grows up from childhood in an ill-ordered home, finding himself neglected, half-fed, and poorly clothed. Disorder, dirt, and insubordination reign in the household, while in that of his mother's sister, the children are carefully brought up and well tended. Yet the undoubted advantages he receives by leaving home to live with these relatives, do not in the least absolve him from his duty to stay at home, or justify his listening to the reasoning which would persuade him that his father has divorced such an unworthy and neglectful wife and mother. The spiritual analogy resolves itself at last into the central question of what constitutes a portion of the true fold, and why three churches in one church should contain an idea more contradictory to unity, than the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity.

When England grasps the whole majesty of the Faith, and Rome ceases to materialize it; when the Eastern Church surrenders her isolated position; when worldliness, self-confidence, and dislike to acknowledge themselves in the wrong are laid down for ever at the feet of the Crucified-the Church will perceive her true unity. And there, in penitential contemplation of that wonderful symbol of Herself—the Body that was torn and dislocated, while Its framework was decreed to be preserved unbroken-three sisters will one day kneel, hand in hand; the fair-haired intellectual Anglican, the fervent impulsive dark-eyed Western, and the unchanging impassive Oriental. Pride, contempt, and indifference will have no place in the presence of that Infinite Love and infinite sorrow; but all human emotions must be absorbed in corresponding sorrow and love, or die away for ever in the hearts that are one with His, and therefore one in Him.

ART. XXIII.-S. Caroli Borromci Instructionum Fabrica
Ecclesiastica et Supellectilis Ecclesiastica Libri Duo.
Paris J De Coffre, 1855.

2. S. Charles Borromeo's Instructions on Ecclesiastical
Building, translated from the original Latin, and
Annotated, by GEORGE J. WIGLEY, M.R.I.B.A.
London: Dolman, 1857.

THE subject of this brief paper, which is before us in the original Latin, as well as in Mr. Wigley's translation, is one which, if little has been recently written regarding it in the Church of England, has, nevertheless, continually forced itself upon the attention of many an earnest Parish Priest. Most Catholics allow that a grave loss has been sustained by the existence of the sixth Rubric appended to the present Anglican Communion Office, which runs as follows:

And if any of the bread and wine remain unconsecrated, the Curate shall have it to his own use, but if any remain of that which was consecrated, it shall not be carried out of the Church, but the Priest, and such other of the communicants as he shall then call unto him, shall, immediately after the blessing, reverently eat and drink the same."

There is, however, it should be remarked, no express direction in the Service for "The Communion of the sick" against reservation: so that an English Clergyman would be at liberty, it appears, however custom might point in an opposite direction, to communicate six different sick people from one celebration, reserving the Holy Sacrament in order to do

So.

For neither Catholic tradition, nor the express direction of the local Church of England, direct a Clergyman to celebrate more than once a day; and that such an occurrence might take place must be at once patent. In large parishes, where there are many sick people to be attended, and a single Clergyman to attend them, it would be physically impossible that a Parish Priest could fulfil the desire of his heart, viz., to coinmend them to God with the Holy Viaticum. Fourteen years ago this subject was brought before the Church by an able article in the Christian Remembrancer on the celebrated S. Saviour's,Leeds, case, an extract from which is here made:

"Our want is in these cases realized to the full, and its greatness cannot be told. The rule of our church practically cuts off Except as an ordinary custom, preserved by the Western Church, permitting a Priest to celebrate three times on Christmas day.

such sufferers as these from receiving the communion. Half-anhour at the very shortest (supposing the Priest to have everything he wants with him) would be required for each individual administration of the Communion, by the English Rubrics. When all things are in his favour, the Priest has but half-an-hour, or three quarters, for doing all he has to do; and this is necessarily taken up in the previous work of examining, confessing, and absolving his penitent, whose conscience (this is stated from sad experience) is then for the first time examined. Thus, in diseases which do not physically incapacitate from reception of this sacrament, the poor penitent dies unhouseled.' We suggest, with great respect, whether it would not be possible for our Bishops to make some order on this all-important subject in their Dioceses, after the example, if they want one, of their Scotch brethren. We would not wantonly offend prejudices, or shock those who may view open questions differently from ourselves, but this subject is one upon which we do not feel required to maintain silence. Our Offices contain a Rubric directed to prevent the prevalence of a certain form of old devotion which had been abused; but all antiquity, and the practice of every part of the Catholic Church, testify to the custom of preserving the Sacrament for one purpose, that of the Communion of the Dying and the Sick. This is a great and practical grievance to devout minds among us, and we feel justified in calling attention to it. Experience, that sad source of conviction, has taught us that in a period of sudden and rapid deaths, crowding upon the charge of over-worked Clergy, and accompanied by such distractions as accompany a violent epidemic, the administration of the Communion of the sick is practically impossible; it gives us the right, and, therefore, we ask respectfully whether there could not be some interpretation of the Rubric in question, which would relieve the harassed and burdened servant of the Church from the wretched addition of continued scruples, or the grave alternative, too often taken, of debarring those who most need it, of that sacrament pronounced necessary for salvation.-Christian Remembrancer, pp. 174-5, January, 1850.

Here, then, is the want clearly and faithfully stated by an organ which is deservedly looked upon as a sound and sober representative of true Catholic principles. And that this want has become more and more apparent is manifest from the fact that, at the present time, several Parish Priests, in various parts of England, pleading, and very rightly pleading, that charity is above rubrics-just as our Bishops in confirming fail to lay their hands "severally" " upon the head of every one," as the service for confirmation expressly directs them to do, and then plead want of time in justification of their slovenliness-have adopted the practice of reservation, in order that a want may be supplied to many who might

otherwise die without ever receiving Holy Communion at all. For very obvious reasons we do no more than state a fact which we know to be accurate.

Some, of course, will say that such practices are plainly illegal, and, still farther, utterly indefensible and unjustifiable; others again will apologise for them, and possibly have more to say, both morally and legally, in their defence than some may imagine.

As to the ancient practice of the Established Church there. can be little doubt; but the Reformers in sweeping away what, in many instances, was merely an imaginary abuse, swept away a pious custom, hallowed by the practice of the Church from Anglo-Saxon times, to satisfy the irreverent and wicked demands of foreign Protestants, or to blot out the true doctrine of the Christian sacrifice.

The force of circumstances, we learn from the account which Mr. John Pulleine published of the work at S. Saviour's Leeds, induced the present Archbishop of Canterbury, when Bishop of Ripon, to sanction reservation during the prevalence of the cholera in that town, at a time, too, when very special attention was called to that Church. Of course, in strict law, the officers of the Establishment might have come down upon Bishop and clergy alike for this transgression of what is statutable. But it was felt that "charity was superior to rubrics," and no man presenting either the one or the other of these parties would have secured a verdict. Necessity would have been pleaded, and would have carried the day.

But now in very many parishes the necessity is no less urgent; and if such a plea would have availed then, why should it not now? We do not, of course, say that diseases so rapid and fatal as cholera are chronic in our parishes, but we do say that the increasing disparity between the numbers of the clergy and their parishioners presents quite as clamant a case for consideration as a sudden illness or contagious disease affecting the latter. Besides, if as seems likely, the disabilities affecting the Scottish Church should be done away, and as a consequence the interchange in religious offices between the clergy of the two countries should become more frequent, as it is reasonable to expect will be one result, the peculiarity of the English Church in this respect will at once become more apparent. Reservation is the rule of the Scottish Church wherever the national liturgy is in use. Why should I be debarred from the privilege in the one country whilst allowed to practice it in the other? The doctrinal belief of the two Churches is identical, why, then, such

a difference in their respective customs? It would not be an easy matter to give a good reason for it. The English custom is a practical grievance of the most serious kind, to those of the clergy especially who have learned to reverence with greater awe the symbols of our blessed Lord's passion and death. Besides, a law which was evidently made to meet a then present difficulty can be of little force when that difficulty no longer exists, but is purely a thing of the past.

Reservation, however, involves of necessity a place where the Blessed Sacrament may be preserved from the possibility of desecration-in other words, a Tabernacle. Strangely indeed, with the exception of one Church of the Scottish rite, in no places of worship in Scotland out of communion with Rome -if we except the Irvingites-does a tabernacle exist. Mr. George Forbes of Burntisland, indeed, applied to the Ecclesiological Society for advice on this subject about six years ago, with reference to his new church. After giving much such advice as S. Charles gives in the following extract, the Society recommended, if no other plan was suitable, a dove supported and a strong chain hanging from the roof. On this subject we cannot do better than quote Mr. Wigley:—

On the Tabernacle of the Most Holy Eucharist.

A provincial decree having made it necessary to place the Tabernacle of the Most Holy Eucharist on the High Altar,* it is proper that some instruction on that subject should be given at this point. In the first place, it is proper that, in more important churches, the tabernacle should be made of plates of silver or of bronze, which should be gilded, or of the more precious kinds of marble.

The workmanship of this tabernacle should be well finished, aptly and well fitted and joined together, and sculptured with the pious representation of the mysteries of the Passion of Christ our Lord; as well as ornamented in certain parts with gilding, according to the judgment of some competent artist, so that it may present, altogether, a form religiously and reverently decora

tive.

* It was within the times of S. Charles, that the ecclesiastical position of the Tabernacle of the Holy Eucharist had always consisted of an Ambry placed within the wall, on the Gospel side of the High Altar, where they may still be found of all periods down to the latest cinque cento, and are used mostly, at present, to keep the Holy oils for Extreme Unction or Relics. In the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, the former position of the tabernacle has been retained by special Papal command. This Ambry Tabernacle corresponded with the niche or ambry on the Epistle side for the cruets and dish, and both were known under the name of the altar Credenze, the Italian word for ambries, which has been Latinised, in the Ritus Celebrandi Missam, into Credentia. Hence the origin of Credence table, as a name given to the consols which have often been substituted for these Ambries. Protestant tradition, however, derives this name from a notion of the elements being tested on these tables before Mass, lest they should be poisoned.