reserving, no matter in what
part of the world they may be found, a certain structural
uniformity. These are the primitive liturgies, as they are
called, the study of which has in late years attained almost to
the dignity of a science. As to the exact measure of antiquity
that ought to be accorded to these venerable documents the
authorities differ and probably will always differ. Dr. Neale's
enthusiasm carried him so far that he was persuaded and sought
to persuade others of the existence of liturgical quotations in
the writings of St. Paul. This hypothesis is at the present time
generally rejected by sober-minded scholars. Perhaps "the personal
equation" enters equally into the conclusions of those who assign
a very late origin to the liturgies, pushing them along as far as
the sixth or seventh century. If one happens to have a rooted
dislike for prescribed forms of worship, and believes them in his
heart to be both unscriptural and unspiritual, it will be the
most natural thing in the world for him to disparage whatever
evidence makes in favor of the early origin of liturgies. Hammond
is sensible when he says in the Preface to his valuable work
entitled _Liturgies Eastern and Western_, "I have assumed an
intermediate position between the views of those on the one hand
who hold that the liturgies had assumed a recognized and fixed
form so early as to be quoted in the Epistles to the Corinthians
and Hebrews . . . and of those, on the other, who because there are
some palpable interpolations and marks of comparatively late date
in some of the texts, assert broadly that they are all untrustworthy
and valueless as evidence. This view I venture to think," he adds,
"equally uncritical and groundless with the former."

To sum up, the argument in behalf of an apostolic origin for the
Christian Liturgy may be compactly stated thus: The very earliest
monuments of Christian worship that we possess are rituals of
thanksgiving, having direct reference to the sacrifice of the
death of Christ. Going back from these to the New Testament we
find there the narrative of the institution of the Holy Communion
by Christ himself, and in connection with it the command, "This
do in remembrance of me." It is, I submit, a reasonable inference
that the liturgies in the main fairly represent what it was in
the mind of the apostle to recognize and establish as proper
Christian worship. I do not call it demonstration, I call it
reasonable infere