A beautiful spectacular ceremonial the Church has wrapped around the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, smothering it under the pomp of a religious service, which works upon the nerves like a subtle, mastering spell. The senses of the worshipper become drugged with incense, dazed by the glitter of broidered vestments, charmed with the strains of alluring music, spellbound with the deep droning voice intoning at the altar, and all the splendid equipments and sacred associations of the sanctuary, which tighten you up until a wrapt ecstasy of feeling intoxicates you in the midst of it all, and you are drenched in the luxury of strong, dreamy religious emotion. For nineteen centuries the spectacle has been growing in significance, and it is not finished growing yet. Every age adds a decorative touch to embellish its colossal splendours. Finality in ecclesiastical evolution lies a long way off in the distance. If one of the twelve disciples who supped with our Blessed Lord on that historic night could slip out of paradise and for a few minutes witness a modern high celebration of the Holy Eucharist, he would marvel much at the imposing function, and marvel more at men’s credulity in mistaking an ecclesiastical pageant for a simple act of devout obedience to Jesus Christ. The plain and homely meal which our Lord instituted to be a remembrance of Himself and His death on the Cross has flowered into an ornate and flamboyant religious function striking wonderment and awe in the hearts of mankind by the glitter of its barbaric and imposing splendours. The Church has worked up the Lord’s Supper into a supernatural mystic rite run on old pagan lines; in fact, it amalgamates Christianity with ancient magic, and so the spirit of Christ escapes from the service, and only His traditional dead body reposes on the altar like the cold ashes of an extinct fire. Recall the simple and unpretentious meal of which our Blessed Lord partook with His disciples on the eve of His betrayal and death. There in an upper room in the city of Jerusalem is the small assembly, consisting of the Master and His twelve disciples, and during the meal Jesus took a piece of bread, "and when He had given thanks, He brake it and said: ’Take, eat: this is My body, which is broken for you; this do in remembrance of Me.’ After the same manner also He took the cup, when He had supped, saying: ’This cup is the New Testament in My blood; this do ye as often as ye drink in remembrance of Me; for as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till He come.’"[*] [*] 1 Cor. xi. 24-26. On this plain foundation the amazing and pernicious rite of Transubstantiation has been reared--a veritable temple of divination, and cloistered within its shadowed recesses the priest casts his spell, dispensing religious consolations to credulous and confiding mortals tangled in the coils of the seductive creed.