commences his address to the ordinands as follows:

Dearly beloved Sons, as you are now about to be consecrated to the Office of the Priesthood, do you endeavour to receive it worthily, and blamelessly to fulfil its duties when you have received it. It appertains to the Priest to offer Sacrifice, to preside, to preach, and to baptize.

In this impressive summary of the duties of Priests, nothing is said of the power of forgiving or retaining sins. Then, after certain prayers have been said, and after the intonation of the Veni Creator,' the bishop performs the anointing ceremony, using the following words:

Be pleased, O Lord, to consecrate and hallow these hands by this anointing and our blessing-that whatsoever they bless may be blessed, and whatsoever they consecrate may be consecrated and hallowed in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Then the bishop delivers to each candidate the chalice containing wine and water, with a paten and Host upon it, and says to everyone separately, 'Take thou the authority to offer sacrifice to God and to celebrate Mass both for the living and the dead. In the name of the Lord.'

After this ceremonial the act of ordination is apparently complete, as, from this stage in the service, those who have passed through it are described in the Rubric as 'Ordinati'-having been called Ordinandi' till then.

As a subsequent part of the ceremonial the bishop, seated before the altar, lays both his hands on the head of each one kneeling before him, and says to him: 'Receive the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them, and whose sins you shall retain they are retained.' The translation of the Roman Pontifical, from which this has been taken, bears the imprimatur of the Roman Bishop of Southwark, and the following note is appended (on page 56) to the words just quoted: Father Morin in his great work on Holy Orders (Ex. 7, c. 2), proves that this laying on of hands and its accompanying form were unknown for full twelve centuries.'

Major, writing A.D. 1516, in his commentary on the Sentences,

1 Apostolical and Ministerial Absolution, Rev. H. Davis, 1887.

mentions having seen several Pontificals in use at ordinations, in which there was no trace of either.' It is stated in Smith and Cheetham's Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, under 'Ordination,' that no mention of the rite is found in the early English Ordinals, or in any Ordinal earlier than the twelfth century, or in any of the great liturgical writers of the Middle Ages.'

Dean Stanley, in his chapter on Absolution (Christian Institutions), makes the following reference to the introduction of the words in question into the Ordinal :

Their use is prescribed only in the ordination of presbyters. And even for this limited object the introduction of the words is comparatively recent, and probably the result of misconception.

It is certain that, for the first twelve centuries, they were never used for the ordination of any Christian minister.

It is certain that, in the whole Eastern Church, they are never used at all for this purpose. It was not till the thirteenth century, the age when the materialistic theories of the sacraments and the extravagant pretensions of Pontifical and sacerdotal power were at their height, that they were first introduced into the Ordinals of the Latin Church. From thence they came, at the Reformation, into the Ordination Service of the Episcopal Church of England and of the Presbyterian Church of Lutheran Germany. Their retention is confessedly not in conformity, but in direct antagonism, with ancient and Catholic usages. That the words are necessary to the validity of Holy Orders few, probably, would assert; but such an assertion, if admitted, would of itself be fatal to the validity of all Holy Orders whatever. It would prove that every single ordination for the first 1,200 years of Christianity was invalid; nay, more, that every present ordination in the Roman Church itself is invalid, inasmuch as, in the Ordinal, these words do not occur in an essential part of the office, but only in an accidental adjunct of it.

In the Quarterly Review for October 1877 an article attributed by Dean Stanley to Archdeacon Reichel describes the share taken by Père Morin in an inquiry as to the nature and contents of the Greek Liturgies then in use.

It appears that in the year 1639,by order of Pope Urban the Eighth, an investigation at Rome was undertaken into the Liturgies of the Greek Church, and Father Morinus—a learned French theologian—was summoned to Rome by Cardinal Barberini to take part in this investigation. On his arrival he found that the Ordinals of the Greek Church were being examined, and, as very little was known about them by those who were engaged in their examination, Morinus seems to have worked independently, and to have visited all the libraries to which he could get access, with a view of discovering what was really old and what had been added to the Greek Ordinal in comparatively modern times, so that a comparison might be made between the Greek and the Roman forms of ordination, ancient and modern. His researches showed that, for all practical purposes, the Ordinal then in use in the Greek Church was identical with the old forms used before the separation between the Churches of the

East and the West. Both the ancient and the modern ritual of the Greek Church contained everything which the early Fathers of the Church held to be requisite.

On the other hand, as regards many things which in more recent times had been pronounced by the Schoolmen to be essential to a valid ordination there was among the early Fathers a 'profound silence.' A continuance of his researches at length forced Father Morinus to the conclusion that the proud motto of the Romish Church, 'Quod semper, ubique, et ab omnibus,' was inapplicable to what has been described by Dean Stanley as an 'accidental adjunct to their ordination service for Roman priests.

The ritual in the Greek Ordinal is very elaborate and abounds in suggestive symbols and in solemn ceremonial. The deacon who is about to be ordained a priest is conducted by two deacons to the 'holy gates' and is received there by two priests who present him to the bishop. The bishop then signs him with the sign of the Cross, and he makes three processions round the Holy Table in company with the two priests, chanting an invocation to the martyrs. He then kneels and kisses the bishop's robe near the knee, and while kneeling down at the Holy Table, with his head on it, the bishop, laying his hand upon his head, prays 'that the Holy Spirit may come upon him, that he may be preserved in conversation unblameable, and in faith unfeigned, that he may prove himself worthy of the priestly office.' After other prayers of a more general character the bishop, again laying his hand on the newly ordained priest, offers a prayer from which the following is an extract :—

O Lord, who hath been pleased to grant unto this thy Servant the Order of a Presbyter, replenish him with the gifts of Thy Holy Spirit, that he may be worthy to stand before Thy Holy Altar unblameably, to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom, to minister the word of Thy truth, to present unto Thee spiritual gifts and sacrifices, and to renew Thy people by the washing of regeneration.

Nowhere in the Ordination Service are there any words which purport to convey the power of personally remitting or retaining sins. It is no part either of the authority or of the duty of a priest in the Greek Church to do this. It does not enter into the commission so solemnly and impressively granted to him by the bishop. However elaborate the ritual of the ancient Liturgy of the Eastern Church, it is not marred by the pretensions and sacerdotal claims interpolated at a later date into the Ordinal of the Church of Rome.

The dignity, simplicity, and deep religious feeling which in harmonious combination have made our Prayer Book a priceless legacy gathered in through long centuries from the whole of Christendom, and bequeathed to us, imposes on every reverent mind the obligation jealously to retain each part that stands the test of truth. But nothing is more reverent than truth. Loyalty to truth breathes an atmosphere of reverence, and there is no fear of violence from without if truth arms the garrison within.

When it is shown that, in the dark ages of our Church's history, a misquotation of Christ's recorded words has been allowed to creep into our Prayer Book, a misquotation which teaches a doctrine and encourages the observance of practices absolutely opposed to the religious belief of the great majority of the Christian Church; when it is seen that our law compels the bishops of the Established Church to use this misquotation, as the most prominent part of a very solemn and impressive service, and that this is done against primitive custom, against Catholic usage, and against the universal practice of every branch of the Reformed Church, except our own, and that even in that branch of the Christian Church where priestly power is most predominant the misquotation does not form an essential part of the Ordination Service; when these facts are generally known and considered, the demand for a change in our law will become so strong that no power will be able to resist it. Will not the authorities of the Church themselves take the lead and the guidance here? Will they not respond to such an appeal as this?

For this is an appeal, not an attack—an appeal to the reverence and the honesty shared by all parties and communities of the Christian Church-such reverence for the words of Christ that cannot tolerate their misquotation, though it may have been repeated for centuries, such reverence for the Book of Common Prayer that calls for the removal of an imperfection which is unworthy of the rest, such reverence for the office and duties of the bishops of the Church that would relieve them from the necessity of using language which is a misquotation and a ceremonial that emphasises and perpetuates it, such respect for those who are ordained priests that would free them from the necessity of having this language addressed to them and taking part in this ceremonial. It is also an appeal to the honesty of all who, while admitting this imperfection in our Prayer Book and feeling convinced that Church and State should combine to remove it, will take no part in anything which savours of punishment, or even of the censure, of those who act in accordance with the doctrine of the priestly forgiveness or 'retention' of sins so long as it is taught in our Prayer Book and is, therefore, part of the unrepealed law of the land, a law not rendered obsolete by disuse, but promulgated afresh by those in authority at every Ordination Service, a law of which the protection, as well as the control, may be claimed as a right by every member, whether cleric or layman, of the Established Church.

FREDERICK VERNEY.

P.S.-It has been suggested by a clerical friend that some direct reference should be made here to the words addressed to St. Peter in Matthew xvi. 19, words so personal and so individual that it will ever

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remain a mystery how any human being ever dared so extend their application. No comment upon them can be more powerful and incisive than that of Origen.

He who is gifted with self-control enters the Gate of Heaven by self-control. He who is just enters the Gate of Heaven by the key of justice. The Saviour gives to those who are not overcome by the Gates of Hell as many keys as there are virtues. If any who is not Peter, and has not the qualities here mentioned, believes that he can bind on earth like Peter, so that what he binds is bound in Heaven, such an one is puffed up, not knowing the meaning of the Scriptures.