LESSON LXXXVIL

INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON WORSHIP.

1. IN nothing perhaps was the influence of the Reformation more pernicious than in the changes which it caused to be introduced into public worship. It stripped the ancient Catholic service of its beauty and simple grandeur; it dried up the deep fountains of its melody-hushed its organs, muffled its Angelus bells, and put out its lights. It rudely tore away the ornaments of its priesthood, stripped its altars, and chased away the clouds of its ascending incense.

2. It did even more. It destroyed the beautiful paintings and sculptures with which art, paying tribute to religion, had decorated the walls of the churches, and when it did not ruthlessly destroy, it entirely removed those sacred emblems of piety. Tearing them in shreds or breaking them in pieces, it gave them in almost numberless instances to the flames, and then scattered their ashes to the winds. And, as if these feats of vandalism were not enough to prove its burning zeal for religion, it aimed a mortal blow at the very substance of worship; it abolished the daily sacrifice, removed the altars, and annihilated the priesthood. And then, exhausted with its labors, Protestantism lay down and fell asleep amidst the ruins it had made.

3. But Luther, however he might deplore, could not curb the destructive spirit of his disciples. He could not prevent them from wielding the weapons which he himself had placed in their hands. He

could not control

storm which he himself had

+

put in motion. The work of destruction went on till scarce a vestige of the venerable and timehonored Catholic worship remained behind. He himself was uncertain and wavering as to the portion of Catholic worship he should retain. His whole career, in fact, is marked with hesitancy and doubt as to what he should reject and what he should retain of the old Catholic institutions.

4. He often found himself in trying and difficult positions. His impatient disciples sought to drag him down the declivity of reform much faster than he wished to travel. Sometimes he listened to their clamors; sometimes he sternly rebuked them for their over-ardent zeal. Hence, his perpetual inconsistencies. He stood on the brink of a precipice, and yielded at times to dizziness ere he took the fatal leap from the summit-level of Catholicity into the yawning abyss, the boiling and hissing noise of whose troubled waters already grated harshly on his ears.

5. But his disciples were not so scrupulous. They boldly rejected five out of the seven sacraments, and even stripped the two they retainedBaptism and the Lord's Supper-of every lifegiving principle. Luther retained, indeed, a belief in the Real Presence, blended, however, with the palpable absurdity of consubstantiation, by which he maintained the simultaneous presence of the substances of the bread and wine with the Body of Christ.

6. But even many among the disciples of the reformer have long since rejected this monstrous system. After six different modifications of the creed on the subject. to suit the taste or to meet

the objections of the Sacramentarians, they seem at length to have substantially coalesced with their former opponents, and the doctrine of the Real Presence has thus grown obsolete among Protestants. Thus, throughout almost the whole land of Protestantism, this beautiful doctrine, which gives sublime character to the Catholic worship, and is a key to all its magnificent ceremonial, has been utterly banished.

7. The Protestant Church and worship are no longer ennobled and vivified by this life-giving presence of the Word made flesh. Christ is banished from his own holy temple; he is no longer in the midst of the children of men," where he before delighted to dwell. And the domain of Protestantism presents, in its bleak and dreary waste, a sad proof of his absence! It is a land "of closed churches and hushed bells, of unlighted altars and unstoled priests.

ARCHBISHOP SPALDING.

LESSON LXXXVIII.

THE GOOD PARISH PRIEST.

1. A PARISH priest was of the pilgrim train ;
An awful, reverend, and religious man.
His eyes diffused a venerable grace,

And charity itself was in his face.

Rich was his soul, though his attire was poor
(As God has clothed his own ambassador);
For such, on earth, his blessed Redeemer bore.

2. Of sixty years he seemed; and well might last
To sixty more, but that he loved to fast;
Refined himself to soul, to curb the sense,
And made almost a sin of abstinence.
Yet had his aspect nothing of severe,
But such a face as promised him sincere.

3. Nothing reserved or sullen was to see;
But sweet regards, and pleasing sanctity.
Mild was his accent, and his action free;
With eloquence innate his tongue was armed;
Though harsh the precept, yet the preacher

charmed.

For, letting down the golden chain from high,
He drew his audience upward to the sky;

And oft with holy hymns he charmed their ears
(A music more melodious than the spheres).
He bore his great commission in his look,

But sweetly tempered awe, and softened all he spoke.

He preached the joys of heaven and pains of hell, And warned the sinner with becoming zeal,

But on eternal mercy loved to dwell.

4. The tithes his parish freely paid he took,
But never sued or threatened bell and book;
With patience bearing wrong, but offering none,
Since every man is free to lose his own.
Yet some there were, according to their kind
(Who grudge their dues and love to be behind),
The less he sought his offerings pinched the more,
And praised a priest contented to be poor.
Yet of his little he had some to spare,

To feed the famished and to clothe the bare;

For mortified he was to that degree,

A poorer than himself he would not see.

5. Wide was his parish; not contracted close
In streets, but here and there a straggling house.
Yet still he was at hand, without request,
To serve the sick, to succor the distressed;
Tempting, on foot, alone, without affright,
The dangers of the dark, tempestuous night.
All this the good old man performed alone,
Nor spared his pains, for curate he had none.
The proud he tamed, the penitent he cheered;
Nor to rebuke the rich offender feared.

His preaching much, but more his practice, wrought (A living sermon of the truths he taught);

For this, by rules severe, his life he squared,
That all might see the doctrine which they heard.

6. Such was the saint, who shone with every grace, Reflecting, Moses-like, his Maker's face.

God saw his image lively was expressed,
And his own work, as in creation, blessed.
Still cheerful, ever constant to his call;

By many followed, loved by most, admired by all.
With what he begged, his brethren he relieved,
And gave the charities himself received:
Gave, while he taught, and edified the more,
Because he showed by proof 'twas easy to be poor.

DRYDEN.