PASTOR VERSUS PRIEST;

OR,

OUR NEO-CATHOLIC CURATES, AND HOW TO ANSWER THEM.

Conversations with a Young Lady Visitor inclined to Ritualism.

VISITOR. Father Breton is very emphatic about This is My body.'

MINISTER. Yes. But the literal interpretation is condemned. by the whole genius of the Bible. It abounds in Oriental figures- All flesh is grass,' says Isaiah; This Lamb is the Passover Christ is called 'the vine,' 'the rock'; and we read in Revelation, 'The seven candlesticks are seven churches.' Then, too, Christ speaks of His disciples, 'Ye are the sheep,' 'Ye are the branches. Moreover, to fully understand Christ's meaning, we must remember His own explanation. Whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life.' What! I thought Judas, the traitor and suicide, ate the flesh and drank the blood! Had he eternal life? It cannot be. Now mark again what our Lord says: 'I am the bread which came down from heaven' (John vi. 41), and this bread He calls His flesh, Now did our Lord's flesh come down from heaven? No! It came from Mary; but in this verse Christ describes His flesh as having 'come down from heaven '!

It is remarked by a Ritualist that 'the Jews understood Christ literally. "They murmured at Him because He said, I am the bread which came down from heaven." Again, "The Jews therefore strove amongst themselves, saying, How can this man give us His flesh to eat?" Evidently they took the words in their literal meaning, and were offended at them.' It does not seem to have struck the Ritualists that the same mistake occurred in relation to the doctrine of the new birth. Nicodemus said unto Him, How can a man be born again when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? Surely proof enough that the Jews were not otherwise than prone to err in this respect! Dr. Wiseman admits that in the former part of this discourse Christ spoke figuratively and spiritually, for he says the ideas of giving bread and partaking of food were commonly applied to giving and receiving instruction; but when Christ says 'Except ye eat My flesh,' He argues that Christ was entering on an entirely different subject. He forgets this, that the Lord's Supper was not instituted till twelve months after the delivery of the discourse, and that the blessings of which the Saviour spoke to His disciples were

available while He spoke. Yet once more, if that little word is rules the sentence literally, 'This is My body,' then the little word is rules the next sentence-this is the New Testament'! No logic can evade that. The more strictly the former is pressed, the more strictly ought the latter to be pressed. wine cannot be blood-it is literally the New Testament or

covenant.

The

Moreover, Christ should have altered the words: He should have said-not 'This bread is My body,' but This is no more bread, but My body; this is no more wine, but My blood;' and added to all is the awful implication that the Atonement was consummated before the Saviour hung on the cross, and that before the wicked hands of His enemies crucified Him He was slain. Oh, how beautiful is the simplicity of the New Testament words, "The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?' The tendency of the ecclesiastics to become a sacrificing priesthood, in time altogether perverted the utterance. Dr. Stanley says, 'The Eucharist became more and more set apart as a distinct sacred ordinance, till at last it was wrapt up in the awful mystery which has attached to it in the highest degree in the Church of the East; and in some degree in the Churches of the West also, both Protestant and Roman Catholic. Beginning under the simple name of "breaking of bread," known from Paul's Epistles by the social and almost festive appellation of "the Communion" and "the Lord's Supper," it first receives in Pliny the name of "Sacramentum," and in Justin Martyr that of "Eucharistia," till in the days of Chrysostom it presents itself to us under the formidable name of " the dreadful sacrifice."

VISITOR. I have thought it strange that there are no records of elevation of the host' in the Scriptures.

MINISTER. Certainly not. Had this doctrine been Scriptural,

the New Testament would have been full of references in the Apostolic Epistles to 'processions of the host,' 'elevation of the host,' and 'adoration of the host;' but there is not a word. For several years the memorial feast continued to form part of the social meal at eventide; and remember that it was not till the third century that its administration was limited to the chief minister. Previous to that, it was the custom for each member of the congregation to take of the elements himself. Instead of reading that Paul went everywhere preaching the Word, we should have read that he went everywhere erecting altars and offering sacrifices. It is strange indeed, according to the AngloCatholic theory, that the Apostles were ambassadors of Christ, preaching glad tidings, and not priests dressed in sacerdotal garments performing the Mass Ritual. Moreover, what of the

abuses in the Corinthian Church, when they not only 'spilled the wine,' but became intoxicated? Paul says, 'What! have ye not houses to eat and drink in, or despise ye the Church of God? He does not say, 'Why profane ye the body of Christ?' According to the Anglo-Catholic Cautels of the Mass,' I will tell you what he ought to have done. I read thus: 'If the Eucharist hath fallen to the ground, the place where it lay must be scraped, and fire kindled thereon, and the ashes reserved behind the altar.' I abstain from further quotations from these Cautels, concerning possible dangers to the consecrated bread and wine, as they are fearfully suggestive of blasphemy, and of the way in which the Divine Lord puts Himself, not only within the power of His reasonable creatures, but within the power of the very beasts that perish.

It is a terrible thought, then, that Masses are restored in England. Hundreds of millions of Masses have been offered— that is, hundreds of millions of the offerings of the body and blood of Christ-when once for all Christ put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. If Christ's sacrifice is infinite, and if we have through Him perfect forgiveness, how fearful a mockery in His sight must be this Mass service, which may be bought with money, and offered up for departed souls. One thing is certain, if the word 'sacrificing,' as used in the New Testament, means sacrificing the body and blood, soul and divinity, of Christ, on the altar of the church, as a propitiatory sacrifice, then kings and rulers, women and men, have all a right to do it, as their sacrificial duties are called in Scripture by this word! spiritual sacrifices being the only sacrifices offered up by the kings and priests of God.

No word can do justice to the emotion of sadness I feel in the knowledge that the Mass is introduced, in all its fulness, to England. The Mass! Yes, and all its correlative doctrines! Soon we shall hear that only those who have had absolution may attend, and that confession is the necessary preliminary to absolution! and that, as only priests can administer sacraments, so only priests can teach us what is the truth of God. Let the doctrine of the priesthood triumph-the greatest sins again in England will be heresy and schism, and the grossest tyranny will triumph in the power to curse, which accompanies the power to bless.

VISITOR. I notice that the newspapers counsel conciliation in all these matters.

MINISTER. Yes; the newspapers of the age-an age in which commercial and fashionable and worldly interests are predominant-counsel quiet forbearance with each party by the other, so that none may be offended or cast out. Exactly what Cæsar

did in the Pantheon with the pagan gods, and bid them all be on easy terms with each other. Forbearance! Oh, there are moments when the very word sounds the deepest depths of degradation. Forbearance, if Christ's Gospel is trampled under foot-His perfect Atonement dishonoured-His precious Gospel made void by tradition? Forbearance! No; let us not make compromise the grave of truth! Listen to St. Paul: 'Beware lest any man spoil you, after the traditions of men, and not after Christ' (Col. ii. 8). Rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith. Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth' (Titus i. 13, 14). And be it remembered that all traditions of Fathers, and all decrees of uninspired Councils, are only 'commandments of men.' We must raise our testimony against the paganism and superstition of Roman or Anglo-Catholicism; and, God helping us, we will! There can be no common standing-ground between Protestantism and Popery; there never has been-never can be― never will be!

Tendencies to Roman Catholicism must be resisted by us to the death. The pernicious symbolism which begins so prettily, and ends so disastrously, must be discarded. Why wear those paltry crucifixes, which, though they had been studded with pearls and diamonds, our fathers would have cast into the street?

IV.

There's oft a rare fidelity,

That in life's battle's been,
Which makes the love of seventy
Truer than seventeen.

V.

For character gives dignity,
And thus is often seen
A rarer grace at seventy

Than blooms at seventeen.

W. M. S.

Being set to music by the composer, Mr. Ernest Ford.

LITERARY NOTICES.

HENRY WARD BEECHER. A Sketch of his Career. Edited by LYMON ABBOTT, D.D. London: F. Bordon Hunt, 44, Fleet Street.

This volume is elegantly got up, with an admirable portrait of Mr. Beecher as a frontispiece. The print and the paper are above par in quality, and the various illustrations of Mr. Beecher's first home, first church, the family group, his present Plymouth Church, and his home at Peekskill, are excellently drawn, and add great interest to the publication. The analysis of his power and reminiscences, and the incidents of his pastorate, are well told; whilst his visit to England at the time of the war, and his triumph as a speaker over the most noisy and apparently unmanageable English crowds at Manchester and Liverpool are connected with that remarkable period which made history,' and illustrate well the excitement and interest of an occasion when the English feeling was elicited in its real element of sympathy on the part of the great masses of the people with the Northern States. It is not too much to say that Mr. Beecher's truth and eloquence completely turned the tide and overwhelmed the Southern sympathizers, who, if they could, would have cast in the sympathies, at all events the Governmental aid, of Great Britain with the South. The volume is commemorative of Mr. Beecher's seventieth year. It is impossible to conceive of Mr. Beecher as an old man; his heart is so young, his genius is so immortal, and his energies are so fresh, that all he says and does is still full of vitality, and we conceive that with all the rare comforts of his Peekskill home, it would be impossible for Mr. Beecher to retire, and to lay arrest upon his teaching and preaching power, able as he is as a scientist and a naturalist, and fond as he is of farming and gardening. The volume well illustrates the fulness of Mr. Beecher's mind. The taproots of his thoughts run into all manner of richly laden soils, and whatever subject is mooted in conversation, Mr. Beecher seems to know more about it than anyone else in the company. His speech in London is printed in detail at page 522, and is perhaps one of the most argumentative, convincing, and original that he ever delivered. The editor well says in the preface, It is the compensating disadvantage of genius to be never comprehended by its contemporaries; and Mr. Beecher is