"_It was chiefly, if not only, in the mystical liturgy of the
eucharist, that the primitive church spoke without reserve
of all the sublimities of Christian faith._" Palmer, Origines
Liturg. vol. I, p. 13.

[Sidenote: Origin of the word ceremony.]

From Rome our Saxon forefathers received Christianity; and from the
same source we have derived several words denoting Christian rites.
Thus the words _religion, sacrament, sacrifice, communion_, and others
are Latin, with the exception of the termination. The word _ceremony_
also is Latin, and owes its origin to an interesting fact in ancient
Roman history. When the Capitol was besieged by the Gauls (A.U. 365)
most of the inhabitants of Rome provided for their own safety by
flight: but the Flamen Quirinalis or priest of Romulus, and the
Vestal virgins loaded themselves with the sacred things, that they
might secure those hallowed treasures from profanation. "They were
proceeding" (says Livy lib. V, c. XXII) "along the way which passes
over the Sublician bridge, when they were met on the declivity by L.
Albinus a plebeian, who was fleeing with his wife and children in
a _plaustrum_ or cart: he and his family immediately alighted: then
placing in the cart the virgins and sacred things he accompanied them
to Cære where they were received with hospitality and respect". Hence
(says Valerius Maximus lib. I, c. 1.) "sacred things were called
ceremonies, because the inhabitants of _Cære_ revered them when the
republic was broken, as readily as when it flourished". Thus is the
word ceremony associated at once with the devotion of Albinus, with
the Gaulish invasion of the Capitol, and with Cære, one of the twelve
cities of Etruria, now called Cervetri or Cære vetus[1]. The Pagan
Romans derived their religious rites from Etruria, and in particular