the liberties and customs of Evesham, is dated thus: "Facta etiam fiat, dicta assisa anno ab Incarnatione Domini MCC° XL, die Dominica qua cantatur Misericordia Domini, anno regni Regis Henrici filii Regis Johannis 25°.”— Monast. Anglie., t. II, p. 34. Missa, Messe, Mass.-In dates, the day of any festival with which any of these words is conjoined, as Missa S. Johannis, or S. Johannis Missa, which is the same as St. Johnmas, St. Johnmesse, or the mass of St. John. So Missa Maria is Marymas-Missa Martini, Martinmas; and among the Saxons, this was the principal mode of naming festivals, thus they had Pentecostmas, Petermas, &c. Sometimes they added day, as Briciusmas-day, which then means the day of the mass or festival of St. Brice. The word Missa, or mass, appears to have been first used in the fourth century, by St. Ambrose, in his Epist. 33, and to have been adopted about 394 (Augustin. de Temp.; Cassian., l. III, c. 7). The Council of Carthage use the word in 398: "Episcopus nullum prohibeat usque ad missam catechumenorum, neque hæreticum, neque Judæum, neque gentilem ecclesiam ingredi et audire verbum Dei" (ean. 84). It occurs in the epistle of Pius to Justus, bishop of Vienne, in 166; but Cardinal Bona admits that this epistle is of dubious authenticity (De Rebus Liturgicis, l. I, c. 18), and he thinks that the name was not in use until after the third century (Ibid., l. I, c. 10). Others affect to trace the word to the Hebrew (Pol. Verg., l. V, c. 12, p. 338). Cardinal Bona is among those who take it from the Latin mittere, to send (suprà, l. I, c. 8). This is the most probable derivation; and it is remarkable that "the priests of Isis, in Rome, on dismissing the people, employed a Greek formula at the termination of the sacrifices-λaoic apɛoiç, populis missio, the sending of the people away-almost equivalent to the old Roman' Ite, missio est'-Go away, it is ended; whence the Papists, before the celebration of the eucharist, after they had commingled with it a portion of the pagan rites, used to address the catechumens, ' Ite, missa est ;' from which it is evident, that not only the unmeaning epithet, but also the blasphemous object itself, is purloined from the Gentiles" (Illustrations of Popery, p. 258; New York, 1838). In the second book of the Golden Ass, Apuleius declares himself to have been present at the rites of Isis, which he thus describes : "At cum ad ipsum jam templum pervenimus Sacerdos Maximus, quique divinas effigies progerebant, et qui venerandis penetralibus pridem fuerant initiati, intra cubiculum deæ recepti, disponunt rite simulachra spirantia. Tunc ex iis unus, quem cuncti Grammatea (sic Græci vocant scribam) dicebant, pro assidens, cætu pastophorum, quod sacrosancti collegii foribus nomen est, velut in concionem vocato, indidem de sublimi suggesto, de libro, de literis, fausta vota præfatus, principi magno, senatuique, et equiti totique Romano populo, nauticis navibus, quæque sub imperio mundi nostratis reguntur, renuntiat, sermone rituque Græcensi, ita λaous apeσic, populis missio. Quam vocem fœliciter cunctis evenire signavit populi clamor insecutus. Exin gaudio delibuti populares, talos, verbenas, corollas ferentes exosculatis vestigiis deæ, quæ gradibus hærebat argento formata, ad suos discedunt lares." The Pagan and Papist ceremonies coinciding, it is not strange that the formulas of dismissal should agree. The mystery of the Lord's Supper, at a very early period, occasioned the Heathens to calumniate the Christians in a manner at once injurious and absurd; and it is amusing to find the Papists endeavouring, by means of these very as persions, to identify the impious rites of the mass with the dominical institution. Thus Casalius, in a chapter De Calumniis, attributes them all to the celebration of the Mass by the ancient Christians! "The Christians (he says) were accused of infanticide, cannibalism, and other atrocities, because they were accustomed to say that they were fed on the holy body and blood of Christ. Justin Martyr (Dial. cum Tryph.) asks-Do you believe of us that we devour men, and after the repast, having extinguished the lights (post epulum lucernis extinctis), wickedly mix in promiscuous intercourse?” Casalius explains epuli and lucerne to be the Agapes, or love-feasts after the Mass, and the tapers! He then quotes Tertullian's Apology (c. 7), where he rebuts the charge of infanticide (see Cana Domini), and then alludes to the accusation of promiscuous incest, which (says Casalius) arose from the kiss, when the Christians saluted each other, in the name of sister and brother, in the Mass. Tertullian, of course, says nothing about the Mass: his words are-" Dinumera loca, ubi mater, ubi soror; nota diligenter ut cum tenebræ ceciderent caninæ non erres; piaculum enim admiseris, nisi incestum feceris” (Apol., c. 9). Then, says the former, because the sacrifice of the Mass was secret and nocturnal, the Christians were accused of worshipping the priest's genitals. In support of this he quotes Minutius Felix (in Octavio): "Alii eos ferunt antistitis, ac sacerdotis colere genitalia, et quasi parentis sui adorare naturam; nescio an falsa: certe occultis ac nocturnis sacris apposita suspicio." So also Arnob., 1. VIII (advers. Gentes). Then he says that they were accused of worshipping an ass's head (“Jam quidem somniastis, caput asininum esse deum nostrum" (Tertul., Apol., c. 16); and certainly it is far more rational to worship the work of the divine hands, than a carved piece of wood or stone, or a piece of corruptible bread. Moreover, the Christians, he says, were accused of worshipping the sun, because, in the Mass and other services, the priest turns towards the East; and Bacchus and Ceres, because bread and wine are used in the Mass. This rests upon the authority of Augustine (Contra Manich., l. XX, c. 18). Not one of the writers quoted takes the least notice of the Mass (see Casal. de Veter. Sacris Christian. Ritibus, c. 9; Fol. Rom., 1647). The Mass is contemptuously mentioned in the death-song of Regner Lodbrog "Hiuggum veir med hiorve. Sehs dægum adur lid fielle. Lodbrokar Quida, We have hewn with our swords. * Eirefur's snow shoes are ships. + Flame, for war. Points of swords, spears, &c. Perhaps, says Olaus Wormius, it was used in contempt of Christianity, which the Danes had rejected in favour of the ancient religion (De Literatura Danic., p. 209). With greater probability he might have conjectured, that the doctrines and practices of Rome occasioned the disgust of the royal bard and warrior. A modern writer on Papal Rome has the following remarks on the Mass, which he necessarily connects with Pagan rites, as every one must who treats the subject rationally:" But there are other and far deeper corruptions still maintained in the Roman church. The Papists hold that the mass is offered a real and proper sacrifice, whose virtue is supposed to prevail to give them success and prosperity in any undertaking; on all occasions it is the custom to make vows, and send a certain sum of money to the priest to say a certain number of masses, more or less, according to the means or bounty of the offerer. From what other than a heathen source is this derived? In vain will the attempt be made to trace it to any other origin. In Paganism the custom was universal; every historian and poet-almost every antique sculpture-furnish proofs of it; Virgil, both in the Georgics and Eneid, abounds with sacrifices offered for success in wars, in harvests, and in voyages; Juvenal, in his 12th satire, makes a festival for the escape of his friend Catullus from a storm. Here the almost exact resemblance between the Pagan and Papistical rites and offerings is indeed remarkable :"Haste, youths, and wreath the shrines with solemn zeal, Deep sink in flour the sacrificial steel; Let placid fumes from many altars rise, Thence, home returned, their little garlands there, These to domestic Jove shall incense fume, And all the Spring around my Lares bloom.' "This passage is a short description of heathen rites, when rescued from peril, and how much they resemble those of the Roman creed practised on like occasions, it is not very difficult to perceive. The vows or sacrifices offered up were used on the same occasions, and thought to have the same beneficial effects, and are the same in use as those in the Papal sacrifice of the mass at the present day. In one thing, indeed, the copy differs from the original; the Pagan who carried these sacrifices to be offered, in general partook of them himself, whereas the Papist, in like circumstances, frequently sends money only to the priest, who is often to celebrate these masses alone, and if the givers do attend, they seldom partake, but only kneel and worship the host at a distance; so that the latter is more superstitious, and more unlike the communion of the bread and wine, than even the heathen sacrifices were. The ceremonies used in performing the mass are evidently copied from Paganism, the great variety of emotions, the frequent joining and stretching forth the hands, beating the breast, crossing the altar, the elements and themselves, no less than thirty times repeated in the service, and eight times in one short prayer, the short turnings to the people with only a Dominus vobiscum, then back again to the altar, taking hold of it with both hands, kneeling and kissing it, frequent short and silent kneelings to the host, rising quick, turning and shewing it to the people, then kneeling again, and muttering the prayers in so low and inarticulate a voice, and that with the back to the people, that they might as well be in the Chinese language as in the Latin, or in any blasphemy if it so suited, for any thing that can either be heard or understood. All these gestures are expressly commanded in the rubric of the missal, and the only part that is ordered to be spoken aloud is when the cup is presented, and the priest says, “hoc est corpus;" the back being also turned to the congregation, it evidently is the intention of the regulators of the ritual, that by the people it should neither be heard nor understood, but that their devotion should consist in gazing at and admiring the priest, and the splendour of his garments and equipments. If a primitive Christian was to enter a Popish church while half a dozen of these masses were celebrating-a thing by no means unusual-would he not rather take them for the fanatic Galli, or priests of Cybele, performing her rites, than Christians partaking of the communion of the Lord's Supper? the candles, the incense, the shape and ornaments on the altars, would aid the deception; and the bell which is rung by the priest or an attendant on the elevation of the host, would he not recognize as an instrument belonging to her rites, to draw the people's attention to the goddess? and would he not suppose the wafer, the mola farina used in the sacrifice, made of barleyflour, salt and water, rather than the bread of the sacrament? The Papists say these ceremonies are copied from the Mosaic ones of the Jews-but that is not the fact. The manner of sacrificing among the Jews was, to put the blood with the finger upon the horns of the altar, and to pour the remainder at the foot of it-and in the consecration of the priests, to sprinkle some blood on their garments; but this has nothing to do with the turnings, enthusiastic and mysterious gestures, used at the mass, which more resembles that of a heathen priest peforming his strophes and antistrophes, and endeavouring, by a variety of emotions, to persuade the people of his divine inspiration; it is so exact a counterpart, that no one who sees the copy can doubt the original. One of the Popish gestures ordained by the missal, is to keep the thumb and the forefinger closed together from the time of the consecration of the bread to the ablution, or washing of hands, which is just at the end of the service; the hand is once ordered to be wiped in the meantime, and after that it might be supposed there was no occasion to preserve this posture, if the design was only to preserve any little bit of bread that might happen to stick to the finger and thumb; but it is rather singular that this very posture of the finger and thumb was the constant practice of the heathens; Apuleius says, describing their manner of adoration, Admoventes oribus suis dextram priori digito in erectum pollicem residente.' "There are still further resemblances in the worship of the bread and wine, in the observances of the mass. The Egyptians worshipped the onion, Juvenal says, sat. 15: "O sacred race, whose vegetable gods In every garden grow.' What a small change will convert this satire into a Popish practice: "O sacred race, whose vegetable gods Each oven bakes:' Or "O sacred race, for whom each oven bakes "O, sanctas gentes quibus hac nascuntur In hortis numina.'" In 1313, the emperor Henry VII was poisoned at Beneventum by a monk, when administering the mass-wafer. But the history of Gage's conversion from Popery to Christianity is curious, and might be instructive to the Papists themselves. He tells us that-" Whilst this traffic was at Portobel, it happened unto me that which I have formerly testified in my Recantation Sermon at Paul's church, which, if by that means it have not come unto the knowledge of many, I desire again to record it in this my history, that to all England it may be published; which was, that one day saying the mass in the chief church, after the consecration of the bread, being with my eyes shut, at that prayer which the church of Rome calleth the Memento for their Dead, there came from behind the altar a mouse, which, running about, came to the very bread or wafer-god of the papists, and taking it in his mouth, ran away with it, not being perceived by any of the people who were at mass, for that the altar was high by reason of the steps going up to it, and the people far beneath. But as soon as I opened my eyes to go on with my mass, and perceived my god stolen away, I looked about the altar, and saw the mouse running away with it, which on a sudden did so stupefie me, that I knew not well what to do or say; and calling my wits together, I thought that if I should take no notice of the mischance, and any body else in the church should, I might justly be questioned by the Inquisition; but if I should call to the people to look for the sacrament, then I might be but chid and rebuked for my carelessness, which, of the two, I thought would be more easily borne than the rigor of the Inquisition. Whereupon, not knowing what the people had seen, I turned myself unto them, and called them unto the altar, and told them plainly, that whilst I was in my memento prayers and meditations, a mouse had carryed away the sacrament, and that I knew not what to do, unless they would help me to finde it out again. The people called a priest that was at hand, who presently brought in more of his coat; and as if their god had by this been caten up, they presently prepared to find out the thief, as if they would eat up the mouse that had so assaulted and abused their god. They lighted candles and torches to find out the malefactor in his secret and hidden places of the wall; and after much searching and enquiry for the sacrilegious beast, they found at last in a hole of the wall the sacrament half eaten up, which with great joy they took out, and, as if the ark had been brought again from the Philistines to the Israelites, so they rejoiced for their new-found god, whom, with many people now resorted to the church, with many lights of candles and torches, with joyful and solemn musick, they carried about the church in procession. Myself was present upon my knees, shaking and quivering for what might be done unto me, and expecting my doom and judgment. As the sacrament passed by me, I observed in it the marks and signs of the teeth of the mouse, as they are to be seen in a piece of cheese gnawn and eaten by it. "This struck me with such horror, that I cared not at that present whe |