seem that it should depend upon the official performance of an elaborate rite. The Bible, to which in this Protestant country we are always referred for the solution of the difficulties as to which Catholics consult their priests, appeared to me to afford no help whatever in defining the conditions necessary to a right participation, nor in directing one’s choice between the various sacramental theories to be met with in our days. All schools of theology equally appeal to it, and it is obvious that a book cannot decide between rival interpretations of itself. It did, however, distinctly help me towards the conclusion that there might be no need to choose between these various theories at all. To my unassisted reason it appeared that the effect of comparing any, even the mildest, modern eucharistical theory with the accounts to be found in the New Testament of our Lord’s parting supper with his disciples, was chiefly to show that a vast and unexplained addition to, or at the least development of, the original idea had taken place since these accounts were written. The whole form of words used in the Communion Service seems to me to convey meanings almost immeasurably different from anything which I could myself have extracted from the one brief expression, “Do this in remembrance of me.” Left to myself and to Scripture, the Gospel narratives would never have suggested the idea of any intention to institute a ceremony at all, far less to invest its observance with possibilities so awful both for good and for evil, not only in case of omission, but even in case of inadequate observance. To my own mind, the narratives of the Last Supper in Matthew and Mark, which contain no allusion to any possible repetition of the feast, appeared quite as complete, quite as significant, as that of Luke, which gives the addition, “Do this in remembrance of me.” The allusions in the Epistle to the Corinthians to some disorderly practices in that Church certainly make it clear that they had adopted a practice of meeting to “show the Lord’s death till He come” by eating bread and drinking wine; and the apostle’s reference to a Divine communication to himself of the circumstances of the Last Supper certainly seems to show that he believed them to have sufficient ground for doing so; but, on the other hand, the words which he there ascribes to Christ, “Do this, _as oft as ye drink it_, in remembrance of me,” have always seemed to me to be distinctly incompatible with the idea of a command to eat bread and drink wine _in order_ to commemorate His death, and would rather suggest a reverent remembrance of Him on all social occasions, and perhaps especially when meeting for the Passover or any other religious feasts. I was thus fully ripe for the view so vigorously put forth in Barclay’s “Apology,”[13] as held by Friends.