universal church, was substituted for that of the patriarch of the East; in the commemoration of the Virgin Mary, the title, "Mother of God," was employed; the names of their favourite doctors were blotted out in the commemoration of the saints. By these and a number of other changes, their Liturgy underwent an essential alteration of character, and no longer represented the old Nestorian worship.

[In their zeal against these supposed heretics, Menexes and his coadjutors condemned much that the Nestorians hold in common with other churches. "The reformation he made in this Liturgy," says father Simon, was improper. And there is nothing worse digested than the mass of the Nestorians, in the manner in which it is found (thus perverted) in the Bibliotheca Patrum. The whole order of it is changed in endeavouring to accommodate that Liturgy to the opinion which the Latin divines have of consecration, which they make to consist in these words, This is my body,' &c. Whereas the Nestorians believe, as all the Orientals do, that the consecration is not completed till the priest has ended the prayer which they call the Invocation of the Holy Ghost.' Nevertheless Menexes makes the Nestorian priests adore the host so soon as they have pronounced these words, 'This is my body,' though they believe it not to be as yet consecrated." The omission of these words of our Saviour is not altogether peculiar to the Nestorian. sacrament: it is observable in the Jacobite Liturgy of Dion Bar Salib, and others. Nairon and Simon have accounted for this on the principle that the Syrians, unlike the Latins, do not place the essential of consecration in those words, but in the invocation to the Holy Spirit, which obtains in all their Anaphoras. Others, as Asseman and Renaudot, think that the omission is

intended to mark a greater reverence for the words themselves; while some suppose that it was originally intended that the words should be read from a copy of the New Testament, or recited from memory. These are conjectures of Romanist authors. The truth appears to be, that the first liturgical writers among the Syrians did not regard the divine words in question as having the same transmuting efficacy which the Western church has been so fond of attributing to them.]

The Nestorian Liturgy, thus corrupted by Menexes, was translated into Latin in Malabar, in 1599, and printed seven years after at Coimbra. It is also incorporated, as before said, in the Bibliotheca Patrum, under the title of Missa Christianorum apud Indos.

Of the genuine Nestorian Liturgy of the Apostles, as used by the older churches in Mesopotamia and Assyria, there has never been a printed edition, and manuscript copies are extremely rare in the West. One, procured by father Simon from a Chaldean presbyter, may be still seen, I believe, in the cathedral library at Rouen. The only Syriac exemplar which I have had the advantage of examining, is that marked No. 70 in the Bibliothèque Royale, at Paris. This, however, proved to be a copy adapted to the use of those Nestorians who had entered into communion with Rome, and are now known by the denomination of the Chaldean church. The document, therefore, was considered to be ineligible as a proper representation of the Nestorian service. On this account the following Liturgy is not directly from the Syriac, but from the much esteemed Latin version of Renaudot.

Le Brun, a priest of the Oratory, in the third volume of his Explication Historique et Dogmatique de la Messe, has given a reprint of the Malabaric Ritual in Latin, with marginal indications of the chief particulars in which it

was altered by the innovations of the Portuguese. Several occasional prayers, canticles, and diaconal exhortations, render it a more ample service than the Chaldean one which now follows.

The title I give as in Renaudot. That of the manuscript in the king's library, before referred to, reads thus : "By the power of our Lord Jeshu Meshicha, we begin to write the order of the (Kudsha) Oblation of the Apostles, which is the first Oblation."

LITURGY OF THE HOLY APOSTLES, OR THE ORDER OF THE SACRAMENT.

GLORY to God in the highest!

OUR FATHER who art in the heavens, be sanctified thy name: thy kingdom come; thy will be done, as in heaven also in earth. Give to us the bread of our need to-day, and forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory to the age of ages. Amen.

STRENGTHEN, O Lord our God, our weakness by thy grace, that we may administer this holy mystery which is given for the renovation and health of our degraded nature, through the compassions of thy well-beloved Son, thou Lord of all.

LET the name of thy adorable and ever-blessed Trinity be worshipped, glorified, praised, celebrated, exalted, and blessed in heaven and earth, thou Lord of all.

LORD, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle? who shall rest in thy holy mountain?

He who walketh without defilement, and doeth righteousness, and speaketh truth in his heart, and speaketh not deceit with his tongue;

He who doeth not evil unto his neighbour, and taketh not a reward against his neighbour;

And who reproveth the vindictive with his eyes, and honoureth them that fear the Lord;

And sweareth to his neighbour and lieth not, and unto usury giveth not his money;

* In the Malabaric service the priest and the deacon recite these alternately,

And taketh not against his innocent neighbour a reward he who doeth these things is righteous, and shall not be moved for ever.

PRAYER.

BEFORE the bright throne of thy majesty, the high and lofty seat of thy glory, the tremendous throne of thy almighty love, even the mercy-seat which thy will hath established in the place of the habitation of thy glory, we thy people, with thousands of cherubim praising thee, and myriads of seraphim sanctifying thee, do draw near, adore, confess, and glorify thee evermore, O Lord of all.

On commemorations and Fridays.—IT is meet that at all times we confess, adore, and glorify the great and holy, illustrious, blessed, and incomprehensible name of thy glorious Trinity, and thy mercy towards our race, thou Lord of all.

INCENSE.

WHEN thou, Lord, dost breathe upon us the fragrance of thy mercy, our souls are enlightened by the knowledge of thy truth, and we are made meet to receive the manifestation of thy love from thy holy heaven. There will we praise thee, and [here meanwhile] will we glorify thee without ceasing in thy church, crowned and filled with all strength and good; for thou art the Lord and Creator and Father of all.

Incense. HYMN. Then is read the SCRIPTURE, preceded by these PRAYERS.

ILLUMINATE our minds, O Lord our God, to hear and receive the sweet lessons of thy divine and enlivening words, and grant that by thy mercy and grace we may derive from them whatsoever shall conduce to charity

* Others," In the place of thy pasture."