History, [Note 5] at first signified that worship of God, which
_preceded_ the celebration of the Lord's Supper. Subsequently, and
especially in the fifth century, ministers termed the public celebration
of the eucharist, _mass_ (or missa, dismissed); because this service
took place after the catechumens were dismissed. This word 'missa' was
gradually corrupted into _mass_. But how did that mode of celebrating
this ordinance arise in the Romish Church, _which consisted in the
priest's giving the sacrament to himself alone, connected with solemn
turnings around, and moving about from place to place, and changes of
attitude, resembling in some degree a theatrical exhibition, which is
termed mass?_" He then proceeds to explain the history of the Romish
mass here defined.

_Siegel_, in his excellent Manual of Christian Ecclesiastical
Antiquities, published at Leipsic, in 1837, in four volumes, presents
an extended view of this subject, from which we will extract little
more than his definition of the mass. "The mass, in the Roman Catholic
sense of the term, belongs not to the centuries of Christian antiquity,
but to a later period." [Note 6] We take up the subject at the time
when the Catholic doctrine of _transubstantiation_ was fully developed,
(since the Lateran Council of 1215.) In conformity to this view of the
sacrament, (the doctrine of transubstantiation,) _the idea of the mass
was so developed, as to signify that solemn act of the priest,
decorated with many ceremonies, by which he offers the unbloody
sacrifice at the altar." [Note 7] The mass service is a commixture of
Scripture passages, long and short prayers, extracts from the gospels
and epistles (pericopen,) liturgic forms, which are divided into
several chief parts, designated by different names, Introitus,
Offertorium, Canon missae," &c. [Note 8] This whole service amounts to
some fifteen or twenty octavo pages, including the directions for