stages of society may have allowed or disallowed; yet this would not contribute in the least degree to defend or explain either the sacred and mysterious aspects of the Rite, or the sweet and holy ceremonies of the Church of God in its ratification; nor would it more truly constitute a history of the Rite, than the copying of a thousand table-talks, taken at random, would constitute a trustworthy history of an age or country.

The author here deals only with authenticated. facts, in the line of succession to those of to-day; and of these, solely with those usages which have been of such considerable extent and duration as fairly to be called customs. Nothing of this kind, he hopes, has been overlooked which has left any trace on the present forms or their significance. In a field, however, at once so delicate, so intricate and so extended, he craves a generous indulgence.

The Ceremony of to-day involves extraordinary antique felicities, a richness of venerable propricties, multitudinous delicacies of beauty, in taste, in sentiment and in devotion, which crown it with a sweet glory, like a garland culled from the flowers of every age, and fragrant with an aroma distilled from the gathered incense of experi ences, thoughts and prayers which have been transpiring during thousands of years-years, all of them, however deficient in other respects, yet

in the product to be hoped for and had from human joys and trials, substantially like those which are now flying over us.

To interpret and illustrate this service, under every accepted variety of form, is the aim of the present little volume. Whatever to this purposc the commentaries on the Services of the Church communicate; whatever is to be found in the digests of Christian, of Jewish, and of Pagan antiquity; whatever the Ecclesiastical and the Profane historians relate; whatever a varied reading and the maturest reflections of the writer have been able, in addition, to afford, is represented in these pages, (this at least has been the design,) though they do not extend to a thousandth part the space which has been surveved and gleaned in their production.

I.

CONNECTION OF THE CEREMONY WITH RELIGION.

Na notorious passage which has been quoted.

riage, Tertullian says, How can I adequately tell the felicity of that Marriage which the Church accomplishes, sacred offerings of worship confirm, the benediction scals, angels report to heaven, and our Heavenly Father holds legitimate. This was written in the first century after the Apostles. Ignatius, almost a century earlier, that is, on the very borders of Apostolic times, incidentally writes, But it becomes men and women who marry, to form their union with the approval of the bishop,' that their Marriage may be according to the Lord, and not mere

1 Unde suficiamus ad enarrandam felicitatem ejus matrimonii quod ecclesia conciliat et confirmat oblatio et obsignat benedictio, angeli renuntiant, Pater rato habet.-Ad Uxor. 1. 2. c. 9.

This includes not only the religious nature of the Ceremony, but the publishment to or in the Church-the logical origin of the bans of marriage" in modern times.