id flame and smoke, into the falling sanctuary
of an out-worn faith, one who was presently to die upon a cross
had taken bread, had blessed it and broken it, and giving it to
certain followers gathered about him, had said, "Take, eat; this
is my body, which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me."
Likewise also he had taken the cup after supper, saying, "This cup
is the New Testament in my blood which is shed for you."

Certainly there must be a relation of cause and effect between this
scene and the fact, which is a fact, that the most ancient
fragments of primitive Christian worship now discoverable are
forms for the due commemoration of the sacrifice of the death of
Christ.

These venerable monuments seem to exclaim as we decipher them:
"Even so, Lord, it is done as thou didst say." "Thy name, O Lord,
endureth forever and so doth thy memorial from generation to
generation." Of the references to Christian worship discoverable
in documents later than the New Testament Scriptures there are
three that stand out with peculiar prominence, namely, the lately
discovered _Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_, placed by some
authorities as early as the first half of the second century;
the famous letter of Pliny to the Emperor Trajan, a writing of
the same period; and the Apology or Defence addressed by Justin
Martyr to Antoninus Pius about the year 140 after Christ. The
noteworthy fact in connection with these passages is that of the
three, two certainly, and probably the third also, refer directly
to the Holy Communion. In the _Teaching_ we have a distinct sketch
of a eucharistic service with three of the prescribed prayers
apparently given in full. In Justin Martyr's account, the evidence
of a definitely established liturgical form is perhaps less plain,
but nothing that he says would appear to be irreconcilable with
the existence of a more or less elastic ritual order. Whether he
does or does not intend to describe extemporaneous prayer as
forming one feature of the eucharistic worship of the Christians
of his time depends upon the translation we give to a single word
in his narrative. Later on in the life of the Church, though by
just how much later is a difficult point of scholarship, we are
brought in contact with a number of formularies, all of them
framed for the uses of eucharistical worship, all of them, that
is to say, designed to perpetuate the commandment, "This do in
remembrance of me," and all of them p