justification for retaining the symbol of the Cross in Baptism they said: 'So far was it from the purpose of the Church of England to forsake or reject the Churches of Italy, Spain, Germany, or any such-like Churches, that in all things which they held and practised it doth with reverence retain those ceremonies, which do neither endamage the Church of God nor offend the minds of sober men, and only departed from them in those particular points wherein they were fallen from themselves, in their ancient integrity, and from the Apostolical Churches, which were their first founders.'

With these solemn and weighty words we may leave the subject of our relations with the Church of Rome, merely remarking that, in speaking of the Church of Germany, the Reformers were certainly not referring to the Lutheran sect, but to the ancient Catholic Church of that country.

Secondly, we will consider Lady Wimborne's reiterated assertion that the Mass was abolished at the Reformation, and supplanted by an entirely different service-our present Office of the Holy Communion. She quotes no authorities for this remarkable statement, nor any scrap of evidence to justify it. It is certain she could not quote the Reformers themselves, the martyrs who compiled our Prayerbook.' They knew perfectly well that the Mass was retained, and enshrined in its integrity in the service of Holy Communion, and therefore they called it 'the Supper of the Lord and the Holy Communion, commonly called the Mass.'

Cranmer's definition is as follows: The Mass,' he says in 1548, 'by Christ's institution, consisteth in those things which he set forth in the Evangelists'; and yet Cranmer was the leader of those Reformers who, Lady Wimborne says, 'died at the stake to reject it (the Mass) and banish it for ever!'

I shall, of course, be reminded that in the Second Book of 1552 the word 'Mass' was omitted from the title of this service; but the Act of Uniformity authorising the Second Book refers to the First Book of 1549 (in which the office of Holy Communion is called the Mass') as a very godly order, agreeable to God's word and the primitive Church,' and explains that the need for revision was due more to the curiosity of the minister and mistakers than to any worthy cause.' It is clear, then, that the Mass itself was neither abolished nor condemned, though the use of the word was suspended in deference to the curiosity of mistakers,' just as many other things were omitted which have, happily, been restored in later editions of the Prayer-book.

The Holy Communion Service has been spoken of as the Mass' by a long array of Anglican authorities from that time to the present. The late Archbishop Benson constantly used the term, and, speaking once to a friend who was advocating the restoration of the

First Prayer-book, he said, 'Depend upon it, we have a very good Mass,'

But the retention or otherwise of the name is of small moment in comparison with the doctrine which the name signifies-i.e. the doctrine of the Real Presence, as held by the Church universal through all the ages. If it can be shown that the Church of England, in her formularies, maintains and teaches that central doctrine of our faith, then indeed, as Lady Wimborne has well said, 'we may claim for the Reformed Church of England a lineal descent in an unbroken line from the English Church in the earliest ages,' and that the Reformation was in no sense a breach with the Catholic Church; rather was it a return from mediævalism to those primitive ages when alone the Church could claim to be truly catholic.'

That our Church does maintain and teach this doctrine in plain and unambiguous terms a study of the Prayer-book and of the writings of our greatest divines will amply testify. But while doing so she has wisely refrained from attempting to define what no human language can ever define-the nature, or mode, of the Presence in the consecrated elements.

Transubstantiation, as the 28th Article truly says, 'overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture.'

It was this carnal view of the Sacrament which caused the men of Capernaum to be offended,' and therefore our Church, true to primitive ages, teaches that the Presence of our Lord is a spiritual Presence, and, being so, is therefore the more real.

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To take, first, the evidence of the Prayer-book, every child is taught in the Catechism that the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful.'

In the Exhortation in the Communion Service the priest, in warning his hearers of the danger of an unworthy reception, says, 'We are guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ. We eat and drink our own damnation, not considering the Lord's Body.' In the Prayer of Humble Access the priest prays that we may 'so eat the Flesh of Thy dear Son, Jesus Christ, and drink His Blood,' and, again, in the Prayer of Consecration he prays to the Father to grant that We, receiving these Thy creatures of bread and wine, may be partakers of His most blessed Body and Blood.' The words of administration begin, The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ,' and 'The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.' In the Prayer of Thanksgiving we heartily thank God for having fed us with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of Thy Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ.' This is the evidence of the Prayer-book to the Church's teaching on the doctrine of the Real Presence, and friend

and foe alike have cited that evidence as proof that she holds the doctrine in its entirety.

Now to turn to the testimony of the greatest of our divines.

The whole argument between them and the Roman controversialists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was not concerning the fact of the Presence, but concerning the mode.

Bishop Andrewes says, 'All the controversy is about the mode.' Bishop Cosin says, 'I cannot see where there is any real difference betwixt us about this Real Presence, if we would give over the study of contradictions and understand one another aright.'

And he goes on to say that the Lutherans and Calvinists, who affirm that the Presence of Christ is only in the use of the Sacrament and in the act of reception, 'seem to me to depart from all antiquity which places the Presence of Christ in the virtue of the words of consecration and benediction by the priest.' And referring to the daily Mass, he says, Better were it to endure the absence of the people than for the minister to neglect the usual and daily sacrifice of the Church, by which all people, whether they be there or no, reap so much benefit, and this was the opinion of my lord and master, Dr. Overall (author of the Sacramental part of the Catechism). Again, Bishop Bramhall, replying to a Roman controversialist, says, 'First, they (the Anglicans) acknowledge spiritual and Eucharistic sacrifices, as prayers, praises, a contrite heart, alms, and the like. Secondly, they acknowledge a commemorative or a representative sacrifice in the Holy Eucharist.'

I may here quote the opinion of Dr. Martineau, the Unitarian, as that of an intelligent outside observer. He says, 'Respecting this Real Presence with the elements there is no dispute between the Romish and the English Church; both unequivocally maintain it.'

And he quotes the article, which speaks of the Body and Blood as 'given,' making it the act of the officiating priest and implying the Real Presence before participation.

I will end by quoting Sir William Palmer, the most learned, as he was the most cautious and conservative, of the Tractarians.

In speaking of the Reformation settlement under Cranmer, at the time when the foreign Reformers wielded their greatest influence in England, he says: 'It is asserted that our Church, having steadfastly adhered to the whole Romish doctrine in the reign of Henry the Eighth, relinquished it immediately after the accession of Edward the Sixth, and became Zwinglian, rejecting especially the doctrine of the Eucharist'; and after conclusively proving that this was not the case, he sums up: Thus it appears that the authorised doctrine of the Church of England during the whole of Edward the Sixth's reign was that of the Real Presence in the strongest and most decided sense.'

This, then, is the teaching of our Church on the one great service, appointed by our Lord and Master, which the Catholic party is striving to restore to its rightful place on the Lord's day, surrounded by every adjunct of stately and solemn ritual, and to teach the people that this, and this alone, is the great service of obligation, which every baptized Christian must attend in order to offer his sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, as is his bounden duty and service. Morning and Evening Prayers, beautiful and edifying though they be, are but monastic offices, and nothing more. There is but one service to which the command 'This do' was given.

Unhappily, Lady Wimborne and her party of the Reformation,' in their zeal for these monkish services, would banish even the children from their Saviour's presence, forgetful that in doing so they are incurring His rebuke, and are even in danger of 'offending His little ones.' Who that has been present at a children's Eucharist, and has listened to a congregation of children singing the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei, can have failed to realise something of the meaning of those gracious words, 'Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven '?

Thirdly, we are assured by Lady Wimborne that at the Reformation 'confessing priests were abolished,' that henceforth no gobetween or middleman was needed between the people and their God,' that 'in this world they could approach the Throne without them, and in the next attain to heavenly bliss without their prayers.'

Again we have an assertion of a fundamental change without a particle of evidence to sustain it, and in direct opposition to the Prayer-book and the continuous practice of the Church since the Reformation. Turn where we will in the pages of the Prayer-book we find an absolute contradiction of Lady Wimborne's views of the office and work of the priesthood.

The bishop, in the Ordination Service, gives to each priest his commission in these solemn words: Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven, and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained.' Then follows the admonition to be a faithful dispenser of the Word and the Sacraments; but the bestowal of the 'Power of the Keys' comes first of all.

In the Holy Communion Service the priest is bidden to invite any who cannot quiet his own conscience to come to him and 'open his grief,' in order to receive the benefit of absolution.

Again, in the Office for the Visitation of the Sick, the priest is ordered to move the sick man to make a special confession of his sins, and when he has done so he absolves him in the following words: Our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to His Church to absolve all sinners and by His authority committed to me I absolve thee from all thy sins.'. . . . As long as these words

remain in the Prayer-book the priests of the Church of England are bound to be confessors.

So much for the teaching of the Prayer-book. Now as to the practice of the Reformers. Cranmer, in his Visitation Articles in the second year of Edward the Sixth, assumes that it is the regular practice of parishioners to make their confessions.

The 113th Canon of 1603 enjoins the priest not to reveal any crimes that may have been confided to him under the seal of confession.

The nineteenth Canon of the Irish Church orders the tolling of a bell to announce to parishioners that the priest is in church to hear their confessions. The writings and practice of such representative Anglicans as Ridley, Latimer, Andrewes, Cosin, Jeremy Taylor, and a host of others, can be adduced in evidence of the Church's teaching on confession; and not only so, but the Lutherans, Calvinists, and other bodies of foreign Protestants taught and upheld the system of confession. Take, for instance, Luther's Shorter Catechism, and in the chapter 'On Confession' we find 'Confession comprises two things— one, to confess sins, the other, to receive absolution from the confessor-or preacher of the Gospel--as if from God Himself.'

From the moment when our Lord breathed upon His Apostles in the upper chamber until now His duly appointed ministers have been confessors, and will be till the end of time. They are just as much 'go-betweens' and 'middlemen' when performing their sacred office in Holy Baptism, in Holy Matrimony, in the Burial of the Dead, in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, as when they are hearing confessions and absolving sinners.

Lady Wimborne is well aware that the priest alone is permitted to pronounce the Prayer of Absolution in the Morning and Evening Prayers; has she ever stopped to consider why a deacon may not do so?

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Fourthly, as to the appeal to Scripture, Lady Wimborne is of opinion that the Reformers appealed to Scripture as to an authority superior to the Church.' 'It must be either the Church or the Bible,' she says, which is the ultimate court of appeal,' and we must choose which we will believe. The appeal of the Reformers, we are to understand, was to the Bible, absolute, alone, and unfettered,' otherwise their action was absolutely unjustifiable,' and they were involving the Church in a ' meaningless schism.'

This is surely the wildest assertion of all.

The Bible is the child and offspring of the Church, written by the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. How, then, can the mother and the creator be inferior to the thing created?

The Bible is the documentary evidence drawn up, compiled, and selected by the Church herself, as containing all that is necessary for us to know of the faith once delivered to the saints, and as such it