The question has been raised--Did the Boy-Bishop say mass? The proclamation of Henry VIII. distinctly affirms that he did, but there is reason to suspect the truth of the statement. In the York Missal, published by the Surtees Society, there is a rubric directing the Boy-Bishop to occupy the episcopal throne during mass--a proof that he cannot have been the celebrant. But the Boy-Bishop, if he did not officiate at the altar, unquestionably preached the sermon. The statutes of Dean Colet for the government of his school enjoin that "all the children shall every Childermas Day come to Paule's Churche, and heare the chylde bishop sermon, and after be at hygh masse and each of them offer 1_d._ to the chylde bysshop." Specimens of the sermons preached on Holy Innocents' Day have come down to us from the reigns of Henry VIII. and Mary, and are of extreme interest. They, indeed, go far to justify the custom as a mode of inculcating virtue and, particularly, reverence in the minds of the auditors. The earlier discourse appears to have been prepared by one of the Almoners of St. Paul's, and the "bidding prayer" contains a quaint allusion to "the ryghte reverende fader and worshypfull lorde my broder Bysshop of London, your dyocesan, also my worshypfull broder, the Deane of this Cathedral Churche." The later discourse was pronounced by "John Stubs, Querester, on Childermas-Day at Gloceter, 1558," and, most appropriately, based on the text, "Except you be convertyd and made lyke unto lytill children," etc. Referring to the "queresters" and children of the song school, the preacher remarks, with a touch of delightful humour, "Yt is not so long sens I was one of them myself"; and, in explaining the significance of Childermas, adverts to the Protestant martyrs, who, alas! are without "the commendacion of innocency." It may be added that, according to the testimony of the Exeter _Ordinale_, the Boy-Bishop, on St. Nicholas' Day, censed the altar of the Holy Innocents, recited prayers, read the Little Chapter at Lauds "in a modest voice," and gave the Benediction.