The peculiar tendency of the Christian religion to encourage honor towards all men, as men, to foster and develop the softer affections, and, in the trying condition of the early Church, to make its members intimately known one to another, and unite them in the closest bonds, led to the observance of kissing as an accompaniment of that social worship which took its origin in the very cradle of our religion. Hence the exhortation of St. Paul, “Salute one another with a holy kiss;” and the brethren followed the injunction literally. It was called _signaculum orationis_, the soul of prayer; and was a symbol of that mutual forgiveness and reconciliation which the Church required as an essential condition to admission to its sacraments. Tertullian, Origen, and Athenagoras mention it; and Dr. Milner cites the Apostolical Constitutions to show the manner in which the ceremony was performed: “Let the bishop salute the church and say, ‘The peace of God be with you all;’ And let the people answer, ‘And with thy spirit.’ Then let the deacon say to all, ‘Salute one another with a holy kiss and let the clergy kiss the bishop, and the laymen the laymen, and the women the women.” This primitive fraternal embrace appears to have been observed as late as the twelfth or thirteenth century, and the _pax_ (osculatorium, porte-paix, or pax brede) introduced, as it was at this period that the sexes began to mingle together in the low mass. The use of the _pax_ in England was prescribed by the royal commissioners of Edward VI. The Injunctions published at Doncaster, in 1548, ordain that: “The clarke shall bring down the paxe, and standing without the church door, shall say loudly to the people these words, ‘This is a token of joyful peace which is betwixt God and men’s conscience; Christ alone is the peace-maker, which straitly commands peace between brother and brother. And so long as ye shall use these ceremonies, so long shall ye use these significations.’” Agnes Strickland, in her account of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, says: “Then the bishop began the mass, the epistle being read first in Latin and then in English, the gospel the same,—the book being sent to the queen, who kissed the gospel. She then went to the altar to make her second offering, three unsheathed swords being borne before her, and one in the scabbard. The queen, kneeling, put money in the basin, and kissed the chalice; and then and there certain words were read to her grace. She retired to her seat again during the consecration, and kissed the pax.”[10] ROYAL FEET-WASHING AND KISSING. In this country, the ceremonies of Lent and of Easter belong to the Church alone, but in most other lands these occasions have always borne both a civil and a political relation to society.