These venerable monuments seem to exclaim as we decipher them: "Even so, Lord, it is done as thou didst say." "Thy name, O Lord, endureth forever and so doth thy memorial from generation to generation." Of the references to Christian worship discoverable in documents later than the New Testament Scriptures there are three that stand out with peculiar prominence, namely, the lately discovered _Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_, placed by some authorities as early as the first half of the second century; the famous letter of Pliny to the Emperor Trajan, a writing of the same period; and the Apology or Defence addressed by Justin Martyr to Antoninus Pius about the year 140 after Christ. The noteworthy fact in connection with these passages is that of the three, two certainly, and probably the third also, refer directly to the Holy Communion. In the _Teaching_ we have a distinct sketch of a eucharistic service with three of the prescribed prayers apparently given in full. In Justin Martyr's account, the evidence of a definitely established liturgical form is perhaps less plain, but nothing that he says would appear to be irreconcilable with the existence of a more or less elastic ritual order. Whether he does or does not intend to describe extemporaneous prayer as forming one feature of the eucharistic worship of the Christians of his time depends upon the translation we give to a single word in his narrative. Later on in the life of the Church, though by just how much later is a difficult point of scholarship, we are brought in contact with a number of formularies, all of them framed for the uses of eucharistical worship, all of them, that is to say, designed to perpetuate the commandment, "This do in remembrance of me," and all of them preserving, no matter in what part of the world they may be found, a certain structural uniformity. These are the primitive liturgies, as they are called, the study of which has in late years attained almost to the dignity of a science. As to the exact measure of antiquity that ought to be accorded to these venerable documents the authorities differ and probably will always differ. Dr. Neale's enthusiasm carried him so far that he was persuaded and sought to persuade others of the existence of liturgical quotations in the writings of St. Paul. This hypothesis is at the present time generally rejected by sober-minded scholars. Perhaps "the personal equation" enters equally into the conclusions of those who assign a very late origin to the liturgies, pushing them along as far as the sixth or seventh century. If one happens to have a rooted dislike for prescribed forms of worship, and believes them in his heart to be both unscriptural and unspiritual, it will be the most natural thing in the world for him to disparage whatever evidence makes in favor of the early origin of liturgies. Hammond is sensible when he says in the Preface to his valuable work entitled _Liturgies Eastern and Western_, "I have assumed an