The chief distinguishing characteristics of the Roman rite are these: (a) the position of the great intercession for quick and dead within the canon, the commemoration of the living being placed just before and the commemoration of the departed just after the words of institution; (b) the absence of an "Epiklesis" or invocation of the Holy Ghost upon the elements; (c) the position of the "Pax" or "Kiss of Peace after the consecration" and before the communion, whereas in other liturgies it occurs at a much earlier point in the service. _Liturgies of the British Islands._ Period I. _The Celtic Church._--Until recently almost nothing was known of the character of the liturgical service of the Celtic church which existed in these islands before the Anglo-Saxon Conquest, and continued to exist in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Cornwall for considerable though varying periods of time after that event. But in recent times a good deal of light has been thrown on the subject, partly by the publication or republication of the few genuine works of Patrick, Columba, Columbanus, Adamnan and other Celtic saints; partly by the discovery of liturgical remains in the Scottish _Book of Deer_ and in the Irish _Books of Dimma and Mulling_ and the _Stowe Missal_, &c.; partly by the publication of medieval Irish compilations, such as the _Lebar Brecc_, _Liber Hymnorum_, _Martyrology of Oengus_, &c., which contain ecclesiastical kalendars, legends, treatises, &c., of considerable but very varying antiquity. The evidence collected from these sources is sufficient to prove that the liturgy of the Celtic church was of the Gallican type. In central England the churches, with everything belonging to them, were destroyed by the heathen invaders at the close of the 5th century; but the Celtic church in the remoter parts of England, as well as in the neighbouring kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland, retained its independence for centuries afterwards. An examination of its few extant service-books and fragments of service-books yields the following evidence of the Gallican origin and character of the Celtic liturgy: (a) the presence of collects and anthems which occur in the Gallican or Mozarabic but not in the Roman liturgy; (b) various formulae of thanksgiving after communion; (c) frequent biddings or addresses to the people in the form of Gallican _Praefationes_; (d) the Gallican form of consecration, being a prayer called "Post-Sanctus" leading up to the words of institution; (e) the complicated rite of "fraction" or "the breaking of bread," as described in the Irish treatise at the end of the _Stowe Missal_, finds its only counterpart in the elaborate ceremonial of the Mozarabic church; (f) the presence of the Gallican ceremonial of _Pedilavium_ or "Washing of feet" in the earliest Irish baptismal office.