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does not teach one doctrine only, but many; that it is not a "party" Sacrament, designed for an elect few, but a Catholic Sacrament instituted for the whole world.

I am sure you will carefully note what I say. Sermons and preachers are so easily misrepresented. What I specially want to make plain to-night is, that while I lay stress upon that aspect of Holy Communion which is Commemorative, as contained in the words. of my text, I am not, by this act, denying the Sacrificial aspect of Holy Communion. I beg, most earnestly, not in any way to be misrepresented on this point.

Taking then, on this occasion, this one aspect of Holy Communion, I maintain that Divine Love is the leading principle and doctrine of Holy Communion. Our Catechism says that this Sacrament was ordained "for the continual remembrance of the Sacrifice of the death of Christ, and of the benefits which we receive thereby." We shall understand this better if we think for a few moments of the purpose of Old Testament times. Under the old

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Jewish Dispensation, everything pointed onward to the future. It was a Dispensation of types and shadows. The Law had a shadow of good things to come. St. Paul in his Epistle to the Colossians, says, Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ." Now you know full well, that in the Temple and the Tabernacle there was a Sacrifice which, after all, was but a shadow of something else that was, by-and-bye, to come. However holy and important that Temple Sacrifice was, still, it was but a forerunner of something much more real and beautiful. What was that Old Testament Sacrifice? It was a Sacrifice of Blood. The blood of lambs, of bulls, and of goats. But the blood of the Jewish Sacrifice pointed to something that was coming more real than blood. Something more efficacious than blood, for, as St. Paul says in his Epistle to the Hebrews, "It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins." Those Sacrifices on Jewish Altars were, after all, but types and shadows. They were but so many voices speaking to the

world, and saying, that what mere blood could not accomplish Love would one day do. That, however powerful in its efficacy the Sacrifice of bulls and of goats, offered on the Temple Altar might be, the Christian Altar of Love, and the Christian Temple of Love, and the Revelation of perfect Love in Christ would be far more efficacious, and far more. sin-subduing. And therefore, when the fulness of the time had come, and not before, the last Jewish Altar was lighted; the last Sacrifice of blood took place, and for the last time the priest of the old Dispensation stood before his Altar, to perform what, after all, was but type and shadow. And then, at that time, "when the fulness of the times" had

come,―

Earth was waiting spent and restless,

With a mingled hope and fear;
And the faithful few were sighing,

'Surely, Lord, the day is near;

The Desire of all the nations,

It is time He should appear?'

Still the gods were in the Temples,
But the ancient Faith had fled;

And the Priests stood by their Altars,
Only for a piece of bread;
And the oracles were silent,

And the prophets all were dead.

In the sacred Courts of Zion,
Where the Lord had His abode,
There, the money-changers trafficked,
And the sheep and oxen trod;
And the world, because of wisdom,
Knew not either Lord or God."

And then, at that time, the Sun of Righteousness arose upon the world, with Its own divine Revelation of perfect Love. As grandly It rose from behind the Eternal Hills, this is what, in Its shining, it said, "God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." And from that day, Love took the place of the old Jewish types and shadows, and Sacrifices of blood. Now Love was to be its own Bethlehem; Love its Nazareth home; Love its own Life of Sacrifice, seen in "the Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief." Love was to be its Gethsemane; its Calvary; its Arimathea tomb; and Love was to be its Easter Day triumph,

and its climax of victory on the mount of the Ascension. And, from thenceforth, Love was to be "the fountain open for sin and uncleanness." It was to be from henceforth the all-powerful Sacrifice. The Blood of the New Testament Altar was to be that great Love of God which passeth all understanding, in which Love he who bathes himself has his sins washed away, so that they become white as snow. And thus it was, that, as St. John says, "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him." And he tells us what this propitiation for our sins. consists of. He tells us that Love is the propitiation," Herein is Love," he says, "not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

If you have given your assent to this great premise that I have laid down, of course it follows, as a natural consequence, that Love must be the predominant characteristic of the Holy Communion, and that I have not done wrong in calling the Holy Communion "The

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