righteous God. On the ground of this sacrifice of the eternal High Priest, believers have access to the throne of grace, and may expect their prayers and intercessions to be heard. "With this perfect and eternally availing sacrifice the Eucharist stands in indissoluble connection. It is indeed originally a sacra- ment, and the main thing in it is that which we 7'eGeive from God, not that which we give to God. The latter is only a con- sequence of the former ; for we can give to God nothing which we have not first received from him. But the Eucharist is the sacramenUiTn of a sacrificmm, the thankful celebration of the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross, and the believing participation or the renewed appropriation of the fruits of this sacrifice. In other words, it is a feast on a sacrifice. " As oft as ye do eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come." 504 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. The Eueliarist is moreover, as tlie name itself implies, on the part of the church a living and reasonable tliank-oflering, wherein she presents herself anew, in Christ and on the ground of liis sacrifice, to God witli prayers and intercesoions. For only in Christ are our offerings acceptable to God, and only through the continual showing forth and presenting of His merit can we expect our prayers and intercessions to be heard. In this view certainly, in a deep symbolical and-ethical sense, Christ is offered to God the Father in every believing prayer, and above all in the holy Supper ; i. e. as the sole ground of our reconciliation and acceptance. This is the deep truth which lies at the bottom of the Catliolic mass, and gives it still such power over the religious mind.' But this idea in process of time became adulterated with foreign elements, and transformed into the Grseco-Roman doc- trine ot the sacrifice of the m,ass. According to this doctrine the Eucharist is an unbloody repetition of the atoning sacrifice of Christ hy the jpriesthood for the salvation of the living and the dead j so that the body of Christ is truly and literally offered every day and every hour, and upon innumerable altars ' Freeman states the result of his investigation of the Biblical sacrificial cultua and of the doctrine of the old Catholic church on the eucharistic sacrifice, as follows, on p. 280 : " It is enough for us that the holy Eucharist is aU that the ancient types foreshowed that it would be ; that in it we present ' memorially,' yet truly and with prevailing power, by the consecrating Hands of our Great High Priest, the wondrous Sacrifice once for all offered by Him at the Eucharistic Institution, consummated on the Cross, and ever since presented and pleaded by Him, Risen and Ascended, in Heaven ; that our material Gifts are identified with that awful Reahty, and as such are