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 5th centuries in their discourses often make a point of not citing the creed or describing the Eucharist; they stop short and ejaculate such remarks as, norunt fideles (“the faithful know it”). Such was the Disciplina arcani. All will admit who study the post-Nicene Church, that the Christian sacraments have stolen the clothes of the pagan mysteries, dethroned and forbidden by the Christian emperors. The catechumenate, an old institution, older in most regions than the mysteries themselves, suggested and rendered feasible such wholesale theft, especially in an age in which the sacerdotal class wished to be pre-eminent, and left nothing undone to enhance in the eyes of the multitude the importance and solemnity of rites which it was their prerogative to administer. The disappearance, too, of the pagan mysteries must have left a void in many hearts, and the clerics tried to fill it up by themselves masquerading as hierophants. .

In the age of the Council of Nice the custom arose of baptizing children of three, because at that age they can already talk and utter the baptismal vows and responses. Not a few homilies of that age survive, denouncing the deferring of baptism, and urging on parents the duty of initiating their young children. Thus there is much evidence to show that long before 500 child baptism was in vogue. But in that case how can the creed and ritual of baptism, the Lord's Prayer and the Eucharistic formulae, have been kept secret? How can they have been the “awful mysteries,” the “dread and terrible canons,” the “mystic teachings,” the “ineffable sentences,” the “oracles too sacred to be committed to writing” which the homilists of that age pretend them to have been? Could our modern Freemasons continue to hide their watchwords and ritual, or even make a pretence of doing so, if they were constrained by public opinion to initiate every child three years of age? The thing is absurd. When, therefore, we find such phrases in Greek and Latin homilies of the period of 350 to 550 we must regard them as elaborate make-believe. Because catechumens as well as the faithful were present at the sermons, the preachers thought it becoming to throw them in; but the audience must have been aware that their secrets were open ones.

 SACRAMENTALS (Sacramentalia), in the Roman Catholic Church certain acts or ordinances instituted not by Christ, but by the Catholic Church with divine authority. They are believed, in their application to persons and things, to communicate quasi ex opere operato through ordained priests the grace of God, consisting in purification, supernatural revivification and sanctification. The term is thus used to cover the rites of dedication, consecration and benediction, and, closely connected with the last-named, exorcism.  SACRAMENTARIANS, the name given to those who during the Reformation controversies not only denied the Roman Catholic “transubstantiation,” but also the Lutheran “consubstantiation.” They comprised two parties: (1) the followers of Capito, Carlstadt and Bucer, who at the diet of Augsburg presented the Confessio Tetrapolitana from Strassburg, Constance, Lindau and Memmingen; (2) the followers of the Swiss reformer Zwingli, who to the same diet presented his private confession of faith. The doctrinal standpoint was the same—an admission of a spiritual presence of Christ which the devout soul can receive and enjoy, but a total rejection of any physical or corporeal presence. After holding their own view for some years the four cities accepted the Confession of Augsburg, and were merged in the general body of Lutherans; but Zwingli's position was incorporated in the Helvetic Confession. It is a curious inversion of terms that in recent years has led to the name Sacramentarians being applied to those who hold a high or extreme view of the efficacy of the sacraments.  SACRAMENTO, the capital of California, U.S.A., and the county-seat of Sacramento county, 91 m. (by rail) N.E. of San

Francisco, on the eastern bank of the Sacramento river, about 61 m. above its mouth, at the point where it is joined by the American. Pop. (1850) 6820, (1890) 26,386, (1900) 29,282, of whom 6723 were foreign-born (1371 Germans, 1293 Irish, 964 Chinese, 655 English, 446 English Canadian and 337 Japanese) and 402 were negroes, (1910, census) 44,696. Land area (1906) 4.49 sq. m. Sacramento is on the direct eastward line to Ogden, Utah, of the Southern (once the Central) Pacific railway (which has its main shops here), the starting point of the Southern Pacific line to Portland, Oregon, the terminus of several shorter branches of the Southern Pacific and on the Western Pacific, which has repair shops here, and it is served by interurban electric railways connecting with places in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys. The city is about 200 m. below Red Bluff, the head of river navigation for boats drawing 2 or 2½ ft. of water; for boats drawing 4 to 5 ft. Colusa, 91 m. above Sacramento, is the head of navigation; at low water, vessels drawing 7 ft. of water go up the river to Sacramento. There are two daily steamer lines to San Francisco, besides freight lines.

The city site is level (formerly in many parts 5 ft. below flood-level of the river) and is about 30 ft. above sea-level, and the street plan is rectangular. The business quarter has been filled in, and levees have been built along the Sacramento and American rivers. The climate is mild: the average annual temperature is 60.5° F.; average for winter months, 48.3°; for spring, 59.5°; for summer, 71.7°; for autumn, 61.5°; average rainfall, 19.94 in.; average number of clear days per annum, 244. The principal buildings are: a very fine state capitol (cornerstone laid, 1860; completed, 1874) in a wooded park of 35 acres, in which is an Insectary where parasites of injurious insects are propagated; Roman Catholic and Protestant Episcopal cathedrals; the county court-house; the city hall; the public library (in 1908, 41,400 volumes); and the Crocker Art Gallery, which was presented to the city by the widow of Judge E. B. Crocker, one of the founders of the Central Pacific, with an art school and an exhibit of the minerals of the state. There is a state library of 140,000 volumes in the capitol; connected with it are travelling libraries sent out through the rural districts of the state. In Sacramento are the large state printing establishment, in which, in addition to other books and documents, text-books for the entire state school system are printed; the College of the Christian Brothers, Howe's Academy, Atkinson's Business College, St Joseph's Academy, the Stanford-Lathrop Memorial Home for Friendless Girls (1900), under the Sisters of Mercy, two other orphanages, the Southern Pacific Railway Hospital (1868), the Mater Misericordiae Hospital (1895, Sisters of Mercy), Wentworth Hospital, a City Receiving Hospital (1884), the Marguerite Home (for old ladies), the Mater Misericordiae Home (1895, Sisters of Mercy) and the Peniel Rescue Home (1899). Just outside the city limits is the State Agricultural Pavilion, with race track and live-stock exhibition grounds (where the State Agricultural Society holds its annual “State Exposition” in September).

The city has a large wholesale trade. Its prosperity rests upon that of the splendid Sacramento Valley, a country of grain and fruit farms, along whose eastern side lie the gold-producing counties of the state. It is the centre of the greatest deciduous fruit region of California, and shipped about 11,000 car-loads east of the Rocky Mountains in 1909. Sacramento derives electric power from Folsom, on the American river, 22 m. away, and from Colgate, on the Yuba river, 119 m. distant. The manufacturing interests of the city are large and varied: the city's manufactures include flour (1905, value $1,172,747), lumber, distilled liquors, canned and preserved vegetables and fruits, packed meats, cigars and harness. In 1905 the total value of the factory product was $10,319,416. In 1909 the assessed valuation of the city was about $30,400,000, and the bonded indebtedness about $1,100,000. The city owns its own water system, which has a capacity of 22 million gallons daily, and is a financial success.

In 1839 John Augustus Sutter (1803-1880), a Swiss military