The words of the modern Roman priest, "hoc est corpus meum," which are supposed, by some magical influence, to cause the actual transubstantiation in the celebration of the eucharist, remind one forcibly of the dotting of the memorial Chinese tablet by a mandarin, by which official act the spirit of the departed, to whom it is dedicated, is presumed to take up residence in the new abode. As a logical deduction from a given hypothesis, any Roman priest is greater than the virgin. She conceived God but once, while the priest may through his mass create the body of the Christ whenever he so desires. Every time a priest performs this function he is the father of God. However, in spite of the absurdity of the practice, to deprive the communion of the real presence is to make it a senseless and useless ceremony. While the communicants believe in the efficacy of the wafer as the actual body, there is reason for absorbing it, as they thus unite themselves with the actual spirit of the Christ. But the moment this dogma is rejected, the rite becomes futile, and nothing is more ridiculous than its perpetuation in the Protestant churches. The quibble that it is performed in memory of Jesus is a fallacy. In Unitarian churches it is an arrant absurdity (one that is retained in many cases simply because the old historical churches of that denomination have inherited fine old communion plate which is proudly displayed), and one can only respect and admire Ralph Waldo Emerson's stand in the matter, when he preferred to relinquish his remunerative and honorable pastorate in the Second Church of Boston (the only pulpit he ever filled) rather than celebrate this anachronistic and indefensible rite. Jerome carried his reverence for the Eucharistic bread [1] so far that he considered that the table on which it was consecrated, together with the cloth in which it was wrapped, and the other utensils connected with its service, were to be worshiped with equal respect as that given the body and blood of the Savior. This theory led to the consecration of altars, which by a decree of the Council of Epaone, in 517, in imitation of the Jewish and pagan sacrificial altars, were ordered to be of stone, which material had been originally chosen as the most suitable material for the execution of the sacrifices, whose blood should flow over it, without danger of absorption.