Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/54

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44
Presidential Address.

to Demeter, or to add what further parallels are suggested in the belief that Dionysus (who appears in haglology as St. Denis[1]) was slain, rose again, and descended into Hades to bring up his mother Semele from the dead. This, however, by the way. What has to be emphasised is, that in the quotation just given we have transubstantiation clearly defined as the barbaric idea of eating the god. In proof of the unbroken continuity of that idea two witnesses—Catholic and Protestant—may be cited.

The Church of Rome, and in this the Greek Church is at one therewith, thus defines the term transubstantiation in the Canon of the Council of Trent:

"If any one shall say that in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist there remains the substance of bread and wine together with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and shall deny that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood, the species of bread and wine alone remaining—which conversion the Catholic Church most fittingly calls Transubstantiation—let him be anathema."

Professor Haddon has kindly furnished me with the most apposite evidence from the Protestant side that one has seen for many a day. It is culled from a Nonconformist organ, the British Weekly, of 29th August last.

A correspondent writes:

"A few Sundays ago—8 o'clock celebration of Holy Communion. Rector, officiating minister (Hawarden Church).

"When the point was reached for the communicants to partake, cards containing a hymn to be sung after Communion were distributed among the congregation. This hymn opened with the following couplet: —

'Jesu, mighty Saviour,
Thou art in us now.'

And my attention was arrested by an asterisk referring to a footnote. The word 'in,' in the second line, was printed in italics, and the note intimated that those who had not communicated should sing 'with' instead of 'in,' i. e

  1. M. Jean Reville in Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, vol. .iii., 1886.