pations, and in the public haunts of business: now blessing a branch of palm, or a wax candle, and now openly praying for the universal empire of the church, "that God might pacificate, unite and guard it, subjecting to it princedoms and powers throughout the whole world."" ut eam purificare, adunare et custodire dignetur; toto orbe terrarum, subjiciens ei principatus et potestates." Pretensions so extensive and various must needs be variously characterised by sublimity, extravagance, and folly. We can readily laugh when the priest turns rat-catcher, and blesses the church from vermin; we can smile when the omni-benevolence of the deity is besought to have compassion on "all souls deceived by the fraud of the devil," meaning our own souls, and those of all heretics and schismatics; we can despise the malignant bigotry which just deigns to admit, that God may compassionate even "Jewish perfidy," and, accordingly, prefers a prayer " pro perfidis Judæis," that the veil may be lifted from their hearts; but we regard with unmingled pity the prayer for the eternity of that Empire, which, having survived the shocks of two thousand centuries, has at last wholly crumbled into dust. 66 Respice ad Romanum benignus Imperium. Look mercifully on the Roman Empire!" Alas! the petition was even then, two hundred years ago, preferred for an empty name; but the connection between the Papacy and the Empire still lived in historical recollections, and endeared the Imperial name to the Romish clergy. "If a man," says Hobbes, "consider the original of this great Ecclesiastical dominion, he will easily perceive, that the Papacy is no other than the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof: for so did the Papacy start up on a sudden out of the ruins of that Heathen Power." We So much for the literature and music of the Missal. now come to the ceremonial portion, from which we shall only select those parts which more directly tend to prove our assertion, as to the vigilance with which every thing like the exercise of reason was excluded from the celebration of this MYSTERY. The object seems to have been to bury the mind under a load of minute observances, so as to withdraw attention altogether from the matter to the manner of the rite. At the same time, the most trivial ceremony was invested with awful importance. To omit the striking of the breast, the bending of the knee; to hold the fore-finger and thumb in one position, when they ought to have been held in another; to spill one drop of the consecrated wine or break off one crum of the holy bread; to have officiated with a full stomach, instead of an empty one;such are, the enormities to which the church has affixed her greatest penalties. We do not ask what becomes of morality amidst this endless mass of mummeries; the devotee is too busy to think of that. But we suspect it to be far easier to bow and sidle into heaven, than to get there by virtue of a good life and meritorious conduct. We certainly find it difficult to imagine a more humiliating system of ceremonies than that with which we are presented in the Catholic Rubric. In the following account of it, the reader may take us at our word, however satirical he may be inclined to think our description, for we shall merely translate from the book. The satire lies entirely in the subject; it is none of ours. We shall pass rapidly over the ritus celebrandi missam. These, though sufficiently amusing, are serious, when compared with the chapter "de defectibus circa missam occurrentibus." Even there, however, something may be picked up for the reader's edification and amusement. First, having prepared every thing in the sacristy; having dog's-eared his missal at the places proper for the day, and put on, of the ten thousand garments, those whose colour is appropriate-let the priest proceed to the altar with downcast eyes, a grave step, and erect carriage, ("oculis demissis, incessu gravi, erecto corpore." If he pass before the great altar, (“altare majus," or, as the French say, " maître-autel,") in his way, let him bow to it, with his head covered; if before the place in which the sacrament is contained, let him bend the knee; if before an altar where the host is elevated, let him bow the knee and adore it uncovered, &c. &c. Then follow rules for officiating in the presence of divers dignitaries, such as the pope, cardinal, bishop, and the like, who have each their appropriate ceremony, Then come a series of prostrations; bowing to the crucifix, kissing the altar, signing with the cross, incensing the altar, the crucifix, the sacred elements, the assistants-according to the nature of the mass. At another stage, the officiating priest, spreading his hands over the altar, kisses it in the middle; then joining his hands on his breast, and casting his eyes downwards, he turns. himself to the left hand towards the people, and extending and joining his hands, as before, he exclaims-"The Lord be with you!"-after which notable operation, he turns back again with similar solemnities. He then holds out his hands before his breast, with the palms towards each other, but taking care not to spread his fingers, of which the tips must not be higher than the shoulders, beyond which, also, the hands must not be extended. In this posture, he goes through a further portion of the ceremony, with the requisite dippings and bowings at the names of Jesus, or the Virgin, or other saint in whose commemoration he officiates. At a further period, after reading the gospel, he raises the book and kisses it, at the same time uttering the distich, 66 unless in masses for the dead, in which the kissing is omitted; or in presence of the pope or cardinal, or other dignitary, in which case the book is presented to the more august osculation of those reverend persons. To skip an infinity of similar tricks before high heaven," when he comes to the consecration of the sacred wafer, he is directed to take it between the thumb and fore-finger of his right hand, and holding it in the same manner with both hands, to utter the secret words of consecration, gazing on it intently, devoutly, fixedly; after which, holding it in the same manner, with the other fingers stretched out and close together, he kneels and adores it. Then raising himself as much as he conveniently can, he elevates the host, and keeping his eyes fixed upon it, he reverently exhibits it to the worship of the people, after which he replaces it on the altar, and keeps his fingers in the position we have described, till he washes them after the communion. It is impossible to go through all the fopperies with which the ceremony is concluded, or even a thousandth part of them. We must leave the secret prayers, the change of garments, which they have of all the colours of the rainbow, "white, black, and grey, and all their trumpery," to the research of those readers whose curiosity may be more circumstantial than our own. A ceremony, so replete with details, must needs be liable to frequent omissions and mistakes. What these omissions are, and how important, may be learned from that part of the Rubric which treats of the defects occurring in the celebration of the mass. The following is a specimen of the nature and consequence of these errors. Defects may occur either in the sacred elements themselves, or in the form of consecration; or, lastly, in the officiating minister. Of these defects, some affect the validity of the sacrament; others only tend to the scandal of the church, or the private detriment of the priest. As to the elements of the sacrament; these must be wheaten bread and wine of the vine. If the bread be not of wheat-corn, or if the wheat be so adulterated with other grain as to lose its character of wheaten bread, the sacrament is invalid. If the wafer be made of rose or any other artificial water, it is doubtful whether the sacrament be valid or not. If the bread be putrescent, but not putrid, or if it be not unleavened after the manner of the Latin church, the sacrament is valid, but the minister incurs a grievous sin. If a consecrated wafer be accidentally lost;-if, for instance, it be blown away by the wind, or disappear by miracle, or be run away with by a mouse or any other animal, and cannot be recovered; then let another be consecrated, and let the animal be killed, if possible, and burnt, and let the ashes be cast into the sacristy or beneath the altar. If the wine be sour or putrid, or made of unripe grapes, or mixed with so much water as to lose its specific appearance of wine, the sacrament is invalid. But if it be only a little sour, or putrescent, or mixed with rose or other distilled water, the sacrament is valid, but the priest sins grievously. Defects of form relate chiefly to the words of consecration. These are the same in the mass as in the Communion Service of the Church of England, and which are somewhat too solemn for insertion in this list of puerilities. If the priest change these words, so that their meaning be altered, the sacrament is invalid. If he add any thing, which does not change the meaning, the sacrament is complete, but the minister commits a heinous sin. In the officiating priest, five things are chiefly to be considered; the intention, the state of mind, the state of body, the disposition of the sacerdotal garments, and the integrity of the ministration itself. In all these, defects may occur. There is defect in the intention, when the priest is not in earnest, but celebrates with a jocular design-we suppose, of mocking the solemnity. This case is not impossible. There is a story of a French bishop, who declared on his death-bed that he had never administered the sacrament in earnest, for the purpose of invalidating the ordination of all who had received orders at his hands. The motive seems to have been a strange one; an abstract hatred of the faith of which he was a dignified minister. The defect in intention rendered fresh ordination necessary. That was easily performed. But what was the consequence to those who had died with this bishop's baptism? And still more, to those who had been married by this jocular bishop, and whose children's legitimacy depended on the integrity of his intention? Let Sanchez or Escobar decide. If there should be eleven wafers upon the altar, and the priest intend to consecrate only ten, without determining which the ten shall be, the intention is defective for want of fixity, and the consecration void. But if, thinking them to be only ten, his intention had been to consecrate all the wafers on the altar, the consecration conforms with the intention, and is, therefore, canonical. Wherefore, says the Rubric, for the purpose of avoiding perplexity, the minister should always intend to consecrate all the wafers on the altar;-a rule which, together with its reasons, a Catholic metaphysician may probably contrive to understand. We profess no claim to such acute ness. If the minister's thoughts be wool-gathering at the moment of consecration, the church will complete the sacrament, if the intention were not defective when the service was first begun; in which case, the priest is said to have an intention, but only a virtual one. Virtual is a pretty word, when something is wanted to be said, and nothing meant. If the minister be suspended, degraded, or excommunicated, or if he be in mortal sin, there is a defect in the state of mind, which does not vitiate the sacrament, but heaps coals of fire upon the priest. If, during the performance of mass, the minister should recollect that he stands in any of these predicaments -a strange after-thought enough, but the church overlooks no contingencies-he should leave the ceremony unfinished, unless he apprehend the public scandal. In the state of body, defects may occur from several causes. And first, it is a rule of the church that neither priest nor communicant shall taste of food or drink after midnight, before the sacrament. If the minister take it even in the shape of medicine, and in however minute a quantity, he is incapable of celebrating mass. If, however, he should have eaten before midnight, and the food remain undigested, he does not sin in performing mass; but it is better to abstain. If fragments of food be swallowed, which stuck in the teeth, he is not incapacitated, if they were swallowed as saliva, and not as food. The case is the same, if a drop or two be unintentionally swallowed in the act of washing the mouth. The minuteness with which the Catholic church has enumerated every species of pleasurable sensation, for the purpose of confession, and avoiding defects in the state of body, has often been touched on by Protestants, sometimes with indignation; sometimes, and more properly, with ridicule. Those pleasures which she denied in the reality to her unmarried priesthood, appear to have engrossed their imaginations in a singular degree. They are anathematized in the usual spirit of malignity with which all men are apt to regard those pleasures from whose possession they are utterly debarred. To our own eyes, there is no crime so heinous in others, as that which we are not likely to fall into; no virtue so great as that we are compelled to practise. What was the language of that pious brachman, to whom the acme of moral perfection consisted in a chair of nails? With what just indignation did he regard the ragged good works of his less ascetic neighbour, when compared with the merit of sitting on a three-inch spike! The worldling may easily boast, that, "He gives to the poor, and lives well with the rich,- |