The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

THE EUCHARIST, TRANSUBSTANTIATION, THE MASS. 307CHAPTER XIII.THE EUCnAEIST—TRANSUBSTANTIATION—THE MASS.We now come to speak of the Eucharist. This rite, aspractised by the Church of Rome, forms the centralizationof Popish absurdity, blasphemy, and idolatry. The mass,in short, is Superstition's masterpiece. It takes precedenceof all other idolatries that ever existed in this fallen world.It is without a rival among the polytheisms of ancient times.The groves of Greece, the temples of Egypt, witnessed thecelebration of no rite at once so revolting and so impious asthat which is daily enacted in the temples of the RomanCatholic Church. What the priests of pagan Rome wouldhave blushed to perform, the priests of papal Rome glory in,as that which imparts a peculiar lustre to their office, anda peculiar sanctity to their persons. As the polytheisms ofthe past have produced nothing that can equal the mass, sowe may safely affirm that, while the world stands, this ritewill remain unsurpassed by anything which the combinedfolly and impiety of man is able to invent.The same place which the Pope occupies in the schemeof papal government does the host occupy in the scheme ofpapal worship. Each forms in its own department the culminatingpoint of Rome's idolatry. Both are transformedinto divinities. A mortal and fallible man, when seated inthe chair of Peter, and crowned with the tiara, is straight-