The Feast of the Most Holy Sacrament. FOR the last six months the Church has been engaged in a solemn rehearsal, as it were, of the history of man's redemption; that is, of the life and death of our Blessed Lord, whereby that redemption was purchased. First, in the weeks of Advent, she commemorated His approach; then at Christmas, His birth of a pure and spotless Virgin in the stable at Bethlehem; next, His circumcision; His Epiphany, or manifestation to the wise men; His presentation in the temple at Candlemas; His fasting and temptation in the wilderness, during the forty days of Lent; His agony in the garden, His betrayal, mockery, and scourging, His crucifixion, death and burial, in the last days of Holy Week; His rising again, on Easter Day; His forty days' converse with His disciples after it; then, His ascension into heaven; and lastly, the descent of the Holy Ghost to remain with the Church for ever. And this feast of the descent of the Holy Ghost, or Whitsuntide, as it is called, may not improperly be considered to be the last in this historical series of festivals, whereby the Church thus vividly sets before us the whole course of events by which our redemption was wrought. Nevertheless, before entering upon that portion of the Christian year which has yet to intervene before Advent comes round again, and which is not marked by any such special festivals, there are two great and important holydays of a somewhat different kind. The first is Trinity Sunday, kept in honour of the deep unfathomable mystery of the everblessed Trinity, Three Persons in one God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: the second is Corpus Christi, in honour of the most holy Sacrament of the Altar. In the first of these festivals we commemorate the most stupendous of all mysteries, and we commemorate it simply as a mystery. On that day the Church does not bid us meditate either upon our creation by God the Father, our redemption by God the Son, or our sanctification by God the Holy Ghost; but she simply proposes to our adoration the mystery of the Trinity in Unity, and the Unity in Trinity; she would have us contemplate not what God has done for us, but what He is in Himself. In the feast of Corpus Christi, however, it is not so; on this day we commemorate a mystery indeed, a most amazing mystery, but also an act of mercy and lovingkindness towards ourselves, the greatest act of love which God could ever shew to His creatures, even the gift of Himself to be their daily food in the holy Eucharist. Hence, too, a great difference may be observed in the manner of celebrating these two festivals. "The subjects of most of our festivals," it has been well said, "we can put into shape, or we can quicken our apprehension of them by holy pictures and other such devout similitudes. They relate to things, which, however sacred, fall within the province of our experience. History narrates them, art can make them visible. But of the mystery of the blessed Trinity, we feel that the ground about it is holy, and must not be rudely invaded. Elsewhere we must picture to ourselves in order to meditate; here, it helps our meditation to feel that we dare not picture." Trinity Sunday therefore has no outward celebration of its own different from that of any other Sunday in the year; whereas the feast of Corpus Christi, on the contrary, is every where kept with all the pomp and splendour that every Church can command. Towns, villages, and cities, vie with one another in surrounding it with new circumstances of beauty and magnificence, so that it is one of the brightest and most joyous festivals in the whole Christian year; and not without reason, since in it we commemorate, as we have said, that which is the highest and most precious of all the gifts that the Church enjoys, the presence of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the adorable Sacrament of the Altar. The presence of Christ within His Church is secured to her for ever by that gracious promise which He vouchsafed to His Apostles just before He was taken up from them into heaven: "Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world;" and in no way is that promise more fully and more marvellously accomplished than in His real and personal presence upon our altars in the Blessed Eucharist. This it is which makes the Christian Church so different from every other society; it is the possession of this priceless treasure-the permanent dwelling of God in the midst of her-which causes such high and "glorious things to be said of the city of God" (Ps. lxxxvi. 3). Even under the old law, Almighty God vouchsafed to dwell in the midst of His chosen people in a sanctuary which He caused to be made for Him, and from which He spoke to Moses all things which He would command the children of Israel. From over the propitiatory, or mercy-seat, "and from the midst of the two cherubim which were upon the ark of the testimony" (Exod. xxv. 22), God vouchsafed to speak with His servant Moses "face to face, as a man is wont to speak to his friend" (xxxiii. 11), and through him He governed the whole people of Israel; and it was this Divine Presence in the midst of them, which constituted their especial honour and privilege, so that they could truly say, "Neither is there any other nation so great that hath gods so nigh them, as our God is present to all our petitions" (Deut. iv. 7). Shall we then suppose that under the new law the Son of God has fulfilled in a less perfect manner the promise given to His Church, that He will be with her "all days, even to the consummation of the world?" Shall we suppose that God was more "nigh" to the children of Israel, who were His chosen people for a time, but to whom He was afterwards to say, "You are not my people, and I will not be yours" (Osee i. 9), than He is to that Church whom He hath "espoused to Himself for ever?” Surely no Christian can doubt but that there is a far nearer and more blessed union between Christ and His people under the new dispensation than ever there was under the old. When God the Son was made flesh, He" dwelt amongst men," and they saw Him and heard His voice, and conversed with Him, and touched His sacred Body, and He "came in and went out among them.' But this was not |