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Then his chasuble and alb were removed, and he ascended the pulpit, where he said a bidding prayer, and preached a sermon on a text from the Gospel. The discourse ended, another hymn was sung, whilst the minister returned to the altar.

The pastor then said a prayer, answering to our " Church militant," after which he dismissed the people with a blessing, making the sign of the cross over them in the air. This service resembles the Roman "Missa sicca," and that form of the Communion office which is so prevalent in our own church; the faithful coming for the Blessed Sacrament, and being dismissed with the sermon, like the children in the Gospel, who ask for bread and are given a stone. The service being ended, the priest went round and kissed all the congregation, beginning with the visitors. There are more women than men at an Icelandic service.

In the Icelandic liturgy there is no creed. I asked Grímr how that was. He told me that a creed was to be found in some of the old prayer-books, and that it was used only in out-of-the-way churches-never at the Cathedral of Reykjavík. I found, on reference, that the creed to which he alluded was a metrical version from which the ninth article has been expunged; and one looks in vain in the Icelandic office books for the three Catholic symbols. This is natural enough, as a profession of faith in the article on the Holy Catholic Church would be unmeaning in a Lutheran community. munion takes place twice or thrice in the year, and before presenting themselves at the altar, the communicants have to be shriven. If at any other time a parishioner signifies to the priest that he wishes to communicate, the pastor is bound to celebrate.

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Much of the dogma of pre-Reformation times lingers among the Icelanders; they believe implicitly in baptismal regeneration, the real presence, the power of the keys as

vested in the priesthood; but all notion of sacrifice, as connected with the "mass," has been practically lost, though they retain the name of priest for their ministers, and though the Augustan Confession admits the sacrificial views of the whole Primitive and even later Greek Church; so that Molanus, Abbot of Lokkum, together with the Hanoverian theologians, were able to satisfy on this head the eminent Gallican, Bossuet. Danish and Icelandic orders are derived in direct and unbroken succession from a certain Buggenhagen, and not, as in our Church, from the apostles of Christ.

It is much to be desired that the Icelandic and Danish establishments should be restored to the unity of the Church, by receiving the succession through our own bishops.

The importance, I should rather say the absolute necessity, of there being an unbroken chain from the Apostles in order that the Sacraments may be valid, is now beginning to be felt in Denmark, and a move on the part of the English Church might prove of incalculable advantage to the Lutheran societies in Denmark and its dependencies.

It is surely better that by securing the succession from our bishops, their orders and sacraments should be rendered valid, rather than that individuals from those societies should be restored to participation in the merits of Christ through the mutilated communion of the Roman Church, and be brought again into worse than Egyptian bondage to the Papal throne.