leaving the establishment. Two Masses are said daily, during which the school children pray aloud. When there are many communions, the preparation and the thanksgiving afterwards are repeated in common. The first Sunday of every month Our Lord is exposed the whole day, and the members of the Confraternity of the Holy Sacrament succeed each other at the foot of the altar, by tens, every half-hour throughout the day. Three nocturnal adorations in the course of the year recall the pious hymns of the monasteries, and give anticipation of a vision of nightly prayer by working-men. On the day of the Fête-Dieu, Jesus goes through the factory, blessing at once both the looms which are still at work, but which seem at once to fall into silence from respect of the Master of all work, and blessing the workmen who set them in motion again after this Benediction. The first communions, where the parents come and kneel with their children at the holy table, are at Val-des-Bois festivals of heaven upon earth. The number of consecrated Hosts consumed in a year is 15,000; or, subtracting the children, an average of sixteen communions a year for each person. General communions are made at special epochs for the men, the women, the young girls, and the school-children."

"1

This we may say generally is the practical ideal at which many other manufacturing and industrial establishments of France are aiming. An example of Christian socialistic work at Mulhouse was given in the A.C.M. for February, p. 213. Another striking example is the celebrated printing and publishing establishment of Messrs. Mame, at Tours. Workmen, it is stated, are attracted to these factory chapels, and to those of the Confraternities and Catholic clubs, who are ashamed to go to the parish church. Many of the members. communicate weekly; but this does not seem to be the general rule.

Among other means of advancing Eucharistic

1 See also the report made by M. Harmel to the Congress of Christian Democracy at Lyons, Nov. 27, 1896. Les Questions Actuelles, tome xxxvi. pp. 258 and 290.

worship are the perpetual and the nocturnal adorations. The perpetual adorations are a repartition of the parishes of a diocese for the exposition and worship of the Host, each in turn, for a whole day, so as to make the worship unintermitted throughout the year. The nocturnal adoration is more recent, and is, as yet, by no means universal. It dates, for Paris, shortly after 1848, and was introduced into the South of France about 1879. Nocturnal adoration is confined to men only. The Sacrament of the Host is exposed all the night through, the worshippers succeeding each other in groups at fixed hours. Confessions are heard; the rosary is recited; hymns, litanies, prayers, and addresses are given, and at dawn the first Mass is said, to be followed by a second or third, to which those who have watched during the first hours of the night return to communicate. It is stated that the number of communicants in a parish is often very greatly increased by this nocturnal adoration, and that men come to confession at night who would never come at any other time. There was both daily and nocturnal adoration during the whole time of the Congress at Rheims.

Sundry minor acts of worship were recommended by the Congress with a view to advance this work, such as the "Communion reparatrice," the Apostolate of prayer, the cultes of the Holy Family and of the Sacred Heart, etc.; but of these we have no room to speak now. One remark to be made is that attendance at Mass, worship of the Host, and Communion, by no means always go together in the Church of Rome. They are separate acts.

Many of the speakers, even men like Abbé Garnier and Mgr. Péchenard, insisted on the right of Communion apart from the Mass. The Abbé Garnier complained that priests do not often enough give the Communion apart from the Mass; while Mgr. Péchenard especially regretted that priests, under pretext of the regularity of the service, will not put themselves out of the way to give Communion to those who are called off to work, or have little time.

Of two sermons preached at the Congress, and reported in the volume before us, that by the R. P. Lemius, Superior of the Chaplains of Montmartre, is an impassioned declamation for the fulfilment of a promise or prophecy made to Marguerite Marie Alacoque, June 17, 1689, that the Sacred Heart should be painted on the banner of France. The other, by Mgr. Cartuyvels, Vice-Rector of the University of Louvain, is more sober in tone. He speaks of bread having been offered in sacrifice from the beginning; and, to prove his position, has this singular sentence: "Abel, le juste, le premier des élus, offre au Seigneur les prémices des moissons primitives." The discourse of Cardinal Langénieux is a panegyric of Pope Leo XIII.; with an ardent plea for the establishment of clerical seminaries and of parishes in the East, and for fervent prayers for union to be offered in all churches and monastic establishments.

Such are the chief features of this Report of the Congrès Eucharistique de Reims. The description, imperfect as it necessarily is, will be read with very different feelings by different readers. It shows

some of the most, and some of the least satisfactory features of the action of the Church of Rome in the present day.

III.—BRUSSELS, 1898.

The Eleventh Eucharistic Congress of the Church of Rome was held at Brussels, July 13-17, 1898. Belgium, as more than one of the speakers asserted, is the classical land of the Eucharist. It is the native country of Ste. Julienne de Cornillon, whose visions led to the establishment of Corpus Christi Day by Urban IV., by the Bull of September 8, 1264. Already two Eucharistic congresses had been held there, one at Liège in 1883, another at Antwerp in 1890.

The report of the proceedings of the Congress forms a handsome folio of over 800 pages, excluding the lists of the names of members. It is enriched with photographic portraits of the principal members, of the processions, and with other engravings. In examining the contents we are struck, first of all, by the immense space given to Eucharistic Adoration, by the number and variety of the associations which have this for their end. It is the importance given to this subject which is the distinguishing feature of the Congress. There are a score of papers and discourses on the "Adoration du Saint-Sacrament"; "Adoration de l'Enfance"; "Adoration Mensuelle "; Adoration perpetuelle"; "Adoration nocturne" "Adoration faite par les Dames"; "Adoration par Groupes sociaux ou professionelles," and many others, besides mention, more or less detailed, in the numerous

reports on the Culte Eucharistique in different dioceses and in foreign countries. Yet some of the forms of this adoration-the Adoration perpetuelle and the Adoration nocturne-are comparatively recent. The Adoration nocturne was commenced in Paris after 1848; it was introduced into the South of France only about 1879, and is still far from being universal. We find no mention at all of adoration, in the sense of a separate Service, in liturgical works published early in the present centurycertainly nothing approaching to present practice.

Contrasted with this is the small space given to anything that can be called dogmatic teaching. The general tone of the papers read and the discourses delivered is rhetorical and emotional, or simply descriptive, or anecdotal; but many of these must have been full of interest to the audience. The discourse of the Dominican Father Janvier on the Real Presence is no exception to the above remark. Thus he says: "After the consecration, directly by virtue of the words of the priest, the flesh and the blood of Jesus Christ, a living and transfigured flesh, a blood which vibrates, (qui tremit) fill the Host." And again: "The Father and the Holy Spirit are really and substantially present in the Eucharist." The Abbé Lenfant of Paris takes as the refrain of his oration, "Ecce Deus vester! The Holy Eucharist, it is your God,"2 and "The Eucharist, it is God," and finally, "The Eucharist is God." He then adjures the Blessed Virgin in these terms; "O Christian nations, O Church of God, O Very Holy Virgin Mary, you to whom we owe the Very Holy Eucharist, since we

1 pp. 230-31.

2

pp. 594-5.

3

p. 596.