I

A significant fact in Christian history is the width of the appeal made by the rite of the Eucharist. In times so different as the first century and the tenth and the twentieth, at every intervening moment of Christian life, the Eucharist is seen to be acknowledged as the chief privilege of the Christian religion. In whatever ways it may have been used, and however it may have been explained, its pre-eminence is unquestionable. What is true about times is true also about places. The men of the East and of the West, the men of Northern Europe and of Southern Europe differing in some respects not less than Westerns and Easterns, those who are the devoted adherents of the Pope and those who have renounced or never acknowledged his distinctive claims, those who cherish the name of Catholic and those who delight to describe themselves as Protestant, alike regard the Eucharist as an essential element in the religion of Christ. They would agree that, where a sect exists which excludes it, or if a national religion should arise which should make no provision for it, there must be recognised a departure from Christian principles so grave as to make the sect or the religion other than Christian. It is touching to notice the language of devotion which men of most divergent beliefs have used in reference to the rite as to the explanation of which they have widely disagreed. This unanimity tells its own tale as to the needs of human thought and life.