a distinct return to the primitive usages, such as we see in the early Ordines Romani, in the preparation of the chalice and the setting of the bread and wine on the altar after the Creed. In the medieval rites the chalice was mixed, and the bread and wine were set on the altar earlier in the service, after the epistle, or even before the service began. The private prayers, of 'the later middle ages private devotions,' were indeed swept away; but if these are necessary to the idea of a sacrifice, there could have been no notion of a Eucharistic sacrifice in the Gregorian Sacramentary till the thirteenth century. And the sweeping away of all these prayers does not in itself imply a disbelief in the Eucharistic sacrifice. Some English Churchmen, more zealous than learned, have introduced these mediaval devotions into the English Prayer Book; and others, much better Ritualists than the former, have done their best to cast them forth again. It does not follow that the latter have a less fervent belief in the Eucharistic sacrifice than the former. Further, we think our authors have been too much influenced in their views as to the offertory by the hangers-on to the ceremonial movement of 1840, who have no doubt used the word loosely and carelessly. We think it is rare for any English liturgical scholar to use the word Offertory' of a collection of money only, though of course the word includes the offering of alms, though not of alms only. The mass-penny, put into the paten at the time of the offertory, has a history long before Edward's First Book; and we do not see why our authors have rejected the traditional explanation of the rubric in the First Book. We have always been told that the people left their places and went up to the altar, there to make an offering which was afterwards put into the poor man's box; those who were about to communicate did not return out of the choir. And this arrangement, though practically inconvenient, is still feasible under the rubrics of the present book. It is not still carried out, on account of the confusion that would arise if all were to leave their place, but it is evidently contemplated by the rubric; though nowadays a few persons, delegated by the congregation, offer their alms to the deacons, who in the words of the rubric receive them.

The most is also made of the permission to wear a cope for the Eucharist. No doubt in modern times a sacerdotal character is ascribed to the chasuble, but whether this opinion always prevailed in the Church is doubtful. If the chasuble

1 See a long and learned note on the Mass-penny in Simmons's edition of the Lay-Folks Mass-Book, E. E. T. S., 1879, p. 230.

be a vestment restricted to priests, why do deacons and subdeacons wear the chasuble during Advent and Lent, on Vigils and Ember days, so great a portion of the year? And we do not feel at all sure that the meaning of the word 'cope' was so sharply defined that it did not include a chasuble in the sixteenth century. Sir Thomas More must have understood well enough the difference between a cope and a chasuble; yet he says the Protestants care not 'whyther the prieste saye Masse in his gowne or in hys cope.'1 And, on the other hand, it has not been noticed that in the sort of dry mass which was to be said on Wednesdays and Fridays, if there were no celebration the cope only is ordered. Does Mr. Gasquet see in this a return to a sounder view on the symbolism of the chasuble?

It is complained that the Agnus has been moved from its place in the ancient use' (p. 213). Now Agnus Dei is not an ancient part of the Gregorian Sacramentary, and its place is therefore moveable. The monks of the Charterhouse, whose liturgy represents a very old form, sang Agnus Dei after the Communion,2 not, as in the Sarum rite, before it.

We must draw to a close. When we reflect upon the character of the men who were in the forefront of the sixteenth century, we may be allowed to wonder, not at the little that has come to us, but that anything Christian-not to say Catholic-has been left to us. The Popes and their surroundings in the first half of the century are greatly responsible for the flood of immorality and unbelief which swept over Europe. Leo X. sends for rhetoricians, who gravely argue before him the question of the immortality of the soul, and the Pope sums up the discussion by saying:

'Et redit in nihilum quod fuit ante nihil.'

The practical code of ethics of Alexander VI. is too well known. With such characters as Paul III., Leo X., Julius II., and Alexander VI. ruling Western Christendom, is it to be wondered at that we have a Cranmer, a Becon, a Hooper,

1 The Workes of Sir Thomas More, Knyght, London, 1557, p. 365, col. ii. H. Cf. Machyn's Diary, Camden Society, quoted by BeresfordHope, Worship in the Church of England, second edition, 1875, p. 100, chap. iv., 'whent throughe London a prest, with a cope, taken sayhyng of masse in Fayter lane.' A twelfth-century fresco of St. Clement saying Mass in the underground church of St. Clement at Rome shows the saint in a vestment which is singularly like a cope.

2

Repertorium Statutorum Ordinis Cartusiensis, Basileæ, 1510. I. Pars statutorum antiquorum, cap. xliii. §§ 47 and 53. We find nothing of his of course, in an Ordinarium Cartusiense published at Lyons, 1641.

or a Ridley controlling events in England ? That after the general destruction of Edward VI.'s reign a Church to teach faith or morals of any kind should have been left is a miracle; and we can rejoice that after the blows again dealt at her existence in the reign of Elizabeth she should have retained the wondrous vitality that has brought her down to our own time, when she is stretching out her branches unto the sea and her boughs unto the river. After the successful onslaught of the Puritans in the seventeenth century, and the more dangerous sapping and mining of the Latitudinarians in the eighteenth century, we may with all reverence ascribe her prosperity to the Almighty and see in her progress the very finger of God. Ecce digitus Dei.

ART. XI.-TWO BOOKS ON FOREIGN MISSION

WORK.

I. The Missionary's Foundation of Doctrine, with Practical Reflections. By EDWARD T. CHURTON, D.D., Bishop of Nassau. (London, 1890.)

2. A. M. Mackay, Pioneer Missionary of the Church Missionary Society to Uganda. By his SISTER. (London, 1890.)

THERE is a marked contrast in many respects between the two books whose titles are placed at the head of this article. The one writer approaches his subject from the doctrinal, the other from the purely practical side; the one book is the work of a High Churchman, the other gives an account of a Low Churchman; the one, so far as it deals with localities at all, carries us in thought to a small island of the West Indies, the other to the centre of a vast continent; the one is the work of a highly trained theologian, the other scarcely enters into the region of dogmatic theology at all; the experience of the one has been among colonists, of the other among the heathen. But the very points of difference tend only to emphasize the many points of agreement. Both give us the impression of the thorough reality of Foreign Mission work ; both-but curiously enough the High Churchman even more than the Low Churchman-illustrate the tendency which such work has to give a certain breadth of view, a tolerance of, and even a sympathy with, those who differ from us, which the closer atmosphere of home work is less calculated to encourage. Both specify the same difficulties abroad and the same mis

apprehensions at home respecting the nature of the work, as may be seen by comparing the two following passages :

'It must be remembered that, since men are naturally indifferent to blessings of which they have not learned the preciousness by experience, eagerness to receive the Gospel must never be expected in the heathen when first approached. Where anything like eagerness has been displayed, as among the African races, we may be sure that curiosity had more to do with bringing this about than settled conviction' (Churton, p. 22).

'You will do a noble work if you get good Christians in England to understand fully the exact nature of the case that the heathen do not, by nature, wish the Gospel, although we know they sorely need it; that in every land people are jealous for their faith, which came down from their ancestors of long-lost memory; that they are greedy of gain, and jealous for their land, which they fancy we have come to possess, or rather spy out with a view to our nation possessing' (Mackay, p. 239).

We begin with Bishop Churton for more reasons than one : first, because in the Christian scheme doctrine precedes practice in the order of treatment, as St. Paul's Epistles sufficiently show; secondly, because a bishop claims precedence of a layman; and, thirdly, because a full recognition of the importance of the points insisted upon by Bishop Churton will allow us with a clearer conscience to express our deep and unqualified admiration of the noble life and work of Mr. Mackay. Indeed, the first book may furnish a wholesome and, perhaps, necessary correction of an impression which might be derived from the study of the second. We could readily understand anyone with no very fixed opinions, after he had read Mackay of Uganda, exclaiming : 'After all, what does it matter what particular form of Christianity we adopt? Here is a noble fellow who is quite content with the simple faith that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and came to redeem the world; and see what a glorious work for God that simple faith enabled him to do!' Unquestionably! But let it be carefully remembered that Mackay's work lay exclusively among those who had not yet grasped that elementary truth to which the bishop gives quite as much prominence as the layman. Had Mackay's life been spared, and had his work progressed, he must have been brought face to face with these later, but no less necessary, questions which are answered by the Bishop. When the Apostles first worked among the heathen, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved' was a sufficient message. It was at a later stage that more elaborate creeds, which are in truth only a necessary

development and explanation of that elementary doctrine, became necessary. Mr. Mackay's message to the simple Africans was like that of St. Paul to the gaoler of Philippi. But let us remember that the same Apostle who summed up Christianity in the simple formula, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,' afterwards entered into the most minute points of Christian doctrine in writing to his Christian converts. There is, therefore, nothing inconsistent in admiring the simple rudimentary Christianity of Mr. Mackay, and at the same time recognizing the vital importance of Bishop Churton's Missionary's Foundation of Doctrine.

As the title implies, the Bishop's volume is not an account of Mission work—that he has given elsewhere, in The Island Missionary; nor is it, in the first instance, addressed to the general public at all, but to the missionaries themselves, and especially to those who are labouring under him in the mission field. It is important to notice at the outset how utterly different are the views of this practical worker from those of some theorizers who argue that experience in foreign lands would lead men to lay less stress upon what they are pleased to term trifling distinctions, and be content with the broad, general outlines of Christianity, or what they call Christianity. Was it not Lord Macaulay who said, after his return from India, something to this effect—that when a man had been used to see people worshipping cows he was not inclined to make much of the differences between professing Christians? Not so Bishop Churton. Experience abroad has, indeed, taught him to recognize more heartily than many stay-at-homes do the good points of those who differ from

him.

'Should any ask,' he writes, 'who have marked the good work done among the heathen by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists, whether we would not include these among Catholics--for have not they, too, the genuine note? we may answer that, although the avowed position of those sects, as Dissenters from the Church, may be doubtful, we can hardly doubt of many individuals from among them, that they, at least, are not far from the Kingdom of God. For to have laboured so abundantly for Christ is surely a sign that they have received the Holy Ghost as well as we' (p. 85).

But the Bishop's trumpet gives no uncertain sound as to the tenets of Churchmen. Precise and definite dogma is with him the very foundation of true Mission work. And so he begins with the Incarnation and devotes fifty pages to the subject, pointing out briefly the erroneous views which have been held upon it, and explaining it minutely in its true