ideal of perfection. And then, as if to give force to this view of his own, and no doubt indirectly to rebuke the bigots who think evil of things most divine, he puts their sentiments into the mouth of the devil, who, with all his cunning, pronounces a judgment both false and malicious. To find a parallel to this procedure of Dr. Cumming, we must imagine a preacher first quoting with approval the devil's opinion as to the vir tue of Job, and then attributing it to Moses.13

Yet I am convinced that the quotation was rather a blunder than a conscious and deliberate perversion. It is, however, the more instructive on that account. For, how came a minister of religion to quote with approbation the sentiments of the devil? I will not suppose that he remarked whose sentiments they were. No; he read the beautiful words which Longfellow has put in the mouth of the confessor, but as in them there was nothing in harmony with his tone of mind, they made no impression upon him; he read on till he came to the devil's speech, and he found his own thoughts and sentiments so exactly echoed that he eagerly marked the passage for future quotation, and pronounced the poem 'beautiful.'

An example like this teaches us as clearly as a whole treatise written on the subject, how necessary is the 'removal of the film from the mind's eye' (as Dr. Cumming most truly said), before it can read Scripture aright. The Pharisees, to whom our blessed Lord said, 'Search the Scriptures, but you will not come to Me,' read the Old Testament just as Dr. Cumming read Longfellow, and as he read and saw everything that relates to the Catholic Church.

In contrast with this unhappy spirit of prejudice and hate, the Holy Scripture points to the noble spirit of the Bereans. With one remark founded on this example, I will conclude this Introduction. When St. Paul announced in the synagogue of the Jews that the carpenter's son of Nazareth, crucified at Jerusalem, was the long-expected Messiah, the proposition

12 After this specimen of Dr. Cumming's candour, the reader can appreciate the good taste with which he says (Lect. ix. ), 'I have never met with any man tainted with Romish doctrine who was not also very little reliable in his speaking truth.'

seemed to the Bereans strange in the last degree and almost incredible. It contradicted all their previous conceptions. Yet when they heard the Apostle appealing to the very Scriptures with which they were familiar, and giving to them an interpretation which had never occurred to their minds before, they determined to give him a patient hearing, and to weigh the matter calmly. The result was, that they found that St. Paul was right, and that till then 'a veil had been over their eyes when Moses was read.'

Let me suppose, then, that my reader is just as firmly convinced that the New Testament is opposed to Ritualism as the Bereans were that the Old Testament was opposed to a crucified Messiah; yet, as I too appeal to the New Testament, let me have a patient hearing and a calm judgment. Let my readers 'search the Scriptures whether these things are so,' and the result may be the conviction, that Protestant as well as Jewish education throws a veil over certain parts of the Word of God.

St. Chrysostom, however, makes an important reflection on the words of our blessed Lord, 'Search the Scriptures.' The Pharisees, he says, had been accustomed to read the Scriptures, not to search them. They had seen, therefore, only what was on the surface; but there was a rich treasure hidden beneath the surface, which they missed, because they did not dig for it. If the testimonies to Jesus Christ, who is the very end and scope of the Old Testament, do not lie on the surface, but: have to be carefully and painfully sought out, no one need wonder if the testimonies to Ritualism are not obvious to every reader who is familiar with the letter of the New Testament. The real question is, Are they there? not, Are they there so as to force themselves on the notice of every one? They may require a hint, a clue to their discovery, just like the prophecies. which spoke of Jesus Christ. May He open our minds that we may understand the Scriptures!

PART I.

THE PRINCIPLES OF CATHOLIC RITUAL

RECOGNISED IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.

CHAPTER I.

A GENERAL VIEW.

WE are met at the very outset of our investigation by a fact which, to certain minds, accustomed to the Protestant view of Scripture as the sole source of knowledge of things divine, may seem an insuperable obstacle in my path.

Any one who looks in the New Testament for an account of the worship proper to the Christian Church, will discover that there is no formal statement there of any system of worship peculiar to Christ's followers. He will find brief indications of some new rites, not gathered into a code, but scattered here and there in different writings; he will have glimpses of the assemblies of the first disciples of Jesus Christ for common worship, but no description given for the instruction of future generations, nor sufficient detail to provide a model for imitation.

This plain and acknowledged fact might be urged, indeed, against the Protestant view of Scripture just alluded to. It has been truly said. that if the New Testament were a profane book, the remains of a school of Greek philosophers, or the first accessible writings of a new Eastern sect, there is not a

scholar among us who would not prove, from the ellipses, the allusions, and the suggestions (not to say the assertions) of the text, the existence of a much larger body of laws and customs than was there set down.'

That this is the true view of the New Testament will be shown in the second part of this Essay, so far as Ritual is concerned. In the present chapter, however, I have to consider how the matter appears to Protestants. They are accustomed to assume, not only that we have, in fact, at the present day, no authentic source of information regarding Christianity besides the New Testament, but that the New Testament was written with the intention of supplying future ages with all necessary knowledge of divine things. When this hypothesis is admitted, two conclusions will be drawn from the fragmentary and unsystematic notices regarding Ritual in the books of the New Testament. It will be said that few formal regulations are given, because there is really little to regulate. And then it will be argued, further, that if Ritual occupies but a small space in the inspired pages, and a large place in Catholic practice, Catholic practice is thereby condemned at once and as a whole, and requires no farther examination.

I shall consider these theories in order.

I. I suppose every one must have remarked the absence from the New Testament of any book like that of Leviticus in the Old Testament. Dr. Vaughan thinks that he sees in this a primary and invincible argument against Ritual. I will give his argument the benefit of his own statement.

'From what was done,' he says, ' in the case of the Hebrews, the conclusion is, that whenever the Divine Being imparts a revelation to a people needing such a Ritual as we find in the Book of Leviticus, He will Himself interfere and determine the matters of that Ritual, down even to the smallest provision to be included in it. The Divine Being changes not. Hence, whatever appears to Him to be good in given circumstances once, must appear to Him to be good in those circumstances always. Let it once be clear that it is a principle in His rules that wherever an elaborate ceremonial is desiråble He will bestow it, as in the times of the Old Testament, and it must