The Ordo Romanus, composed in the ninth century, gives the following direction: "Concerning children care is to be taken, lest, after they shall have been baptized, they receive any food or nurse, without the greatest necessity, before they partake of the sacrament of Christ's body."

Paschasius Raddert, a little before the middle of the ninth century, wrote an extensive work on the Lord's Supper. In this work, with a startling boldness, he expounded and defended the doctrine of transubstantiation; and, at the same time, he maintained that baptized infants, even if they should die before participating in the holy supper, would be saved in consequence of their union with Christ by baptism. Controversy ensued, and it was continued for ages. The opinion that in the eucharist the bread is changed into the body and the wine into the blood of our Lord, prevailed more and more, especially after the Council at Rome in 1079.

William De Champeaux, Bishop of Chalons, an intimate friend of St. Bernard, taught, as Bossuet expresses it, 'that he who receives one kind alone receives Jesus Christ entire.**

Hugo à St. Victor, at Paris, who died about the year 1141, maintained that in the eucharist wine alone might be given to infants, because under each kind, whether bread or wine, the body and blood of Christ is at the same time received. † He pursued a middle course in respect to the necessity of infant communion. For, regarding the custom of the ancient church, he taught that the eucharist was indeed to be given to children, under the form of wine; but with caution and limitation. For, if in preserving the blood of Christ, or in administering it to children, there is danger [of accident to the sacred element], the observance should rather be omitted. Then he says that there is to the children no peril of salvation, if they should depart without the communion, because they are already made members of Christ by baptism. Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, taught the same. Hugo, in his work on the Sacraments, adds with respect to infants, The sacrament in the form of blood is to be administered

* Que qui reçoit une seule espece, reçoit Jesus Christ tout entier. + See J. Bona, Rerum Liturgicarum, Lib. II., c. 18. § 1. p. 723, VOL. Xxxiii.-38.

by the finger of the priest, because such are naturally able to suck."*

Paschal II., who was Pope from 1099 to 1118, wrote an epistle (32) to Pontius, Abbot of Clugny, in which he orders that children, and the feeble who cannot absorb the bread, may communicate in the blood alone, deeming this more becoming than to permit a dipped communion.† He com. manded to give the two symbols separately, except to those who were extremely sick and to little infants, whom he permitted to communicate with the wine. After his time, this continued to be the usage of the Western or Romish Church, in regard to infants, so long as infant communion was practised.

In the twelfth century, Odo, Bishop of Paris, who was alive in 1175, commanded his Presbyters not to give the elements to children in any manner.§ Thus in the Gallican Church, the custom of communicating the little ones ceased in the twelfth century; a custom which Hugo à Victor, a writer of the same century, wished to restore, yet affirms to have ceased, in his time, though some vestiges of it still remained. In some Roman Catholic countries vestiges of it remained long after his time.

De Sacramentis et Ceremoniis Ecclesiasticis, Lib. i. c. 20. Idem sacramentum in specie sanguinis est ministrandum digito sacerdotis, quia tales naturaliter sugere possunt.

+ Sec J. Bona, Rerum Liturgicarum, Lib. II., c. 18., 3., 719. Ut parvuli et infirmi, qui panem absorbere non possunt, in solo sanguine communicent, hoc decentius existimans quam intinctam communionem permittere.

+ Paschal's Epistle entire is inserted by Baronius, in his Ecclesiastical Annals, in connection with the year 1118. n. 3. See it also in J. Schilterus, De Libertate Ecclesiarum Germanicarum, Lib. iv., c. 5, § 3.

See his Synodal Statutes, c. 39.

For ample evidence of this, see Zornii Historia Eucharistiae Infantum, ex Antiquitatibus Ecclesiarum tum Occidentalium tum Orientalium secundum decem Saeculorum seriem et multiplicem varietatem illustrata,-printed at Berlin, in 1736; a work to which we are indebted for its lucid presentation of many important facts.

In the sixteenth century, when the great Lutheran Reformation occurred, and there was earnest inquiry on many religious subjects, the Romish Church, at the Council of Trent, decreed that children are not obligated to the sacramental communion,' as follows:

"Session 21st (the 5th under the Supreme Pontiff, Pius IV.), July 16, 1852."

"Doctrine concerning communion under each kind, and of children."

"The holy ecumenical and general council at Trent, in the Holy Spirit legitimately assembled, the same legates of the Apostolic See presiding, since concerning the tremendous and most holy sacrament of the eucharist, in divers places, by the arts of the most wicked demon, various monsters of errors are circulated, on account of which in some provinces many seem to have departed from the faith of the Catholic Church and from obedience, has resolved that those things which pertain to communion under each kind, and of children, be in this place expounded. Wherefore it interdicts to all the faithful of Christ, and forbids that hereafter they dare either to believe or to teach or to preach, otherwise than is in these decrees set forth and defined."

"CAN. IV. That children are not obligated to Sacramental Communion.

"Finally, the same holy council teaches that children wanting the use of reason are by no necessity obligated to the sacramental communion of the eucharist; if regenerated by the laver of baptism and incorporated in Christ, they cannot in that age lose the already obtained grace of the sons of God. Yet neither is antiquity therefore to be condemned, if in some places it has sometimes observed this custom. For as those most holy fathers have had, according to the state of that time, probable cause for what they did, so, certainly, it is to be believed, without controversy, that they did it by no necessity of salvation."

Appended to this canon is the following:

"If any one shall say that the communion of the eucharist is necessary to children before they come to years of discretion, let him be anathema."*

In the catechism of the Council of Trent, published by command of Pope Pius V., an octavo volume of inore than five hundred pages, these remarks are made, namely: "The Council of Lateram [in 1215] decreed that all the faithful should communicate, at least once a year, at Easter, and that the omission should be chastised by exclusion from the society of the faithful. But although this law, sanctioned, as it is, by the authority of God, and of his church, regards all the faithful, the pastor, however, will teach that it does not extend to persons who have not arrived at the years of discretion, because they are incapable of discerning the Holy Eucharist from common food, and cannot bring with them to this Sacra

*See p. 109-111, Canones et decreta Concilii Tridentini, ex editione Romana A. D. 1834, Leipsic, 1853. Sessio xxi. quae est quinta sub Pio IV. Pont. Max. celebrata die xvi. mensis Julii, MDLXII.

Doctrina de communione sub utroque specie et parvulorum.

Sacrosancta oecumenica et generalis Tridentina synodus in Spiritu Sancto legitime congregata, praesidentibus in ea eisdem apopstolicae sedis legatis, quum de tremendo et sanctissimo eucharistiae sacramento varia diversis in locis errorum monstra nequissimi daemonis artibus circumferentur, ob quae in nonnullis provinciis multi a catholicae ecclesiae fide atque obedientia videantur discessisse, censuit ea, quae ad communionem sub utraque specie et parvulorum pertinent, hoc loco exponenda esse. Quapropter cunctis Christi fidelibus interdicit, ne posthac de iis aliter vel credere, vel docere vel praedicare audeant, quam est his decretis explicatum atque definitum.

CAN. IV. Parvulos non obligari ad communionem sacramentalem. Denique eadem sancta synodus docet parvulos usu rationis carentes nulla obligari necessitate ad sacramentalem eucharistiae communionem, siquidem per baptismi lavacrum regenerati et Christo incorporati adeptam jam filiorum Dei gratiam in illa aetate amittere non possunt. Neque ideo tamen damnanda est antiquitas, si eum morem in quibusdam locis aliquando servavit. Ut enim sanctissimi illi Patres sui facti probabilem causam pro illius temporis ratione habuerunt, ita certe eos nulla salutis necessitate id fecisse sine controversia credendum est.

Appended to Can. iv. Si quis dixerit, parvulis, antequam ad annos discretionis pervenerint, necessariam esse eucharistiae communionem : anathema sit.

ment, the piety and devotion which it demands. To extend the precept to them would appear inconsistent with the institution of this sacrament by our Lord: Take,' says He, and eat;' words which cannot apply to infants, who are evidently incapable of taking and eating. In some places, it is true, an ancient practice prevailed of giving the Holy Eucharist even to infants; but, for the reasons already assigned, and for other reasons most consonant to Christian piety, this practice has been long discontinued, by authority of the same church.*

Among the "other reasons" alluded to, the following might be mentioned: 1. Because infant communion has no firm foundation in the word of God. 2, Because, especially, it is not required in John vi: 53, but the declaration of Christ there made concerning the spiritual reception of himself by faith, had been misinterpreted and badly distorted from the genuine sense to the reception of the sacrament. 3. Because it is not necessary in order to obtain salvation. 4. Because it is an unreasonable service, and a needless stumbling block to our natural sense of propriety. 5. Because in being forced upon infants it is liable to be the occasion of hurtful and scandalous accidents to the body and blood of Christ, and thus dishonor Him, and bring reproach on the holy ordinance. 6. Because infants cannot examine themselves, and, discerning the Lord's · body, partake of it in remembrance of Him, according to I. Cor. xi: 24-29.

The Oriental churches still adhere to infant communion. Fourteen or fifteen years ago, the Pope, Pius IX., by an encyclical or circular letter, in the modern Greek language, exhorted them to return to the Roman Church. Among the replies which this document called forth from the Greek Church, one of the ablest, that of Alexander de Stourdza, of Edessa, has recently been translated into English and published in the Christian Review. The author observes: "Our Lord, the High Priest and spotless victim, said expressly to his disciples, as He presented to them the cup of the new testament,' drink ye all of it.' Now since the sacrament of

*P. 227. The Catechism is translated into English by the Rev. J. Donovan, Professor, &c., of the Royal College, at Maynooth.