[Footnote 107:  The lance preserved at Nuremberg resembles in form that of St. Peter’s, but is made of common iron, united with a part of one of the nails of the cross.]

[Footnote 108:  These relics are shewn to the people on holy-Wednesday after the matins of Tenebrae; on Thursday and Friday several times in the day:  on holy Saturday morning after mass:  on Easter Sunday after the Pontifical mass:  on Easter Monday, and a few other festivals.]

[Footnote 109:  The opinion of Roestell (Beschreibung der Stadt Rom, B. I, p. 400) that these phials contained the blessed eucharist under the form of wine, if admitted, would form a new proof of the real and permanent presence of Christ’s blood in the B. Sacrament; yet it is a novel, unsupported, and untenable conjecture.  Some of the ancient Christian Fathers complain, it is true, of the abuse of burying the eucharist with the deceased under the form of bread; but the phials of blood have been found with so many bodies, that we cannot reasonably suppose the custom to have been an abuse:  and who among the ancients mentions that the eucharist was ever buried with them under the form of wine?  That the palm-branch or crown accompanied by these phials of blood are authentic signs of martyrdom, see Raoul-Rochette’s Memoires sur les pierre sepulcrales, t.  XIII des Mem. de l’Academie, p. 210, 217.  On one of the phials mentioned by Roestell was found the inscription Sanguis Saturnini.]

[Footnote 110:  In the Vatican Library is a small relic-case, marked with the monogram, of great simplicity and consequent antiquity.  There is another of ivory, adorned with bas-reliefs of the resuscitation of Lazarus, Christ’s apprehension etc.  Plainer, Bescher. der Stadt Rom.  B. 2.  See also Rock’s Hierurgia Vol. 2, cap 6.]

CHAP.  VI.

ON THE CEREMONIES OF HOLY-SATURDAY

CONTENTS.

Service of Easter-eve—­Ceremonies of holy-saturday-morning—­Sixtine chapel. 1.  Blessing of the fire and incense-procession; Paschal candle—­the deacon sings the Exultet—­triple candle—­2.  Baptism administered on this day:  communion of children in former times—­prophecies—­3.  The litany:  invocation of Saints—­change from mourning to rejoicing—­High mass:  sacred pictures etc.—­Alleluja—­Vespers—­end of the mass:  mass of Pope Marcellus—­Ceremonies at S. John Laterans.  Blessing of the font:  baptistery—­baptism of adults—­litanies and confirmation—­mass and ordination—­Armenian catholics—­their liturgy; and high mass on Easter-eve—­reflections—­Conclusion.

    “But now Christ is risen from the dead, the first-fruits of
    them that sleep”. 1 Cor.  XV, 20.

[Sidenote:  Service of Easter-eve.]