documents, that the term "altar" was constantly used in primitive times in connection with the celebration of divine services; that the altars were both of wood and or stone, and that hence there is no reason for the restriction which many Protestants would lay upon the Lord's Table; that it should be "an honest table, with legs to it;" and that candles and incense were habitually used at the celebration of the divine mysteries. A much more important matter, Bishop Hopkins says, is the use of oil or chrism in confirmation; and this, he admits, "is plainly stated by Tertullian to have been the established practice in the year 200." And he quotes a remarkable passage from Bingham's" Antiquities of the Christian Church" (a Protestant work), to the effect that "it was this unction at the completion of baptism to which they [the early Christians] ascribed the power of making every Christian, in some sense, partaker of a royal priesthood, which is not only said by Origen, but by Pope Leo, St. Jerome, and many others." His remarks on the subject of sacerdotal vestments are not less striking. He mentions the proofs brought forward by Baronius, that St. James the Just, first bishop of Jerusalem, and St. John the Evangelist "wore the golden ornament which was prescribed for the mitre of the high priest in the Mosaic ritual." He refers to Constantine's gift of "a rich vestment, embroidered with gold," to Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, to be worn by him in the celebration of the sacred offices. He cites ancient decrees concerning the _orarium_, or stole, and the different manner in which it was to be worn by priests and by deacons; mentions the ring and staff prescribed for a bishop; and especially refers to the fact that black, as the symbol of sin and mourning, was everywhere excluded. Bishop Hopkins brings forward these things by way of showing the multitude of points of conformity between the early Christian and the ancient Jewish ritual; but they do not seem to have awakened in his mind the question, "Which, then, is the true Christian church?" nor does he perceive that, however strongly they may support the Catholic practice, they do little good to the Episcopalians. The first Church of England men understood the propriety of ritualistic magnificence a great deal better than their descendants do. When they cast off faith and obedience they did not at the same time cast off the rich priestly robes, nor put out the altar lights, nor stop the swinging of censers and chanting of psalms. The ritual of the primitive Protestants was hardly less gorgeous than that of mother church herself. When Archbishop Parker was consecrated in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, he wore "a long scarlet gown and a hood, with four torches carried before him: Bishop Barlow had a silk cope, being to administer the sacrament; four arch-deacons, who attended him, wearing silk copes also." And a puritanical Protestant, Thomas Sampson, complained to Peter Martyr in 1550 that the