The Easter Even Epistle and Gospel were appointed in 1549, and represent a mass which used to be celebrated in the evening of the Sabbatum Sanctum or Holy Saturday, as the day was called. This mass followed several other offices which began at the hour of none (3 p.m.), and towards its conclusion Vespers (Vesperæ festivæ) commenced, these and the mass concluding together (A. H. Pearson's Sarum Missal in English, pp. 171, 173; Dickinson's Missal, coll. 348, 358). Pearson (Introd. p. xiii.), referring to a period earlier than the twelfth century, observes that the mass 66 on fasts was often deferred till after nones, vespers, or even compline."

Trinity Sunday.-The Epistle and Gospel are those of the Comes Hieronymi (cf. § 98).

CHAPTER XXI.

THE LORD'S SUPPER, OR HOLY COMMUNION.

§ 100. History of the Service.-On March 8th, 1548, before the Book of Common Prayer appeared, there was printed by authority an English Order of Communion, which was the first step towards a new Communion Service (§ 18).

The unreformed office, the Latin Mass, was one for the priest alone; the people, although commonly present, were not noticed as having any concern in it, and the various English Uses did not recognise them in any way, though the Roman and the Paris Missals, we are told, did direct where, if there were any lay communicants, they were to receive, viz. immediately after the priest. There was no order of Communion at all. It was merely by custom and not in accordance with any express directions that the lay communicants, when there were any, received (Mask. A.L. 184).

The Order of Communion was intended to give the people a share in the service, instead of their being disregarded as mere attendants. It did not supersede the old service, nor in any way interfere with it, but supplemented it. It was an English service for the people, added on to the Latin mass for the priest. The

rubric directed: "The time of the Communion shall be immediately after the priest himself has received the sacrament; and as the time of reception was at the end of the Communion, this whole service intervened between the communicating of the priest and that of the people.

The Order of Communion was substantially that part of our present office which commences with the Exhortation, and goes on to the end; the Prayer of Consecration, of course, being omitted, as that had already been said in Latin by the priest, and with the Prayer of Consecration the prayer for the Church Militant, as these two were originally united. When the people had received (and this was in both kinds), there were no further prayers, but the blessing was given at once. The gain of this new service was that the people received in both kinds, and the language was to a large extent English. Some new doctrinal language also now entered. The consecrated elements, which before were called " corpus" and "sanguis," were now "the sacrament of the body" and " sacrament of the blood," and likewise even "bread" and "wine."

In the old service the words on delivering the elements were of course not given, a delivery to the people being not in any manner alluded to. Now they were, and resembled in form the words with which the priest himself received, but with a noticeable difference. He received in these words, which are from the Hereford Use, "Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi sit animæ meæ remedium in vitam æternam." The York Use was nearly the same, but the Sarum

Use varied considerably. The English of 1548, after "the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ," inserted "which was given for you," thus leading the communicant (as remarked by Mr. Humphry, p. 254) to think of the Body slain on the cross, not the bread which was received, as the source of salvation.

In 1549, when Edward's First Prayer Book appeared, the Communion Office was entirely in English, and it embodied the service just described. Further alterations were these. The title was, "The Supper of the Lord and the Holy Communion, commonly called the Mass." The priest communicated at a later stage than he did before, and the people immediately after him, just as at present, and a prayer followed before the blessing was given. A rubric at the end provided against any private and solitary communion by the priest, directing that "there shall always some communicate with the priest ;" and such is still the rule. Masses for the dead, celebrated by the priest alone, were thus put a stop to.

Much nevertheless of the old remained, sometimes however modified. The vestments peculiar to the mass, the word altar, and prayer for the departed, continued as before. The Consecration Prayer (here indeed following the Greek Liturgy, but not the Sarum Mass), besought that with the Holy Spirit and the Word the bread and wine might be blessed and sanctified (here crosses), so as to be made unto us the body and blood of Christ. There was a rubric which, after enjoining that the wafer must not be delivered whole, but divided into portions, added that none the less was the whole body of Christ received.

In 1552 the Communion Service appeared quite remodelled in form and arrangement. The Commandments, for instance, were now first inserted. The prayer in which the sacred elements were blessed, sanctified, and crossed, which was not called a Prayer of Consecration, but prayed "for the whole state of hrist's Church," underwent a great structural change, by being divided into three independent prayers and then distributed to other parts of the service, where they still are. The first of the three, as a Prayer for the Church Militant, was moved back so as to come next to the offertory. The middle, or prayer of institution as it may be called, was placed immediately before reception. The third, which, from the words in it, "We offer ... Ourselves," may be designated the prayer of self-oblation, was made to follow reception. There were also the following important omissions or modifications of doctrinal language. The title became "The Lord's Supper or Holy Communion," the word " mass being dropped. The old vestments were discontinued, and the word "altar was changed to "Table" and "Lord's Table," and the table was to stand in the body of the church, or in the chancel, where Morning and Evening Prayer were appointed to be said.

The prayer "for the whole state of Christ's Church had its scope narrowed by the addition of the words "militant here on earth," and prayers for the departed, which it previously included, were omitted. In the Prayer of Institution the Holy Spirit was not invoked upon the elements for their blessing and sanctification, nor was the sign of the cross made. For a