if

gloried in his prerogative of protecting her. She then realized her great happiness, loving and beloved: she heard his voice, she clasped his hand, and all other interests on earth faded away in his presence. Her agitation was soon quelled, and the exquisitely graceful Margeurite, appeared to her sisters gaze, as returned to her gay bright girlhood; only the dreamy loveliness of the fair woman was far beyond the unruffled and passionless repose of the lineaments of girlhood. Without a taint of affectation, there was a simple pathos in Margeurite's greeting, which went to Bridget's innocent heart; she embraced Mrs. Irwin, saying, "dear mamma❞—but there was a peculiar intonation in the words, which made Margeurite again fold Bridget in her arms, and murmur, "dearest girl-my daughter." Sarah had comported herself wonderfully; she also had embraced Margeurite, and no looker-on could have found fault with her polite conventional manner, rather frigid perhaps, but still nothing to find fault with.

Mr.

Irwin remarked that his daughters were both much grown and improved in appearance; and he courteously turned to Mrs. Martha, who was present, and tendered his thanks for her care of them. To the Northcotes and Rosalia, he expressed far

more.

He was animated now, full of fire, and life, and energy; but it was to Margeurite his whole attention was ever directed. His whole soul was absorbed in her; his eyes wandered to seek her; he became absent when she was not by his side, as if his thoughts and aspirations were all centred in her; and he could not-he was in short powerless-to divert them from this one channel, and to bestow them in any large degree on others. His voice was low and tremulous whenever he addressed her; he called her "Pearl," seldom Margeurite, never by any other term of endearment but my Pearl;" but what unutterable volumes of passion, and endearment, and tenderness, were contained in the words. Bridget was a little startled and nervous when she first heard her father (of whom she had always stood in awe, her nature being so shy and timid), called by his Christian name by Margeurite.

There was

no "loves," no "dears," between Mr. and Mrs. Irwin; it was simply "Pearl," and "Reginald."-Regi

nald, his Christian name, which he had never loved, till his soul thrilled by her pronouncing it. The simple manner of pronouncing a Christian name surely cannot convey much; yet there was a world of memory, and of unutterable affection and bliss comprised in the utterance, by Marguerite, of her husband's name. Her lowest whisper of" Reginald" he could detect, and then his eyes sought hers, often in silence, but eloquent silence.

Mrs. Irwin seemed to have utterly forgotten that Sarah had ever borne her any ill-will. She was uniformly kind and gentle towards both the girls-her husband's daughters; but her heart and being were his, and he was jealous of her every attention to others. He had lost her it seemed for so many years, that he could not afford to part with the semblance of her slightest thought now. Therefore it was, that in a great measure, both Sarah and Bridget felt they were nothing to their father, nothing to Marguerite; and on both it had effect, deep and lasting. Sarah became more hardened, Bridget more tender; yet there was a touch of sadness in her melancholy.

From the first, Mrs. Irwin had, unconsciously it may be, assumed the position of Mistress of Irwin, with grace and fascination it is true, but still firmly, and with superiority and decision. She treated Sarah as a child, kindly and considerately, but there was an airiness and charm about Pearl, which dazzled all within her sphere, and entirely put beyond competition the claims she at once enforced. She never made any outward

difference in her manner towards either of the girls; but still Bridget felt that Marguerite loved her with such love as she had to give, apart from that one great love of her life. And now that the airy, or as some called them, the flighty tendencies of Mrs. Irwin's character were nurtured by an adoring lover; the gaiety of her wild girlhood returned, innocent, pure and gentle, but still a sort of gushing or exuberant gaiety, which Mr. Irwin fostered and delighted to witness. She had been in a dark dreary prison; she had escaped; she was translated to a garden of Eden; and in the sunshine of love and adoration, the released captive became the angel of an earthly paradise. She was a bird escaped from an iron cage in a dingy

city; and she plumed her lovely wings, and basked in the sunshine of a new and brilliant life. She loved lighted rooms, and music, and flowers, and he loved them too, now. How changed he was; all the neighbouring gentry flocked to Irwin, for it was a sociable neighbourhood, and marvelled to behold the pleasant change Mrs. Northcote's fair sister had wrought. Sarah Irwin was delighted with all this, and it almost disarmed her concealed hatred of her father's wife; but there was a sting even here; for Sarah was a beautiful girl, accustomed to deference and adulation; and now no one noticed her when the Star was by. Pearl was the loadstone-she reigned pre-eminent, unrivalled in beauty, in witchery, in intellect, and accomplishment. There was a continued gala at Irwin Hall; guests flowed in, and the sound of music and dancing was heard continually; there was summer in the house, after long, long dreary winter, and death, and blackness. Yet all was elegant, and recherché, and refined to the last degree; people seemed to flock to Irwin, to worship at the shrine of Marguerite. She exercised a spell over all hearts, and Mr. Irwin found out that this bright happiness was his natural element. He had been sinking all his days, drooping, supine; now, with recovered health of mind and body, elate, proud, and glorified, he clasped her to his heart, and whispered-" Pearl, my long lost Pearl."

Even Miss Tammy condescended occasionally to mix in the vortex of society, accompanied by Miss Rosalia; and these two old ladies afforded much scope for conversation in the brilliant circle collected at the Hall. They were so original, so exquisite in their out-of-the-world ways, that it was refreshing to those used to the conventionalities of every-day life, to encounter them. Not that ridicule ever descended on Miss Rosalia's head; Mrs. Irwin took care of that; she was too sensitive and delicate in her preceptions, too refined as a hostess, to countenance or permit any thing of the kind. But still the conversation, and dress, and habits of the Misses Colville of the Glen, known by hearsay, were attractive as specimens of a race almost extinct in the country, their prejudices and habits at least. It was of no use for Sarah Irwin to rebel, or to talk to Miss Tammy privately about "portrait

painters and their insolence;" she dared not speak so in her father's hearing, and several times when she had striven to cope with her step-mother, Marguerite had, in a most masterly, but quiet and gentle manner, at once crushed the germ, sometimes by a gay laugh, sometimes by a repartee, such as would be spoken to a foolish child, and more than once, by simply assuming the mother's right to respect and obedience; and giving Miss Sarah Irwin commands, from which she knew there was no appeal. Both Mr. Irwin's daughters felt, as has been said, that they were now secondary objects in their father's affection; they saw how changed he was, they beheld him lavish a passionate adoration on another; they saw him happy now; energies called into play, and talents appreciated, which hitherto had lain dormant. And all for her, and by her, "poor Mrs. Hume, the pale and careworn second-rate artist," whom Sarah had regarded and treated with open contempt and contumely. They had not seen her in her first spring of youth; they had not been haunted by the vision of radiant beauty, through years of monotony and inactivity; they were inexperienced, and did not consider that the youth of Marguerite had been bright and hopeful, and that although crushed down by cruel hands, cruel, or unfeeling, or selfish, it is all alike, yet a crushed flower may revive. The inexperienced had difficulty in comprehending how Mrs. Irwin was metamorphosed, from a stricken but patient sufferer, into a gay, shining, loving, and beauteous creature, whose very presence shed an intoxicating influence over the old Hall, and metamorphosed it also. But the crushed flower was merely resuscitated; the hand of love had wrought the charm; and in those blest and holy hours when Marguerite communed alone with her husband, she told him it was as if she had been in a long terrible dream, and had awakened to Paradise.

C. A. M. W.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

Just Published (Second Edition), "Why Church Rates should be abolished." By WM. J. E. BENNETT, M.A., Vicar of Froome-Selwood, Somerset. Price 1s. 6d.

Froome Printed and Published for the Editor by W. C. & J. PENNY. London: WHITTAKER and Co and CLEAVER, Vere Street.

66

VOL. IV.-No. XVIII.]

THE CHURCH'S BROKEN

UNITY.

ROMANISM.

DOCTRINE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION.

(Continued from page 261.) O strong was the feeling of the early Church on the subject of a sacramental change in the elements of the blessed Sacrament, that various words were adopted by the Fathers in their attempts to enforce and teach

it. The Romanists in their controversial writings make use of these words in asserting the doctrine of Transubstantiation, whereas, if carefully examined, while these words do certainly amount to a full recognition of the doctrine of the Real Presence as held by the Catholic Church, they are in effect clear proofs

that Transubstantiation was not their meaning.

Sometimes a word is used which signifies imparting to the elements the "efficacy of CHRIST's Flesh.* Sometimes the elements are described as "transferred,"

or "transmade." Sometimes the word

is

"refashioned," "remodelled," "reordered," "transformed," "transfigured."+

Sometimes it is said that the elements “become" the Body and Blood of CHRIST, are changed into," or are made the Body and Blood of CHRIST;" all this is readily confessed. They are the very words which we use ourselves. Many of them are words which we find in Holy Scripture relating to our LORD in His human nature, as when it is said that He

*S. Cyril of Alexandria. + S. Gregory. + S. Chrysostom. S. Ambrose.

was

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transfigured" on the Mount, or that the "Word became Flesh;" or as when S. Paul says, that we ought as Christians to be "transformed in the renewing of our mind;' or as when the same Apostle tells us, that "CHRIST JESUS is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." Even the word "transubstantiated," as a word, might have been passed over as harmless, if it had not been for the definition attached to it. If "transubstantiated " only meant that the essence of the Sacrament consisted in the

reality of the Body and Blood of CHRIST; that substantially, and to all real intents and purposes of the Sacrament, His Flesh therein becomes our spiritual food; and substance of the Sacrament would be lost to consequently if we had not that faith, the us; if that had been all that was meant there been no controversy on this point to be conveyed by the word, then had throughout the Church; and we should have been at peace at this day. that the substance of the Bread departed, when the definition came upon us, asserting and the substance of the Wine departed, and into their place other substances entered, which had never been there before, then then came the usual evil of attempting to be wise above God's Word, and the Church was rent asunder.

But

Church did not hold the doctrine of the We are now to shew that the early present Roman Church, and that the change in the elements wrought by the words of Consecration, is not Transubstantiation.

I. In the first place, the very idea of such a doctrine destroys the nature of a Sacrament. For a Sacrament must of necessity consist of two parts, either of which disappearing, the Sacrament ceases

S

to be. The outward part which is Bread and Wine must always be there. It never can cease to be there until it is consumed in the Body of the recipient. So it is said rightly by the Church of England in her Catechism that the efficacy of the Sacrament is in the "strengthening and refreshing of the Soul by the Body and Blood of Christ as our bodies are by the bread and wine." There is a double nourishment, and it is a perfect nourishment in each case, agreeing with the two parts. In proof of this, S. Thomas Aquinas refers to the celebrated passage of S. Paul where he rebukes the Corinthians for their desecration of the LORD's Supper, saying, that "in eating, every one taketh before other his own supper, and one is hungry and another is drunken," (I. Cor. XI. 21.) He refers to this to show that the consecrated elements nourish the body. If so, it is clear that they must still remain in their original substance as by nature the food of man. And so, S. Justin Martyr in his Apology, describing the customs of the Eucharist in the early Church, says thus:

"We do not receive these things as common bread and common drink; but in the same way that JESUS CHRIST our SAVIOUR, incarnate through the word of GOD hath both Flesh and Blood for our Salvation; so we have been taught that the food over which thanksgiving has been made by prayer in His words (from which, through transmutation, our flesh and blood are nourished) are with the Flesh and Blood of Him the Incarnate JESUS.*

Here we see clearly enough that while the Flesh and Blood were really present yet that the substance of the bread and wine did not depart, for they are spoken of as nourishing the human body in the act of their reception.

II. Secondly, it could not be that the bread and wine should cease to be bread and wine, and yet be visible to our sight, to our smell, to our touch, and to our taste, unless indeed we should be called upon by ALMIGHTY GOD to believe a thing contradictory to our senses. The Romanists say that we are called upon so to believe, that it is a miracle wrought by the Hand of GOD, and that we are as much called upon to believe it as any other miracle. To dispute the fact that ALMIGHTY GOD could work a miracle for us in causing the change which the

* Apol. I. § 65. 66.

Romanists assert, would be absurd, but the meaning, and object, and whole intent of working miracles as described to us in Holy Scripture, is by an appeal to the senses, not by an appeal to a contradiction of them. When our Blessed LORD was demanded of the disciples of S. John Baptist whether He were the CHRIST, the answer was, "Go and shew John those things which ye do see and hear. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed." It was the fact visible to the senses, and proved by the senses to which our LORD appealed. Again; when our Blessed LORD turned the water into wine at the marriage feast in! Galilee, it was not by calling on the guests to drink water, and at the same time believe that they drank wine, contrary to their sense of taste, but in accordance with it. "When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water which was made wine," then the miracle was perfected. Just so, in the general miracle of the Humanity of CHRIST. The fact of the SON of GOD really taking upon Himself Flesh, is appealed to as a matter of belief, not in opposition to the senses, but in accordance with them. "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked and Our upon, hands have handled of the Word of Life," (S. John I. 1.) That it is which is to be believed to be the Son of God. And again, in the case of our LORD Himself, when S. Thomas doubted of the Resurrec tion. He did not call upon the hesitating Apostle to believe in contradiction of his senses, but by means of them. "Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands. and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side." And so to them all, when gathered together, terrified and affrighted; "Handle me and see, for a spirit bath not flesh and bones as ye see me have."

Upon this question then of the senses as in the evidence of a miracle, depends the claim made upon our reason, that the substance of bread and wine remains, or does not remain in the sacred elements. The schoolmen even as far as the 15th Century, disputed on this point, and all seem to have held, more or less, as their own private opinion. that it was not reasonable to think that the substance of the bread and wine departed from the consecrated elements.

Durandus expressly declares that the supposition that the elements remain in their natural substances, while the Body and Blood of CHRIST are only present under them, has the fewest difficulties. Pope Innocent III., who passed the decree of the Fourth Lateran Council, first mentioning Transubstantiation, still does not himself hold, as defined by Trent, that the substance of the bread ceases to be.

"He brake." Many enquire; few understand what CHRIST then brake at the Table, and what the Priest now breaketh at the Altar. There were some who said that as the true accidents of bread remain after conse cration, so also the true substance of bread.

But, the substance of the bread and wine remaining, the Body and Blood of CHRIST, do, at the utterance of these words of Consecration] begin to be truly under them, so that under the same accidents, both are truly received; namely, the Bread and the Flesh, and the Wine and the Blood, of which, sense proves the one, faith believes the other."*

And so Duns Scotus, nearly a century after. He says:

:

"This is confirmed, namely, that the fewest miracles are to be assumed, which may be. But by supposing that the bread remains together with its accidents, and yet that the Body of CHRIST is truly there, fewer miracles are assumed than by supposing that the bread is not there."t

The whole of the reasoning of these writers is simply this; that the supposition of the real presence of our LORD'S Body under the form of bread as depending upon a miraculous gift of ALMIGHTY GOD, and being not opposed to the senses, is a reasonable thing to demand of faith: whereas the supposition that the substance of the bread departs; that what we see, handle, and taste is not substantially bread, but on the contrary is substantially another thing which we do not see, or handle, or taste, is an unreasonable thing to demand of faith. At any rate it is such a thing as neither ALMIGHTY GOD, in the Old Testament, ever demanded of the Jews, or JESUS CHRIST, in the New Testament, of the disciples of His Gospel. But the appeal to the Fathers is conclusive. They describe the change which they would teach quite as explicitly to be not Transubstantiation, as they clearly insist on the real and sacramental change which is taught by the Church Catholic.

De Myst. Missæ, c. 7. See Palmer on the Church, iv. xi. 2.

In iv. Dist. xi. 9 §. See Pusey's Doctrine of Real Presence, p. 9.

Of Justin Martyr, in the second century, we have spoken above.

Tertullian, in the third century, desIcribes it thus:

"The bread being received and distributed to His disciples, He made it His Body by saying, "This is My Body," i.e. "The figure of My Body."

Origen, in the same century—

"It is not the matter of the bread but the word which is spoken over it which profits him that eats it worthily, as a typical and symbolical body."

In the fourth century S. Cyril of Jerusalem

"Consider them, [the elements] not as mere bread and wine, for by our LORD's express declaration they are the Body and Blood of CHRIST, and though your taste may suggest that they are bread and wine, yet let your faith keep firm. Judge not the thing by your taste, but under a full persuasion of faith, be you undoubtedly assured that you are vouchsafed the Body and Blood of CHRIST."

This indeed makes very strongly for the doctrine of the Real Presence; but still it says nothing of a change of substance. The following passage sets us clear as to what must be S. Cyril's meaning; for he says:

"We receive the Eucharist in all fullness of faith, as the Body and Blood of CHRIST. For under the type of bread you have His Body given you, and under the type of wine you receive His Blood, that so partaking of the Body and Blood of CHRIST you may become flesh of His Flesh and blood of His Blood." || And so S. Augustin :

-

"Understand what I have said spiritually, you are not about to eat this Body which you see-I have commended a sacrament unto you, which being spiritually understood will give you life." §

In the fifth century Theodoret, in arguing against the heresy of Eutyches, brings forward one in a dialogue as urging the sacred mystery of the Eucharist.

Eran. How dost thou call these [the elements] after consecration ?

Orth. The Body and Blood of CHRIST.

Eran. And dost thou believe that thou partakest of the Body and Blood of CHRIST?