be partaken of in the evening,-the only suitable time of day for a supper,-was very commonly followed. To wind up the proceedings of the "Sabbath "-as the Lord's Day began to be called-in this manner was felt by some to be at once solemnizing, appropriate, and elevating. On such occasions the "ordinance," as it was termed, partook largely of the nature of a solemn social assembly for singing sacred songs, making vague. admissions of spiritual weakness, eating, drinking, and praying.* How far "the Order for the Administration of the Supper" in the "Book of Common Prayer" was used or followed, is open to question and consideration. The Communiontressels were spread with a table-cloth, loaves and wine were supplied in abundance, and in some cases profusely; platters or trenchers were placed round the table; a sop of bread and wine made, was partaken of with spoons; and so, with a

* At Thame, Oxon., at Easter, 1560, two gallons of wine were provided; at Easter, 1563, three gallons, a large amount, and no less than twenty-six loaves. It is thus also recorded:

"1591. May 2nd. Item, delivered unto William Typpinge Two Cupps for the Communion-table, ij dozen and an halfe of Platters, one pann, six spones, and half a dozen of trenchers, ij table-clothes." The tressels there were not abolished until the year 1625, when thirty shillings were expended in providing a Communion-table.-Author's MSS. and Excerpts from the Parish Accounts of Thame, Oxon.

CONTRAST BETWEEN "MASS" AND "THE SUPPER.'

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certain grave demeanour, the sitting saints* probably contrasted that, their homely and simple rite, in which the body was refreshed, the mind deluded, and the conscience drugged,-with the now absolutely-abolished and truly-hated Mass. It was a contrast indeed.

The first person amongst the English ministers, who, by the general soundness of his principles, the clearness of his thoughts, and the ability with which he set them forth, began to stem the tide of this kind of confusion, innovation, and novelty, (in his day so great, that all order and law seemed likely to be overturned, and distinct Atheism first became rampant in a once Catholic country,†)

"The state of the churches was deplorable; they had been left to fanatical neglect and ruin. The sacrament was administered in the most irreverent manner; the service for the altar [Qy. the cup and platter] was borrowed from the nearest house, and the communicants took their seats at tables which the Catholics termed oyster-boards.' The estates of the Church were alienated by the bishops. The highest dignitaries had availed themselves of the spoliation of the churches, and shared the plate and costly carvings with the nobility and gentry. Many parishes were left without a clergyman; in almost all, the service was neglected."—" Documents from Simancas," Introduction, pp. 17, 18. London: 1865.

+"To heighten all these discontents and dangers, there was also sprung up a generation of godless men; men that had so long given way to their own lusts and delusions, and so highly opposed the blessed motions of His Spirit, and the

was Richard Hooker, born of a respectable family near the City of Exeter, on Our Lady's Day 1554. When about twenty years of age, by the aid of an uncle who was Chamberlain of that city, he was admitted a clerk of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, of which in 1577 he became a Fellow, and subsequently Rector of Drayton Beauchamp in Buckinghamshire; but was in 1584 appointed Master of the Temple, a place of prominence and importance. Here he was brought into controversy with the two notorious Puritans, Travers and Cartwright, (of whom mention has already been made,) who were deliberately aiming to effect still further and still greater fundamental changes both in the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England.

Though Hooker had been brought up in the narrow school of Calvin, yet, when the New Religion became duly developed in its various and contradictory forms,-when, moreover, he saw to

inward light of their own consciences, that they became the very slaves of vice, and had thereby sinned themselves into a belief of that which they would, but could not, believe: into a belief which is repugnant even to human nature (for the heathens believe that there are many gods), but these had sinned themselves into a belief that there was no God.""Life of Mr. Richard Hooker," by Isaac Walton, ed. Keble, p. 37. Oxford: 1845.

RICHARD HOOKER AND HIS WORKS.

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what lengths Travers and his adherents proposed to go,-what blank infidelity had ensued from such conflicts and controversies, he himself stopped short; surveyed the actual situation with the power and grasp of a clear-sighted and vigorous mind, and gave to the Christian nations a treatise so deep, so exact, and so masterly, that his name remains as one of the greatest and deepest writers of his day. One of the Primates of Christendom highly commended his labours.* "The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity" was commenced in the Temple about 1587, continued at Boscombe in the diocese of Sarum four years afterwards, and completed about 1594 at Bishopsbourne near Canterbury. The eminent writer, who was as modest and humble as he was thoughtful and learned, was of short stature, bent with literary labours and bodily mortifications, tried by home troubles, and in no way externally remarkable. But the services he rendered to the institution of which he was so great a light and defender, the masterly

* Pope Clement VIII. [Hippolytus Aldobrandini] said of Hooker, "There is no learning that this man hath not searcht into; nothing too hard for his understanding; this man indeed deserves the name of an author; his books will get reverence by age, for there is in them such seeds of eternity, that, if the rest be like this, they shall last till the last fire shall consume all learning."- -“Life of Hooker," Keble's Ed. of his "Works," p. 71. Oxford: 1845.

method by which he led his readers back from the New to the Old, will only be adequately realized when the miserable Disunion of the sixteenth century, which he so deplored, is atoned for by the Corporate Reunion of a later age.

He laid the foundation of a theological party in the National Church, whose principles were rather akin to those of Christian divines before the so-called "Reformation," than to those of Barlow, Cranmer, Sandys, Parkhurst, and Bale. From Hooker's day to the present, his principles have been always more or less acknowledged as good and true; so that a considerable section of English Churchmen has been benefited and blessed through his labours.

Nevertheless, as regards the crucial question of ordination, a question of life or death to the professing Catholic, though one of little or no moment to the newly-bred sectarian or Donatistic Nationalist,* — Hooker's trumpet gave a

*In quoting the following account of Hooker's position, the author must regretfully but frankly confess his inability to reconcile such distressing facts as many of those which are recorded in these volumes, with the late respected Mr. Keble's confident assertions regarding the then state of affairs. That thoughtful and eminent Tractarian in 1845 thus wrote:"Now, since the episcopal succession had been so carefully retained in the Church of England, and so much anxiety evinced to render both her Liturgy and Ordination services