SPIRITUAL INSTRUCTIONS 
 
 ON 
 
 01g 
 
 BY THE 
 
 EEV.[T^T. CARTER, 
 
 EECTOE OF CLEWEB. 
 
 CEttttton. 
 
 LONDON : 
 JOSEPH MASTEES, 78, NEW BOND STEEET. 
 
 NEW YOEK : POTT AND AMEBY. 
 
 MDCCCLXXI.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 FEINTED BY J. MASTERS AND SON, 
 ALBION BUILDINGS, BARTHOLOMEW CLOSE, E.C.
 
 TO THE 
 
 SUPEEIOR AND SISTEES 
 
 OF 
 
 SHje (JCommunitB of S. 3to$n ISapttst, 
 
 A MEMOBIAL OF THANKFULNESS TO GOD FOE HAVING BEEN 
 
 PEBMITTED TO MINISTER TO THEM FOE A 
 
 SPACE OF NEAELY TWENTY YEABS, 
 
 THESE INBTBUOTIONS, 
 OBIGINALLY PEEPAEED FOE THEIE USE, 
 
 ABE 
 
 VEBY AFFECTIONATELY 
 DEDICATED. 
 
 Greatly as the Church in our land is already indebted to 
 the venerable and beloved author of this book, we doubt N 
 whether all that he has hitherto written will exercise so 
 powerful an influence for good, or cause the greatest verities 
 of the faith to sink down so deep into the heart, as these 
 "Instructions on the Holy Eucharist." When you read 
 them they seem to breathe around them the very atmos- 
 phere of heaven. "They were not intended," Mr. Carter 
 tell us, "to present a systematic view of the mystery of 
 
 which they treat The purpose contemplated was 
 
 rather to cherish devotion and suggest materials for medita- 
 tion."

 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 THE following Addresses were not intended to present 
 a systematic view of the Mystery of which they treat, 
 nor were the subjects selected on any definite plan. 
 The purpose contemplated was rather to cherish devo- 
 tion and suggest materials for meditation; and the 
 subjects were chosen as circumstances seemed to sug- 
 gest. The Eeader is requested to bear this explanation 
 in mind, as some apology for any want of order in the 
 arrangement, and for repetitions which it is feared may 
 be found to exist. 
 
 The Addresses were given to the Sisters of the Com- 
 munity of S. John Baptist, in the Chapel of the House 
 of Mercy at Clewer, for their special use. But it is 
 hoped that they may be found useful in a wider sphere 
 than that for which they were originally intended. At 
 the same time their primary object needs to be borne 
 in mind, because the sentiments and advices often have 
 a special reference to a Sister's life, and are therefore 
 generally applicable only with certain modifications.
 
 vi Preface. 
 
 The Addresses were taken down at the time of de- 
 livery, and from the notes then made have been repro- 
 duced as correctly as was possible in a permanent shape. 
 Should the mode of treatment be found helpful, other 
 subjects, which have formed the matter of similar in- 
 struction, may hereafter be prepared for publication. 
 
 In the Second Edition the title of the 14th Instruc- 
 tion, not the Instruction itself, has been changed. The 
 only other alteration is the addition of fresh sentences 
 in different parts, which had been found to have been 
 omitted in the first writing of these Instructions from 
 the notes. 
 
 T. T. C.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. THE MANIFESTATION 1 
 
 II. THE TBANSFOBMATION 11 
 
 III. THE TBANSFOBMATION (continued) 20 
 
 IV. THE UNFOLDING LIFE 
 
 V. THE LAW OF PEOGBESS 
 
 VI. THE FEUIT OF LOVE . . 
 
 VII. SPIBITUAL AND SACBAMENTAL COMMUNION 
 
 VIII. THE SINLESS LIFE 
 
 IX. THE SACBIFICE 
 
 X. THE SACBIFICE (continued) 
 
 XI. THE DIVINE MISSION 
 
 XII. THE EETBEAT ON THE MOUNT 
 
 XIII. THE EEPOSE OF FAITH 130 
 
 XIV. THE WOBSHIP OF THE DIVINE PBESENCE . . . 146 
 XV. THE INCABNATION ILLUSTBATED 156 
 
 XVI. THE MINISTBT OF THE HOLY SPIBIT. . . . 166 
 XVII. THE FULNESS OF THE SACBAMENTAL LIFE . . . 176
 
 THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 
 
 I, 
 
 THE MANIFESTATION. 
 
 THE Commemoration of the Institution of the Holy 
 Eucharist is unlike the great Festivals relating to our 
 Blessed LORD in one important respect. While recall- 
 ing the past, it ever renews it, causing it to be still 
 actually present. Its commemoration is historical, 
 because it is a true remembrance of a past event in 
 our LORD'S history. But it does far more. It brings 
 back the event which it recalls ; it has power to make 
 it an ever living reality. The act of consecration which 
 first took place in the Upper Chamber, is renewed again 
 and again, as living, as life-giving, as ever in every 
 fresh commemoration. The same supernatural Pre- 
 sence is before us again and again as real and true as 
 when first vouchsafed in the " same night in which He 
 was betrayed." The same Offering is renewed again 
 and again with unceasing efficacy. The same Gift is 
 bestowed. Each fresh Eucharist is not merely a com- 
 memoration; it is rather a continuation, a renewed, 
 perpetual manifestation in the very same order of super- 
 
 B
 
 2 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 natural life, of the vivid truth of the same mysterious 
 action by the same Hand of the Same LORD, Himself 
 still actively present, still ministering, in the midst of us. 
 
 The annual Commemoration of the Institution of the 
 Blessed Sacrament as commonly observed in the West, 
 Corpus Christi Day, follows in natural and fit succession 
 after the greater Festivals of the Incarnation ; for it is 
 the fulfilment of the end to which they looked in this 
 our present life. JESTJS was conceived, and born, and 
 lived, and offered Himself up, and rose again, and 
 ascended to take possession of His throne in glory, and 
 sent forth His Spirit, the object of this stupendous 
 series of ineffable mercies being that He might be 
 closely united with His elect, giving Himself to them 
 to abide in them. This union, this giving of Himself, 
 as the end of all that went before, is accomplished 
 through this very sacramental Presence. The Holy 
 Eucharist is thus the consummation on earth of all the 
 mysteries of our LORD'S previous life, the fulfilment of 
 the progressive events of the whole dispensation of the 
 Incarnation. The institution of the Blessed Sacrament 
 was the gathering up, and closing, as to our earthly 
 state, of all His purposes in coming ; for He came to 
 enter into our nature. His suffering in our nature, 
 His glorification in our nature, had this for their 
 proper end, His own repose in actual personal Pre- 
 sence in His Own mystical Body of which we are mem- 
 bers, and therefore in ourselves. 
 
 Through this Mystery our LORD accomplishes His 
 purpose of bringing us into union with Himself, and 
 with the FATHER in Himself. Whatever had gone be- 
 fore in His life or sufferings, has its accomplishment in 
 this realisation of the desired union of the Divine and
 
 The Manifestation. 3 
 
 human natures, of the Creator and the creature, per- 
 petuated and sealed in the Blessed Sacrament. The 
 result is the perfecting of Divine Love. And Love, the 
 perfection of all Divine manifestations, stands out as if 
 alone in this mystical commemoration. Almighty 
 power is withdrawn from view. The Divine Justice, to 
 the demands of which our LORD submitted Himself in 
 the Sacrifice of the Cross, ceases to urge its claims on 
 Him or us. His Infiniteness has contracted Itself, 
 and, for our sakes, subjects Itself to finite laws of space 
 and time. His Immensity has reconciled Itself to our 
 littleness; the light of His glory to our dimness of 
 sight. All has given way to make room for the one 
 yearning of Divine Love to impart Himself, at any cost 
 of self-abnegation, to unite Himself with the creature, 
 to rest in this perfect union, to communicate all His 
 purity, all His sweetness, all His Beatitude, in one act 
 of inconceivably condescending mercy. 
 
 The Holy Eucharist is, moreover, an entirely new 
 mode of manifestation, one peculiar to itself, different 
 from any that had gone before. The secret longing for 
 the revelation of GOD which had prevailed among the 
 Faithful for ages before the Incarnation, here finds at 
 last its true response. Such words as these, " Thou 
 that sittest between the Cherubim, show Thyself;" 
 " Show the light of Thy Countenance and we shall be 
 whole " were the ceaseless expressions of desire felt 
 by the faithful of earlier days, for what might at once 
 enkindle light in the soul, .and satisfy its cravings and 
 its needs with the healing power and grace of a super- 
 natural sanctity. The most saintly living during that 
 long period, knew only the forecasting of a blessedness 
 that has now at length found a home on earth. Theirs 
 
 B 2
 
 4 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 was a time of prophetic breathings, a prolonged period 
 of desires. This is ended, for the realisation of these 
 desires is now the daily Food of the Faithful. 
 
 When at last GOD took our nature, His Godhead was 
 still shrouded in completest secrecy, His Humanity alone 
 being palpable to outward sight and outward touch. 
 After a while even that Manifestation passed awayj 
 even His Human Form was withdrawn. There was 
 then a real absence, a real void ; but during this brief 
 interval there was kindled in the hearts of His disciples 
 a more intense expectation, alive with a more entire 
 assurance; for the LORD Himself had been seen, and 
 had promised to return quickly. During the interval 
 of the great forty days there was no Communion. 
 During the ten days that followed His Ascension 
 there was still no Communion. Nor could there 
 be, for there was no Real Presence. Our LORD'S 
 Humanity was assuming, during that period, a new 
 and more glorious state, in which He was becoming 
 capable of a new form of Manifestation. His Human 
 Nature was being more perfectly spiritualized, exalted 
 into the highest glory in union with Infinite God- 
 head, invested with new attributes, that in the des- 
 cending of the HOLY GHOST He might be able to give 
 Himself forth in an infinite self-communication, to be 
 indeed hidden still, but present as He had never been 
 before, and received as He could not have been before, 
 His Body and His Blood capable of being present on 
 every altar of the Catholic Church before the longing 
 eyes of His faithful ones ; His Humanity hidden equally 
 as His Deity, His entire Person wholly secret, though 
 assuredly there present, and yet mystically revealed to 
 a new consciousness, which was to become the property
 
 The Manifestation. 5 
 
 of His own elect, the new sense of faith made capable 
 of communicating with His new mode of Presence. 
 
 Hence there flow out all the consequences which we 
 now perceive in ourselves, in our innermost being, after 
 the reception of the Blessed Sacrament. There is then 
 a fulness, a satisfying rapt joy, a pervading sweetness, 
 a springing of a new life, taking us out of ourselves, 
 transforming us in a mode peculiar to that hour. This 
 exulting consciousness is caused by the fact, that there 
 has passed into us our LORD'S secret Presence in His 
 very Flesh, in a nature kindred with our own, heavenly 
 and joyous as the Spirit's Presence, yet unlike it more 
 sensibly felt, more penetrating, more absorbing, melting, 
 as it were, into Himself our whole susceptible being, in 
 a way in which our LORD alone can effect us, because 
 He alone is of the same nature with us, and thus can 
 alone perfectly unite Himself with us, so to possess us 
 that we may be wholly one with Him. 
 
 O Mystery ! beyond reach even of the spiritual un- 
 derstanding, however illuminated, which the ceaseless 
 operations of Divine power and love through such long 
 ages conspired to accomplish a real Communion with 
 the Living GOD, the assimilating of the Heavenly Sub- 
 stance with our own in a oneness of eternal life, the In- 
 finite, the Ancient of Days, coalescing in loving harmony 
 with the finite, the creature of an hour ! What a view 
 does it exhibit of the spirituality of the life into which 
 we pass ! All we are, spirit and body, flesh and blood, 
 every thought, every feeling, every organ, every faculty 
 in us, becomes the seat of GOD'S mysterious Presence. 
 He, indwelling wholly within us, comes, as we receive 
 Him, to spiritualize every thought, feeling, faculty in
 
 6 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 us like unto Himself. All that is of nature in us through 
 this union with Him, is gifted with grace to become 
 heavenly ; all of self to pass into GOD ; all the human 
 to be identified with the Divine, the life of the creature 
 assimilated to the Life of the Eternal Godhead. It is thus 
 He comes transformed that He may transform us. Our 
 LORD'S own life in the flesh marks assuredly the tone, 
 the character of the life which thenceforward must be 
 ours. We must after His example discipline our life by 
 secret mortification, by overcoming self, by doing away 
 all impurity, by subduing all that is of nature, all that 
 is of the world, all that is of self. Our spirits must be 
 sublimed, our thoughts, feelings, desires, imaginations, 
 words, looks, movements, more and more must assume 
 the character of that heavenly state in which alone 
 our LORD can abide, and rest, and be satisfied. 
 
 As in our LORD so in us there must be a real hidden- 
 ness. His Presence in the Blessed Sacrament is wholly 
 withdrawn from all outward sense, to be perceived only 
 by the higher consciousness of pure faith, the highest 
 spiritual perception. There is, as already observed, no 
 sensible or material manifestation, nothing outward. 
 All that was once visible is withdrawn, inscrutably 
 hidden, even as His Deity was hidden during His 
 earthly sojourn, withdrawn in union with the FATHER ; 
 and this hidden Presence should mark the manner of 
 our life, as we seek to imitate Him, as we become one 
 with Him. Our inner life must grow into this His 
 present life in us, losing more and more all conscious- 
 ness of self, all desire of being observed, noticed, spoken 
 of, thought about, cared for, considered that we may 
 be withdrawn, even as He is; lost in GOD; self not 
 stirring, because absorbed in the higher sense of being
 
 The Manifestation. 7 
 
 only in Him, under His care, gathered up in His love, 
 dymg with Him, rising again with Him, more and 
 more associated, united with Him : He All in us, we / 
 all in Him. 
 
 Again, His Presence in this Divine Manifestation is 
 most wonderfully marked by repose and silence. The 
 Blessed Sacrament is the very centre of rest, the very 
 secret shrine of quietness. All around the altar is suf- 
 fused, filled, saturated with the same wondrous un- 
 earthly stillness. Nowhere on earth, as in this charmed 
 circle, do we feel so still a calm. It is because our 
 LORD is there perceived secretly abiding, and felt to be 
 diffusing around Him His own ineffable peace, the 
 calmness of His wondrous Presence. This, too, should 
 mark our life, for as we receive our LORD, we receive 
 Him in this same calmness. We are conformed to 
 Him in proportion as our own lives grow in quietness, 
 His peace spreading within our own souls. Even amid 
 all that outwardly disturbs us, we have, if we have 
 Him, the same peace, because He is Peace, sustained 
 and sustaining our whole being. 
 
 But how greatly, how continually do we fail to carry 
 out what it is manifestly intended we should become, 
 through participation of CHRIST, in this Blessed Com- 
 munion ! How often do we resolve, pledge ourselves, 
 as we receive Him, to take Him to be our Master; 
 tell Him that He shall rule us, that we will have no 
 other LORD, that His Law shall be our life, if He will 
 but give Himself to reign over us ; that His rule in us 
 shall be supreme, that He shall be Lord, King, in the 
 very fulness of power ! He comes, He seats Himself 
 on the throne of our hearts. He accepts our promise, 
 He owns our desire, He takes us at our word. But
 
 8 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 how continually do we, and this too, alas ! so quickly, 
 forget our pledges, withdraw this homage, and let our- 
 selves be sold at will to be under another's dominion, 
 losing all the consciousness of the gentle sweetness, the 
 loving sway which pervaded our hearts, when we made 
 the covenant with Him; thus failing Him when He 
 most needs us, deaf to His voice, when He speaks the 
 first word of command, if it be against our own will, 
 or the prevailing desire of our souls, and readily sinking 
 under some miserable temptation, which has quickly 
 overmastered what seemed His perfect reign within us. 
 
 How often, as we approached the altar, have we 
 resolved, that if He came to us we would take Him 
 as our model and our example, that we would keep 
 His Life before us, and copy It, and transcribe It upon 
 our souls ! He comes, He reveals to us His perfect 
 Law, His beauty of saintliness. He is before us, within 
 us, we are rejoiced, we go forth enraptured. Suddenly 
 an unexpected trial comes, it may be but a slight dis- 
 turbance troubles us, and His example is instantly for- 
 gotten. We have given way; we have gone against 
 His clearest teaching; we have turned from the very 
 thought of copying His glorious Life, though it may 
 have been but in the early morning that we pledged 
 ourselves to keep it before us as our constant aim, and 
 the morning has not yet deepened into day when we 
 failed Him. 
 
 How often, e.g., when we received Him, have we re- 
 solved to live a mortified and restrained life in the 
 fresh delighted power with which He had strengthened 
 us ! But quickly have we fallen back into the very 
 same habits of self-indulgence which before had sad- 
 dened us, and led us in sorrow to confess our shame.
 
 The Manifestation. 9 
 
 Even when the effort has been urged upon us, the pos- 
 sible mortification pointed out, we have shrunk back 
 from it, and yielded ourselves to the softer way of some 
 self-pleasing course ; all our promises broken, the old 
 subtle habits of our natural life again overruling us. 
 
 How often have we resolved that, if our LORD would 
 thus come and be with us, and abide in us, we would 
 keep up the same recollection ; preserve it as our 
 blessedness, our joy, our security, aiming always at 
 the standard we felt, we saw before us as we knelt 
 at the altar. But the impulses of self have been 
 quickly stirred again. Distractions have unsteadied us. 
 Our activities have carried us away. How rapidly, 
 how entirely sometimes the consciousness of union has 
 passed, become wholly lost to us, as though it had 
 never been ! 
 
 How, then, must He be grieved ! How sorely dis- 
 appointed ! How ashamed of His faithful one's un- 
 worthiness ! How does He record against us, that the 
 early morning promise was but like the morning dew ! 
 How often has this been so ! How Avonderful that our 
 LORD continues still to be ours, to give Himself to us 
 as at the beginning ; to bear with us through all our 
 changes, all our fitful fluctuations, all our falseness ! 
 For He abides with us ever the Same, He changes not. 
 How graciously, how mysteriously merciful ! He still 
 holds to us, clings to us, through all disappointments, 
 keeps us for Himself, and Himself for us, ever patient, 
 ever waiting the convenient season, waiting for our, not 
 His, willingness. He is ever drawing us, inclining 
 us, turning us to be more and more faithful, that at 
 last commemorating the mystery of His glory, with 
 exceeding joy and thankfulness we may truly, unre-
 
 10 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 servedly yield ourselves up to do His will, that the 
 perfect blessedness of this Divine Sacrament may be 
 ours, by securing its fulness of bliss, even after so long 
 a period of faithlessness, and coldness and untruth. 
 
 Help us, O most Merciful ! Add to all Thy other 
 gifts this further grace, without which all would be as 
 nothing, that we may have increasing capacity to re- 
 ceive Thee, steadfastness to follow Thee, feeding on the 
 opening Vision, till at last we shall see Thee unveiled 
 face to face ; still for a little while hidden, but at 
 length seen in Thy fulness of glory, and ourselves 
 made for ever one with Thee, as Thou art One with the 
 FATHER, in the light that can never fade, never fail us. 
 Amen.
 
 II. 
 
 THE TRANSFORMATION. 
 
 IT has pleased GOD to impart His perfect Life, His own 
 Divine Nature to His Elect, but not directly from His 
 pure Godhead. He has made the Humanity of our 
 LORD the medium of this perfect life. His Flesh is 
 become the shrine in which the fulness of the Godhead 
 dwells bodily, and out of which, and through which, 
 the inner life of Deity, the glory of His otherwise un- 
 approachable Nature passes, and is communicated, so 
 accommodated to our frailty, that we may partake in 
 our measure of the Divine perfections. The Holy 
 Eucharist is the actual present centre on earth of this 
 life, the abode of this Life-giving power of GOD ; the 
 well-spring whence flow the streams of all healing virtue 
 and grace. 
 
 We adore our LORD mystically present, as on His 
 Throne, upon the Altar in the Majesty of His Sanctity, as 
 the LORD and Giver of this new and supernatural Life, 
 glorified, and glorifying His Elect in His amazing pur- 
 pose of thus becoming one with them. We adore Him 
 in this Mystery as the author of our Perfection, the 
 All- Holy Fount of our complete sanctification. He is 
 there divested of all that marred His appearance in the 
 Flesh during His earthly humiliation. There is no- 
 thing in Him there of toil or suffering, no outward
 
 12 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 expression of anguish, nothing of the agony, of the pain 
 of the sacrifice ; no marks of the scorn, the shame He 
 bore in the days of His ministry, nothing of sorrow, no 
 cry of human bitterness, such as was heard on the Cross 
 when He won for the world that redemption so dearly 
 purchased. But here before us in the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment we have the results of all that awful distress, all 
 the consequences emanating from that life of unutter- 
 able Sorrow. He is now beyond the possible reach of 
 pain or insult, because sin has done its worst ; because, 
 as a true scapegoat, He bore it far away, and, unlike 
 the symbolic victim, to return freed from its power for 
 ever, having cast it off as He triumphed over it in 
 Death; and now He is passed beyond its reach into 
 heaven unto GOD. "In that He died, He died unto 
 sin once, but in that He liveth, He liveth unto GOD." 
 
 The adoration we pay Him now in His Presence on 
 the Altar, is a reparation for all the insults, and the 
 marring, and the shame, which He was contented once 
 all silently to bear. It is the offering which the grate- 
 ful Church perpetually offers to Him, where around 
 Him all is pure love, all peace, all undimmed beauty, 
 all saving virtue. We adore Him there revealed to 
 faith with a calm and restful gratitude, remembering 
 His past sorrows, and rejoicing in His present ineffable, 
 inconceivable joy. Our Adoration is to Him the satis- 
 faction of His soul, the offering up of a sweet savour 
 well pleasing in His sight, as the best recompense of 
 contrite Humanity sorrowing over the storm of rage 
 and malignity, which once rose and beat upon Him on 
 earth, now changed into the calm light of the splendour 
 of His Holiness in which He reigns for ever. We 
 recognize Him here only under this aspect of mira-
 
 The Transformation. 13 
 
 culous power to heal, of ceaseless outpourings of Divine 
 grace, of the blessedness of the Divine perfections 
 manifested in the Flesh. 
 
 Most marvellous, how in such a Presence of Power 
 and Holiness our LORD can adapt Himself to what He 
 finds in us ! We could not dare to draw near as often 
 as we do to worship Him, to receive Him into us, were 
 it not for this mysterious adaptation and condescension 
 which tempers the full radiance of His Glory in His 
 veiled Presence. He is present in His whole Person, 
 undivided, indivisible, His Divinity, His Humanity, 
 with all the treasures of His grace, all the virtues of 
 His Sacred Passion, all the might of His infinite God- 
 head, all are before us. Where the one portion of 
 His Being and His Attributes is, there the others must 
 needs be ; for He cannot be divided. He Himself is 
 One, and He, in the entirety of His Glory and Power, 
 is there hidden, yet most truly there. The Mystery 
 which we believe is this, that without losing aught of 
 His own separate Glory, He adapts that which is bound- 
 less to that which He finds within us, however con- 
 tracted, that which is perfect to that which is miserable 
 and feeble, accommodates Himself to whatever He finds 
 within us. We could not receive Him and live, if it 
 were not so. We could not bear the burden of His 
 greatness, unless He so condescended to our incapacity 
 and weakness. So secret is His Presence, that He 
 withdraws from our consciousness all that He really is, 
 even while we receive Him in His fulness, lest we 
 should be overwhelmed. It is a great and signal part 
 of His mercy to hide His Majesty, in which He passes 
 into us. So wonderful is His tenderness and con- 
 descension, even to the least and unworthiest, that He
 
 14 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 can wait till we are prepared, and has so ordered His 
 gift of Himself that, in proportion to what we are, 
 He gives out from Himself what He enables us to 
 receive, and no more. Whatever, according to our 
 measure, of spirituality we can digest and assimilate 
 what will turn to our health, and not to our hurt, He 
 imparts. He restrains Himself, till there is a capacity 
 to receive Him ; and then gives in proportion to our 
 capacity. He holds back from our view what we are 
 incapable of apprehending; and as we come again and 
 again with enlarged desires for His grace, He also 
 enlarges the outpouring of His gift to transform and 
 sanctify us. Again and again there flashes across the 
 soul some fresh sight leading us on, and as we attain 
 the object of our increased longing, He shows us still 
 height beyond height, that ever being drawn upward 
 we may be filled with an ever-growing measure of His 
 Fulness. Thus gradually we advance, because He 
 gradually unfolds the secrets of His treasures. Thus 
 He inspires the longings which He purposes to satisfy ; 
 and as He satisfies, He ever more and more developes 
 new capacities to correspond with new manifestations 
 of the opening visions of His perfections. 
 
 And yet we do indeed always actually receive our 
 LORD and our GOD, as He alone can be received, in 
 His Fulness; and we take Him, and He enters into 
 us, in His whole Presence, entire, undivided. If we 
 could but once apprehend Him as He apprehends us, 
 the fulfilment of His most gracious purpose in coming 
 to us would be at once accomplished. Couldest thou 
 wholly die, He Himself would wholly live in thee, and 
 thou couldest say in very truth, as S. Paul, after his 
 long and patient life of grace, was enabled to say : " It 
 is no longer I that live, but CHRIST liveth in me ; and
 
 The Transformation. 15 
 
 the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the 
 SON of GOD, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." 1 
 Could there be within thee the death of every move- 
 ment that is merely thy own, every strong impulse of 
 the fulness of All that is His would take its place, thou 
 wouldest be transubstantiated in thyself thy own sub- 
 stance no more, His Substance become wholly thine; 
 or rather thy substance, still existing though changed, 
 would be transformed into His Substance, and Himself 
 become the only Ruler and LORD of thy life. We re- 
 ceive Him in power to effect this. We receive Him in 
 all His attributes. His Being in His eternal Deity 
 before time was, so far as is possible, is communicated 
 to the creature ; what has passed upon Him in His In- 
 carnation, His Conception, His life in the flesh, His 
 ministry, His long endurance, His labours and miracles 
 of healing, His transfiguration, His Passion, His Death, 
 His Resurrection, His Ascension, His Session at the 
 Right hand of the FATHER, His giving forth of the 
 HOLY SPIRIT, His whole collected, combined virtues 
 and graces, all that the FATHER has shed upon Him 
 as the consequence of His accepted sacrifice, every gift, 
 every energy and breathing of the perfect Life in Hu- 
 manity which He took, not for Himself, but for us; 
 all are in us in that hour, because He is in us, and be- 
 cause we dwell in Him, and He dwells in us. 
 
 Consider, then, how much depends on the state in 
 which we approach. Practically our LORD is within us 
 only in proportion as we are prepared to co-operate. 
 The measure of His Fulness is adapted to the measure 
 of our capacity. He co-operates with us as we co- 
 operate with Him ; He yields Himself, and gives out of 
 
 1 Gal. ii. 10.
 
 16 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 Himself, in correspondence with our will and desires. 
 His Life is whole and perfect in us, so far as He Him- 
 self and His purpose for us are concerned. But It can 
 only slowly advance, because we only slowly corres- 
 pond with It. We only yield ourselves by degrees, and 
 so He can only communicate by degrees all that is 
 already ours in the possibilities of the unrestrained Ful- 
 ness of His Indwelling. 
 
 Most marvellous mystery of Love ! Beyond the Gift 
 Itself is this condescension, this patient waiting, this 
 longsuffering, this accommodation, this tempering of 
 His Glory. He is the Same LORD yesterday, to-day, 
 and for ever, wherever He is, only His transformation 
 of us in Himself differs, the Same on His Throne in 
 Heaven, the Same in His Blessed Sacrament, the Same 
 when enshrined in our hearts, only different in His ma- 
 nifestation ; and the mystery of His Fulness varies in 
 His Presence in us only because we vary in our power 
 of partaking of Him. 
 
 Consider what our lives would be if, through an 
 active co-operation with our LORD, we were faithful to 
 our mysterious possession of Him. What an unfolding 
 of wondrous light, in thought, in word, in deed, in as- 
 piration, in design, would characterize our inward na- 
 ture ! What a consciousness would pervade us ! What 
 an upholding strength sustain us ! What a companion- 
 ship be felt within, what communing with our unseen 
 Guest, if only we could always bear in mind what it is 
 to receive GOD ; could think and feel and act in con- 
 formity with the conviction of His indwelling Presence, 
 possessing and possessed, though hidden under an in- 
 scrutable veil, screened from all mortal sense ! 
 
 It is not that we lose anything of our own true na-
 
 The Transformation. 17 
 
 ture through this mysterious transformation, we are 
 still our own true selves. Our individuality and special 
 characteristics of being remain. All that is truly ours 
 only becomes more intensely ours, for our true na- 
 ture becomes more real. The only change is that our 
 nature is pervaded by a life and love beyond it, trans- 
 forming it into a diviner order ever more and more 
 perfectly. And as our efforts prevail to preserve a life 
 of stillness and repose, of faith and love, of prayer and 
 wa^hfuhiss, and a pure intention, this diviner life in 
 us is increasingly strengthened and enlarged. All is 
 transformed and raised, as more and more we unite 
 ourselves with the amazing Mystery of the Presence 
 Which is inhabiting our being, working out its pur- 
 poses in us, and which is already ours in Its immea- 
 surable inexhaustible depth of love. 
 
 Again, consider what our life ought to become in its 
 intercourse with others. Should not we be to others 
 what our LORD is to us ? He is, as He possesses us, the 
 centre of healing virtue and power, diffusing Himself 
 in a pure spirituality throughout the nature which He 
 has for this end rescued from death, and associated with 
 Himself. If this be His purpose in His Sacramental 
 Presence, should not we in this world be in our converse 
 with others a like source of healing and of love ? If the 
 intended results of His communications were carried 
 out, should we not speak, and act, and think, towards 
 the outward world, as CHRIST speaks to us in our own 
 hearts ? Nature would cease to influence us ; natural 
 actings would die down in us. All our thoughts and 
 plans, our words and efforts, would be constrained to 
 move after that higher law, which is one with the law 
 of His own perfected life. Our conversation would be 
 
 c
 
 18 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 CHRIST working in us, even as our inward life would be 
 CHRIST living in us. Our law of dealing in our mutual 
 intercourse with others would be in the same love and 
 beneficence in which He gives Himself to us, in which 
 He diffuses Himself within our hearts. The Life that 
 is in us would radiate from us ; we should become, by 
 grace, centres of a Divine activity, peculiar manifesta- 
 tions of saving influence, channels through which the 
 life of GOD would spread. We should win the blessing 
 of being co-operators with Him in the shining forth of 
 the Light of His love towards men, that the FATHER 
 through Him, and in Him through us, might be the 
 more glorified. 
 
 And yet, while thus possessing and possessed of GOD, 
 how continually do we speak and act through some 
 mere carnal impulse, some passing disturbance or irre- 
 gularity, speaking, acting, merely as of ourselves, of our 
 own mere natural spirit ! And this notwithstanding 
 our own experience has taught us, that such efforts can 
 never touch souls, can never influence, can never win 
 sympathy ; for nature resists nature, the natural powers 
 of life on which we seek to act by a kindred power in- 
 stinctively rise in self-defence, refusing to yield to what 
 is no greater or better than themselves. Hearts will 
 only yield to GOD. They can only be touched by His 
 Love, they will be moved only by the saving virtues 
 of His Passion. So that words and actions are spent 
 in vain unless instinct with the grace that flows from 
 CHRIST, unless we bring to bear the powers derived from 
 His Presence, to be transmitted, through our agency, 
 to those to whom He intended it to pass, if we are 
 willing to be the honoured instruments of His gracious 
 operations.
 
 The Transformation. 19 
 
 Only when we thus speak and act in the conscious- 
 ness of His Power, of His indwelling Life, as He lives 
 and moves and breathes in us, can we hope for success 
 in winning and swaying other souls. Nature yields to 
 Him, to the manifestation of His sacred Presence, ac- 
 knowledging its LORD. In the sensible going forth of 
 His power there is a subduing, softening influence, a 
 felt power of GOD, even through weakest instruments. 
 
 O wonderful grace and love of the Life-giving GOD ! 
 May we know the glory which Thou wiliest us to share 
 with Thee, that we may be able to kindle the fire of love 
 in the breasts of others through the manifestation of 
 Thyself, saving others even as we ourselves are saved ! 
 
 We need to seek earnestly, that we fail not to attain 
 all that may thus become ours, passing into us out of 
 His fulness ; that we may rise even to the measure of 
 the stature of CHRIST. He will surely meet us with 
 His response of love, if we thus ask and seek. He will 
 not restrain Himself, if we are not restrained. It is 
 His gift, though we must seek it. His Hand is not 
 shortened, He can save to the uttermost all that come 
 unto the FATHER by Him, and the FATHER is ever 
 drawing us to Him, that we may be His crown of re- 
 joicing in His day. Then, when He is no longer 
 unseen, seated on the Throne of His glory with all His_ 
 Saints gathered around Him as monuments of His 
 grace, manifestations of His power, we shall find our 
 place predestined for us in His love, to be for ever at rest 
 in Him, our work accomplished, all its weariness and 
 toil past, and, instinct with the fulness of preternatural - 
 energy, bearing our part in the adoration which arises 
 around Him from the heavenly Host for ever and ever.
 
 III. 
 
 THE TRANSFORMATION (continued.) 
 
 FROM our LORD'S Presence in the Blessed Sacrament 
 of the Altar, we derive special indications of the true 
 character of our transformation in GOD. For the 
 mystery is full of practical applications as to the quali- 
 ties of grace in which we are to resemble GOD, and 
 hold intimate living communion with Him, because He 
 therein exhibits Himself as the Teacher and Model, as 
 well as the Feeder of His Faithful ones. Not only do 
 we there receive the increase of spiritual life : we also 
 learn the characteristics of the life which He wills us 
 to acquire, the direction which it should take, the laws 
 by which it grows. 
 
 There are three different aspects under which our 
 Blessed LORD'S Life in His Sacramental Presence is to 
 be viewed, or three modes in which more especially He 
 therein manifests Himself. 
 
 .There is, (1,) His Life towards the FATHER; (2,) 
 His Life within itself; and (3,) His Life towards us. 
 Under each of these aspects of our LORD'S Sacramental 
 life, practical lessons may be drawn as to our own. 
 
 (1.) There is the perpetual intercession before the 
 FATHER for His own elect, in ceaseless love pleading for 
 us ; the constant presentation of Himself as a victim, 
 by Himself as a Priest, offering for sin, pleading His
 
 The Transformation. 21 
 
 sacrifice, as He bears His people in His heart, seeking 
 for them forgiveness and the outpourings of all His 
 powers to save. There too in His Humanity He adores 
 the FATHER, on Whom He ever gazes, still absorbed in 
 the longing, which on earth as a fire consumed Him, 
 of increasing the glory of His FATHER, by winning and 
 perfecting the souls whom the FATHER'S love draws to 
 Him. This intent direction of His thought to the 
 FATHER, as the object of adoration, of atoning love, of 
 ceaseless prayer, is as prominent a feature of our 
 LORD'S Sacramental Presence, as it was of His ministry 
 in the days of His Flesh. 
 
 (2.) His own Life, in itself, is on the other hand 
 completely changed. There was from His infancy a 
 constant onward progress, a continual increase, a grow- 
 ing, a perfecting of the Manhood in GOD through 
 appointed transitions, according to laws pre-ordained 
 for the full completeness of His Incarnation, that He 
 might be made in all things like unto us, sin only ex- 
 cept. This onward change was wrought through trial, 
 suffering and effort ; through outward affliction, and in- 
 ward pain ; through an awful death ; through the grave ; 
 through the transfiguration wrought in His Resurrection 
 into the glory which He willed at last to assume, and 
 even then still by degrees, as He ascended upwards into 
 the innermost Heavens, to take His place upon His 
 Throne on the Right Hand of His FATHER. All these 
 transitions have been passed through, and in the fulness 
 of His perfected Humanity, all now is repose. En- 
 shrined in the glory of its own true home, Humanity 
 abides in perfect peace, One with the Everlasting, In- 
 finite Godhead, in unutterable, ineffable bliss, as the 
 rest which followed the weary toil of His accomplished
 
 22 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 Passion. His life in His Sacrament is One with His 
 life at the Eight Hand of His FATHER, beyond the 
 reach of change, or the fluctuations of time, or outward 
 disturbance, in stillness and profound peace, not as in 
 the earlier stages of the Incarnation. 
 
 (3.) Again, towards ourselves, now, as ever before, 
 His life is one prolonged act of self-sacrifice. He 
 comes to us to communicate Himself, to give out of 
 Himself the life which He has won for us, and which 
 He has made through His Spirit capable of being im- 
 parted beyond Himself to whomsoever He will. The 
 desire of thus imparting, thus giving Himself, makes 
 Him assume this mysterious secresy, this silent hidden 
 Presence in these lowly forms of the earthly creatures, 
 utterly unworthy of His true dignity, but suitable to 
 us as true symbols of His marvellous gifts of life and 
 refreshment, capable of most wonderful assimilation 
 with us as our food, because He would interpenetrate 
 us, spirit, soul, and body, in one abounding flood of life, 
 one gush of eternal spirituality to thrill through all the 
 being of His Beloved, His own Elect. 
 
 Under these aspects of our Blessed LORD'S life in His 
 Eucharistic Presence, we see laws binding upon our- 
 selves, as we grow into a Sacramental Life, and It be- 
 comes more and more the copy of His own. The 
 resemblance is perfected, as we are transformed accord- 
 ing to these same laws of life. 
 
 (1.) Thus one aspect of our life should ever turn to- 
 wards the FATHER. What is recorded of the Holy 
 Angels who minister around the children of GOD on 
 earth, that they always " behold the Face of their FA- 
 THER Which is in Heaven," is pre-eminently the charac- 
 teristic of those who live a sacramental life in union
 
 The Transformation. 23 
 
 with JESUS, both for their own sake, and for the sake 
 of others. For their own sake, because they are ever 
 adoring Him, ever pleading with Him, laying before 
 Him their cares, their anxieties, their needs, their 
 temptations, their weaknesses, their secret conflicts, their 
 sins, their aspirations, all that forms the distress and 
 conflict of their life, while they seek cleansing, power, 
 deliverance, consolation, light, rest. For the sake of 
 others, the same ceaseless pleading must arise, specially 
 from those who bear the burden of others' lives as well 
 as their own, the bringing before GOD their necessities, 
 their cares, their trials, endeavouring to win grace and 
 power and peace for all, according to their need. 
 
 (2.) Again, the repose, the quiet balanced rest which 
 marks our LORD'S perfected life, is intended to grow 
 more and more steadfast in those who are truly His, 
 not the repose of indolence, not the calm arising from 
 absence of trial or the lack of temptation, a mere acci- 
 dental freedom from inward struggle or difficulty, but 
 the repose which lives in the mortification of desire, in 
 the conquest of passion, in the crucifixion of self, in a 
 subdued will, in the reconciliation of every thought with 
 a perfected obedience, as the whole inner being, en- 
 tranced in GOD, yields itself in delighted harmony with 
 His perfect Mind. Such repose is attained through 
 the continual progress of a life of grace, as it gradually 
 overcomes the restlessness of nature, the excitements of 
 self, the disturbance of temper or passion, the fruitless 
 impatience of the will. 
 
 And again, (3,) as our LORD is a centre, diffusing life 
 around, as He comes for the one purpose of communi- 
 cating Himself to others, so there is to be also in us a 
 resemblance to this characteristic. For that mysterious
 
 24 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 Life, which so wonderfully enters into us to dwell in us, 
 is given to us in order that it may become diffusive, 
 not only passing into all the faculties and organs of our 
 own life, but intended to make itself felt everywhere, 
 to spread out beyond, around us, communicating itself 
 through us to others by a sweet force manifesting itself 
 in the outer circle of our daily life, in love and healing 
 and manifold forms of blessing, causing others to feel 
 that GOD is in us of a truth, by the effects of the 
 higher Presence radiating from us, unknown, it may be, 
 to ourselves, as it passes from us in tone and accent, in 
 look or word, but yet felt by others, and testifying that 
 we have been with JESUS, and are as JESUS in the world. 
 
 In these characteristics of life, then, like His own, 
 our life is to grow, and in proportion as He is in us, 
 and prevails in us, so we are transformed. We thus 
 grow to be one with Him in the threefold aspect of 
 His sacramental Presence. Let us consider some of 
 the conditions on which it depends whether we may 
 hope thus to profit by this reception of our LORD. 
 
 (1.) There is needed an elevation of soul, able to rise 
 into communion with objects which the spirit of con- 
 templation only can embrace, objects supernatural, be- 
 yond time and space and change, kindled with the light 
 of another world ; able also to retain the consciousness 
 of their reality. We need to be on the mountain-top 
 as one catching the sun's last rays, though hidden from 
 the world below, that the light may stream into our 
 souls, filling them, suffusing them, pervading them with 
 its preternatural glory, an elevation of view to be sus- 
 tained only by living faith embracing the vision as a 
 substantial Presence.
 
 The Transformation. 25 
 
 (2.) With this elevation of view, this high sustained 
 idea of possible perfection, there needs also faith in the 
 capacity which GOD has given us to receive it. We 
 must never allow the despairing thought, the darkness 
 of doubt to intervene, so as to question His fulness of 
 grace. GOD may work in whom He wills, and what 
 He wills, and we may surely believe He will work His 
 perfect work where He comes to dwell, not as a passing 
 tenant, but as an abiding possessor. He will make 
 that heart, which is to be His Home, in all things 
 pleasing to Himself. All is possible where He wills ^ 
 to be in order to give life. We must needs become 
 what He wills, in His time, however faulty and im- 
 perfect we may be in ourselves. Yea, though we may I 
 have failed a thousand times, even sinned the " seventy ' 
 times seven," failed in all our resolutions and promises, , 
 He can renew our strength, rekindle our fervours, cause 
 our death-like torpor to become the glory of His own | 
 Resurrection. His gift is Himself, given that He may^_ 
 enter in all His Fulness, that the soul may become , 
 the shrine of His Presence, unite with It, co-operate ' 
 with It. 
 
 (3.) Again, with this elevation of mental sight, and 
 this faith, there must be a yielded soul giving itself up 
 to GOD, as its truer, better self; a surrender of the in- 
 most will to be only what GOD wills, to have only what 
 GOD gives. The reason why self has such a hold upon 
 us is, that we have not ceased to love it. We are, there- 
 fore, still so tender over it. We cannot surrender it, 
 because we will not. Therefore self occupies so large 
 a part of our daily thoughts. Therefore it arises on all 
 occasions, with every temptation. And yet to sacrifice 
 self at any cost, any pain, is the very condition for re-
 
 26 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 ceiving that higher, better life. How without a yielding, 
 a giving up of our nature to be transformed, can we 
 become the subjects of the true LORD of our hearts, 
 when He comes to possess us ? For to make us His 
 own is to separate us from the self which cost Him Jlis 
 Death, which is still the continued hindrance to His 
 perfect work. 
 
 A. (4.) Again, that there may be this yielding of soul in 
 , the spirit of faith, there needs yet besides a clinging 
 recollection of that Blessed Presence which has entered 
 in to possess us. One great cause of failure is, that we 
 so soon forget it. Often even as we leave the altar, as 
 our step passes beyond the sanctuary, the consciousness 
 is gone. So changeable and fickle are our hearts, we 
 forget Him on Whom our souls had just been feeding as 
 our very life. One brief moment, and all has passed 
 from us. So variable is our nature. One thought 
 succeeds another rapidly. A passing impulse is stirred, 
 and the whole soul is changed, and that Communion in 
 which we had been so wrapped, so absorbed, is now afar 
 off, is as though it had never been. Something has 
 intervened between Him and our consciousness of His 
 Presence. There has come a cloud, though it be of the 
 thinnest film, but it has extinguished the sacred light, 
 and robbed the soul of the unearthly vision. There is, 
 then, the utmost need to endeavour to preserve a recol- 
 lection of the heavenly Life we have received, to retain 
 our hold upon It, to embrace it firmly, rejoicingly, that 
 It may continue in our consciousness as well as in our 
 being as the exulting choice, the Love, the Joy of our 
 renewed life. Our prayer, as we leave the sanctuary, 
 should be, that thus filled throughout the day with the 
 consciousness of His abiding Presence within us, we
 
 The Transformation. 27 
 
 may go forth to live in the power which now claims us 
 as His own for ever. 
 
 (5.) It has been shown that our LORD being present 
 to diffuse His life to all around, is the type to be ful- 
 filled in us of a diffusiveness of love towards others. 
 His Life only exists to diffuse Itself in Its perfect 
 Fulness to all around. If we separate ourselves from 
 others we mar the perfecting of the Divine Life, and 
 check its perfect outflowing. It is the very instinct, 
 the very purpose of the life of GOD in us to diffuse It- ' 
 self, by means of ten thousand times ten thousand 
 channels, throughout the world, throughout the whole 
 creation. He wills to use each one who is endued with 
 its power, as an instrument of His renewing, healing 
 love. Therefore, if we would co-operate with this 
 Blessed Presence, there must be with all our care, all 
 our joy in ourselves, a generous thoughtful kindness, 
 a real beneficent love ; and this generosity of kindness, 
 as it is the blessing of others, so it is a very special 
 means of sustaining and enlarging the life of CHRIST 
 within ourselves. It acts and reacts; it is its own 
 reward. To give forth is to increase. To spend and 
 be spent for others, is the surest increase of our own 
 treasure. This longing, this all-pervading love, this 
 resolved purpose that the life within may have its full, 
 free course, must, therefore, take possession of the soul. 
 All defects of charity must be healed. Everi the smallest 
 thought of unkindness, the least disregard for the feel- 
 ings of others, is at variance with the spirit which has 
 now passed into us. Our LORD'S Presence may instantly 
 retire back into Itself, to escape the rude touch, the 
 jarring of any feeling alien to His nature. He must 
 depart, if the spirit of uncharitableness prevail. Alas !
 
 28 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 the heinousness of the sin, when that very Presence 
 which waited for us graciously, because He was patient 
 with us, and bore with all our sins and all our wilful- 
 ness, should find us, when He has possessed us, un- 
 willing to bear with others' faults, full of dislikes and 
 resentments, of envies and suspicions, of petty morose- 
 ness and distrust. 
 
 But if our course be true, our life, ever fed by our 
 LORD within us, will be lost in GOD. Our whole nature 
 forced from its old instincts, its active zeal raised to a 
 higher level, will reach to a diviner thought, a holier 
 charity, a bearing and forbearing, a perfectness of 
 patience, in which converse with the outer world be- 
 comes already an anticipation of the communion of the 
 saints above. Even as when the sunshine comes down 
 in full power upon the sea, the line which marks the 
 horizon melts into a yet brighter ray, and heaven and 
 earth as they meet kiss each other, blending undis- 
 tinguishably in perfect harmony so our lives, in which 
 the eternal light is shining, will be suffused with a 
 supernatural glory, and, as we keep our destined course, 
 our earthly state will assume the semblance of the 
 heavenly, CHRIST transformed in us, and we all but 
 deified in Him; our lives will be midway between 
 heaven and earth, touching earth with our feet, while 
 our spirits are in Heaven. 
 
 O blessed LORD ! O JESU ! SON of the Most High 
 GOD ! would that this infusion of heaven might be 
 wrought in us ! For this Thou didst suffer ; for this 
 Thou dost live ; for this Thou dost communicate Thy- 
 self. Shall all Thy sufferings produce no result ? Thy 
 continued manifestations of Thyself, shall they be all in
 
 The Transformation. 29 
 
 vain? Thy love, Thy self-sacrifice, shall it win no 
 response ? Must Thou return to Heaven after a fruitless 
 mission ? By all that Thou hast been, and art to us, 
 dearest LORD, still give Thyself, still work mightily in 
 us, though unworthy ; make us willing in the day of 
 Thy power. Let not Thy love be restrained, Thy 
 power stinted. Give us of Thy healing virtue, that we 
 may correspond with all the purposes of Thy blissful 
 Communion ; that Thou, reigning in Heaven, mayest 
 speak of us to the FATHER, as already become one with 
 Him through Thee, even as Thou art One with us. 
 For this we were born again I for this we continually 
 feed on Thee. This now we ask : that, being accepted 
 before we go hence, Thou mayest present us to the 
 FATHER, to be the eternal witnesses of Thy triumph, 
 the manifestations of Thy abounding Gift ; the instru- 
 ments of Thy glorious work in the salvation of others, 
 for whom, as for us, Thou, O LORD, wast content to die ; 
 that we may be found in our measure, and in our lot, 
 links in the boundless chain of living glory, the track 
 along which Thou hast gone before, passing into the 
 unfathomed depth of the abyss of love in the Heart of 
 GOD, and thus made one with Thee for ever.
 
 IV. 
 
 THE UNFOLDING LIFE. 
 
 WE have been dwelling on the exalted character and 
 powerful development of the Sacramental Life, intended 
 to be infused into the soul, through participation in 
 the Holy Eucharist. Our joy and our glory now is, 
 that this Life in its powers and possible fulness of 
 expansion is truly enshrined within us ; that GOD, of 
 His own Almighty, life-giving, creative energy, is in- 
 creasing its actual results more and more, as the carry- 
 ing out of His sure Promise ; that the good work which 
 He hath begun, He will complete in His own day, even 
 to the full measure of the stature of CHRIST. 
 
 It is most important, lest we fall short of this promise, 
 that each time we receive we should endeavour to keep 
 at heart the greatness of what then passes into us, the 
 profound mystery of which every time we are the sub- 
 jects. What practically may be the result of the ever- 
 renewed reception, we cannot measure by any present 
 apprehension. But the mystery in which we partici- 
 pate on every occasion, is surely nothing less than a 
 very death and a very resurrection. Every time we 
 offer the Blessed Sacrifice, " we show forth the LORD'S 
 Death till He come/' We commemorate, and really 
 represent before the FATHER and before the world, the 
 great truth of His having passed through death into
 
 The Unfolding Life. 31 
 
 His fulness of living glory, in putting off the bonds and 
 trammels of His earthly state, and assuming one purely 
 spiritual and heavenly. His sufferings ceased, His last 
 pang over, the triumph of His self-devotion attained, 
 the completion of His Sacrifice is manifested on the 
 Altar of Love, in the power of an endless life, as the 
 long-desired recompense of His Passion. 
 
 If we become one with our LORD in this mystery, 
 we too in very real though mysterious fellowship share 
 with Him this His death and His resurrection. Every 
 time we communicate we pass in Him through the 
 same transformation, in which the old forms of the 
 mere creature-life cease, and the renewed forms of the 
 higher nature of man, one with GOD, take their place. 
 By virtue of such communion we pass out of our earthly 
 state into a heavenly, although the effects of the mar- 
 vellous change are accomplished practically only through 
 a long interval. Whatsoever is our own, according to 
 the laws of nature and time and space, dies more and 
 more ; whatever is His, lives in us in ever increasing 
 efficacy in its stead. For the moment of reception, at 
 least, we are translated into Paradise, we are filled 
 with Heaven, with GOD. At that great crisis, He, 
 Whom we have received, entrances us, pervades our 
 entire being, we are wholly His, He is wholly ours, 
 whether more ourselves, or more our LORD in us, we 
 cannot tell. 
 
 It is our profoundest joy to believe, that in each re- 
 ception our LORD, in His whole Life, becomes ours, in 
 a supernatural mystery. His Sacred Heart with all its 
 powers, whether of action or of endurance, of energy 
 or of contemplation, of love or of peace, all enters 
 within us, because He Himself enters within us. He
 
 32 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 has passed within us, and He is there as the LORD of 
 our life. The fulness of all that lies hidden within that 
 Sacred Heart, and within that Sacred Body, ever in- 
 dissolubly in union with His Godhead, is in some 
 amazing mystery within us, becomes the inner germ of 
 our own life. He is in us. His whole Personality, as 
 the Goo-Man, comes to abide, according to the laws of 
 the Spirit of Holiness, in our souls and bodies. 
 
 In that Sacred Heart of JESUS are beating the per- 
 petual pulsations of all His Love, all His thoughts of 
 the glory of the FATHER, all His desires to save the 
 world, all His plans for the fulfilment of the Redemp- 
 tion of the creature, all His inward visions, all that 
 lives within Him, and all this is within us, because 
 He is within us, the Centre, the inner Life of our life. 
 His life of peace, His boundless desires and impulses of 
 love, of will, one with the Will of the FATHER, His 
 ineffable Holiness, His continued unceasing actings of 
 devotion towards His FATHER, towards each one of us, 
 towards His whole Body, His life of intercession, His 
 heavenly joy, are in the throbbings of His Sacred 
 Heart, and all is in us, because He is in us. 
 
 He is acting, moving, breathing in us, for He has 
 taken up His abode in us, and worketh in us. He 
 gives forth His life within us as we are capable of 
 receiving. He enlarges His gifts according to His 
 will. 
 
 This hidden Presence, therefore, must surely charac- 
 terise our lives; we must bear about us signs of this in- 
 dwelling of GOD. It cannot fail to influence us, if we 
 are recollected, if we go about in the conscious posses- 
 sion of this supernaturalised state. There will be proofs 
 to show that we are believing in It, living in It, grow-
 
 The Unfolding Life. 33 
 
 ing more and more in oneness with It. There will be 
 such proofs as these, 
 
 (1.) There will be a spirit of gladness, of secret, sacred 
 joy ; not that fulness of joy which will be ours hereafter, 
 not that unintermitted unchanging beatitude which the 
 Blessed who have attained their heavenly inheritance 
 know, not necessarily the ecstatic state to which at 
 times the seemingly conscious inward breathings of the 
 HOLY GHOST impel us, lifting us up above our ordinary 
 condition to something strange and unwonted, as though 
 the very flood-gates of the Spirit were opened, the ocean- 
 tide of Divine love rising within us to its higher levels 
 not thus necessarily, if ever; but a joy beyond this life's 
 power either to give or take away, a life of heavenly 
 rest which tends to become the steadfast habit of the 
 soul, the blessed foretaste of that deep peace which 
 passes all understanding, the fruit, O Thou Holy One 
 of GOD, of Thy full possession of us. Surely, if we be- 
 lieve, if we in any manner realize the truth that GOD in 
 a marvellous inhabitation tabernacles, as in His chosen 
 shrine, within our being ; if this truth is clear and un- 
 wavering, and has become an habitual consciousness, 
 there cannot but be joy, cannot but be an inner bright- 
 ness, whatever may be the outward shadows passing 
 over us. There must be joy. The very truth of GOD 
 dwelling in us, consciously held, ensures it, for all around 
 GOD is joy. It is impossible we can be wholly swallowed 
 up of sorrow while this assurance is thrilling through 
 our being as a certain possession. As we ever and 
 ever fall back upon the certainty, and take refuge in 
 it, the outward oppression, whatever it be, must lose at 
 least some portion of its distress. If the soul ever 
 say, "All joy is gone, all light is vanished, all gladness 
 
 D
 
 34 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 is passed away from me," a soul that thus can speak 
 must have forgotten, or cannot believe or know what it 
 has received. The faithful soul, however cast down, 
 however sorely troubled, will surely rather speak thus 
 with itself : ' ' Within me, in the midst of all this sorrow 
 and oppression, there is a spring of fulness of joy which 
 cannot be taken from me, cannot be destroyed, because 
 ijtjs my LORD." The soul thus living in faith, feeling 
 its union with GOD, cannot but be secretly impressed 
 and strengthened, and as this state grows into a calm, 
 steady, continual state, a uniform and consistent con- 
 sciousness, more and more of undisturbed joyousness 
 prevails within the soul's secret depths. But only 
 GOD Himself can sustain this state, as nothing but 
 the consciousness of His Possession of us can be the 
 well-spring of such joy. Its existence is a sign that 
 the sacramental Life has become a reality within, that 
 therefore the whole life is passing more and more into 
 a oneness with JESUS. 
 
 (2.) Again, with this joyousness and brightness will 
 be experienced as surely a certain sadness. For such 
 can hardly fail to be the feeling of one who realizes the 
 thought of the weight of Deity pressing on the feeble- 
 ness of humanity ; who discerns the awfulness of GOD 
 Himself being tabernacled in the midst of all our in- 
 firmities and lurking sinfulness ; feels what the con- 
 trast must be to Him ; and considers, moreover, all 
 the responsibility of such union with GOD the risk of 
 grieving Him, the uncertainty of falling short of His 
 expectations, and the consequence of a possible relapse 
 into sin. Thoughts of what it cost our LORD to win us 
 back from sin, of what His redeeming Love claims, 
 and of our inability to rise to what we apprehend to be
 
 The Unfolding Life. 35 
 
 His purpose for us, will often fill us with tears, in the 
 midst of brightest joy; a tenderness of penitence 
 melting into the soul with the sense of its sin, not 
 necessarily diminishing our happiness, but chastening 
 and absorbing it, and thus making it safer for such as 
 we are most unworthy of the ineffable dignity to 
 rejoice in its security of bliss. 
 
 (3.) With this sadness there will also intermingle the 
 sense of fear not a shrinking fear, not a depressing, 
 servile fear, but a profound awe, a solemn apprehen- 
 sion, such as weighs on one who guards a sacred Trea- 
 sure for the safety of which he is responsible, or who 
 anxiously watches a Holy Place, lest a profane step ap- 
 proach to desecrate it, fear lest we should offend GOD, 
 come so wonderfully near to us, or by any carelessness 
 lessen what He is become to us; fear, lest we should 
 be betrayed into some unbecoming, inconsistent act, 
 lest an unchastened thought spring, some long-past 
 passion revive, some sudden temptation startle us, and 
 thus, losing our hold, our steadfastness of peaceful 
 communion with our LORD, we sin the more fatally, 
 because of the greater grace. Who can tell the con- 
 sequences of the loss of grace in unguarded souls, 
 in whom such a Presence has dwelt in vain? What 
 would it be to lose, perhaps for ever, what was once All 
 in all to us ? 
 
 There are moreover, special graces which tend to 
 further the growth of this sacramental life : 
 
 (1.) Love to JESUS. As Love drew our LORD down 
 from Heaven, so love opens the capacities of the soul to 
 receive Him. Love, as no other grace, melts the in- 
 ward substance of our being, which thus becomes more 
 easily receptive of the Divine Presence, more capable of
 
 36 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 responding to the Divine call ; and this love cannot fail 
 to grow and deepen, as the sense of His love is more 
 and more awakened. 
 
 (2.) Desire after JESUS. The desire of such a life 
 being perfected in us, tends to its increase. GOD awaits 
 our desires. He expects to be invited, even as He in- 
 vites us. He wills to be sought even as He seeks. 
 There is a mutual witness of His Spirit with our spirit. 
 It is Himself alone Who first kindles our desires, but 
 their growth depends on our cherishing, and thus, 
 through fresh grace given, they ever more and more 
 enlarge, craving for yet greater gifts. Daniel was blest, 
 because he was a " man of desires." All his prophetic 
 powers, all the grace which sustained his body in mor- 
 tification, and his soul in constant intercourse with the 
 unseen world, which upheld him in such undaunted 
 patience through the terrible scenes in which he bore 
 his patient witness for GOD, preserving so pure his spi- 
 ritual life amidst all the fascinating contaminations of 
 a heathen court, was the result of growing desires 
 corresponding with the ever-increasing drawings of GOD 
 within his soul. To enlarge our desires is to grow in 
 sympathy with the Divine purpose to bless, and thus 
 win from GOD an ever-renewed manifestation of Him- 
 self. 
 
 (3.) A third grace is the habit of contemplating the 
 heavenly vision which has opened upon the soul, and 
 thus feeding the illuminated consciousness, sustained 
 by an abiding conviction wrought by enduring faith. 
 As faith enlarges, so the vision expands. Were this 
 vision to live within the soul, we should move to and 
 fro through the world in its power, and life would be- 
 come a sacrament, ourselves but the outward visible
 
 The Unfolding Life. 37 
 
 form of an inward spiritual grace. We should walk in 
 brightness, in sanctity, in peace. All difficulties would 
 become light. We should be strong to overcome hard- 
 ships and adverse circumstances; for in whatever state 
 we were, there would be the gushing forth from within 
 us of an infinite stream of thankfulness flowing from the 
 consciousness of the intimate Presence of GOD in the 
 believing soul. There would be rest, because the soul 
 had already attained the possession of Him Who is the 
 perfect Peace, though not as yet its full enjoyment. 
 
 And surely nothing less than such a result as this, 
 O CHRIST, O LORD GOD, didst Thou intend for us. For 
 nothing less than this Thou didst become incarnate, 
 and continually comest to manifest Thyself on our 
 altars. For nothing less than this Thou broodest over 
 us, overshadowing us with Thy Spirit of Love. For 
 nothing less than this Thou possessest us. For this 
 Thou hast become the centre of all true life, of all 
 glory, of joy and peace, within our nature. O Blessed 
 GOD, draw us to seek, to long, to aim, to grasp at, to 
 fix ourselves on this most joyous Hope of our calling, 
 and never let it pass away from us no, not till Thou 
 dost fully bless us; nor permit us ever to let Thee 
 go till Thou, in Thy fullest gift of life, unitest us indis- 
 solubly to Thyself. Thou, in Thy infinite long-suffer- 
 ing, waitest to be pressed, to be constrained, even by the 
 most unworthy, with earnest, loving pleading. O LORD 
 GOD ! do Thou fulfil this promise not according to 
 our own feeble desires and apprehensions, but accord- 
 ing to the full measure of Thy own Perfect Fulness, till 
 we become, even in this life, as thou art ; that the Light 
 that enlighterieth us, may evermore deepen within us, 
 and grow into the perfect Day.
 
 Y, 
 
 THE LAW OF PROGRESS. 
 
 WE have considered the great Gift imparted to us in 
 the Blessed Sacrament, and its intended results ; what 
 we receive, and what through the grace thus given to 
 us we are enabled actually to become. But we must 
 beware of failing, through discouragement, because 
 this blessed life is slow in its advance, because our 
 practical state falls far short of what we have realized 
 as the purpose of GOD in ordaining this great Mystery. 
 It is impossible but that the contrast between the con- 
 ceivable and the actual result should be great. And it 
 is necessary to understand and allow for the causes of 
 so great a contrast. 
 
 (1.) Observe what It is which we receive. In re- 
 ceiving our LORD we bear within us all that in our 
 highest state of glory can ever be fulfilled in us. We 
 receive the fulness of His Presence, all that eternity 
 only can suffice to unfold, all the powers which will 
 finally transform us into His own Perfect Likeness; 
 for all grace is enclosed in the Gift which thus passes 
 within our being. __JEvery time we receive, it is as though 
 earth were transplaced by Heaven, the creature by GOD 
 GOD received, oneself absorbed, lost in His secret Pre- 
 sence within us7~ We are then possessed of the Adorable 
 Being Who fills the worlds with Glory. Or, if the ex-
 
 The Law of Progress. 39 
 
 pression be more just, where all human expressions 
 equally fail, He takes us into His own Infiniteness ; so 
 that our own identity seems lost in our absorption in 
 Him. Both modes of describing the fact are true, for 
 equally He dwells in us, and we dwell in Him. Now, 
 the very statement itself is enough to show, that the 
 results of such a Gift can develop only by slow degrees. 
 The gradualness of the unfolding of the Mystery is one 
 essential part of the Mystery. GOD unites us with 
 Himself, His own infinite Being, at once by a quick, 
 sudden transport ; but He wills that our growth through 
 this newly implanted power should be according to the 
 laws of our own nature, progressive. The law of pro- 
 gress characterizes all created life, and the greater the 
 life the slower the growth. All earthly formations 
 become matured according to this law ; " first the blade, 
 then the ear, then the full corn in the ear." From 
 infancy to childhood, from childhood to adolescence, 
 and so onward to manhood, grows man's offspring. 
 Our LORD chose this law for Himself, because He 
 would be true to the nature which He took. " He 
 grew in wisdom as in stature." How surely must such 
 a law apply when the transformation is not from one 
 stage of nature to a higher stage, but from the natural 
 to the supernatural order of being, from an earthly to 
 a heavenly law of life in perfect harmony with GOD, 
 and this in the case of a creature which had fallen and 
 become almost wholly corrupt. 
 
 (2.) Consider, again, another law of grace according 
 to which this high Mystery works. It is not intended 
 that the Divine Gift should be sufficient in Itself to act 
 upon us, to transform us. The mysterious Presence 
 does not work alone. It is not simply because GOD
 
 40 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 possesses us, and dwells in us as our Life, that therefore 
 we live in Its actual power. The difference between a 
 latent power and its quickening into life, between the 
 capacity for great endowments and their actual develop- 
 ments, is real and most important. 
 
 Illustrations of this essential distinction are to be 
 seen in the outward material world. Music lies dormant 
 in the instrument. Only when the chord is struck by 
 the skilful hand does the thrilling melody flow forth. 
 Fire is hidden under various forms of matter, which 
 require friction, or contact with other inflammable sub- 
 stances, before the spark is elicited. Similarly in our 
 nature there are hidden, stored up, vast powers which 
 wait to be quickened into life, because they need occa- 
 sions, and sympathies, and attractions to set them in 
 motion, and only thus attain the possible development 
 of their intended results. 
 
 There may be great gifts of genius, eloquence, power 
 of command, unnoticed, unconsciously possessed, till an 
 unexpected stimulus calls out the dormant energy, and 
 then wells forth in ever-growing fulness the mighty 
 stream of imagination, of sentiment, of power, which 
 may become the very characteristic of the after life. 
 
 This same principle, or law of nature, operates as to 
 highest spiritual gifts. It was exemplified in the case 
 of Elisha. He possessed the gift of prophecy, but it 
 could not operate during the passing disturbance of his 
 spirit. There could be no utterance of his preterna- 
 tural power, till the sound of the harp had quieted his 
 soul, and calmed the troubled passion. Only when all 
 within was hushed, could the Divine influence operate, 
 and the burden of the future, the breath of the Mind of 
 GOD, flow freely from his lips. It was according to
 
 The Law of Progress. 41 
 
 this vital law that the great Apostle charges those who 
 possess the assured Presence of the HOLY GHOST; " Stir 
 up the gift of GOD which is in thee by the putting on 
 of my hands." How often do we see persons brought 
 into fresh circumstances of trial, perhaps, or sorrow 
 exhibit a degree of grace for which we never gave them 
 credit; men placed suddenly in difficulties and per- 
 plexities which become the occasion of developing a 
 degree of wisdom and firmness of which they had given 
 no sign whatever in their previous course. 
 
 (3.) The same law applies to the sacramental life. 
 There may be an Indwelling of GOD in all Its fulness, 
 but It waits for, It needs, circumstances favourable for 
 its development, means to keep It alive, to stir It, so 
 that It may come forth and pervade all our actions 
 as fire needs to be cherished, till the flame bursts forth, 
 and then penetrates all materials within its reach, per- 
 vading them with its glow and warmth and brilliancy. 
 Life thus needs conditions suited to Its exercise; only 
 on such conditions does the mysterious Gift unfold 
 Its precious stores. However rich, however sure Its 
 inward virtue, It may remain no more than a dormant 
 capacity of life, giving no sign whatever of Its great- 
 ness, not even of Its existence within. 
 
 Moreover our present state, quite irrespective of any 
 actual sin, is adverse to any fulness of development. 
 We must put off the body of our humiliation, and pass 
 into an atmosphere kindred with our LORD'S Indwelling 
 Presence, the full power of the Resurrection state, before 
 the ultimate results of His grace in us can be unfolded; 
 and as its ultimate fulness must be delayed, so also 
 any approximations towards it may be retarded, and 
 for the same causes. Were it therefore merely that we
 
 42 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 abide still in the infirmities of a state originally weak, 
 and fallen far below its original weakness ; that a " cor- 
 ruptible/' not merely a natural, " body presseth down 
 the soul," sufficient cause exists to account for the 
 marvellous fact of so great a Presence of life-giving 
 power abiding in us with such inadequate results. 
 
 But, further, there are superadded faults hindering 
 this development, and it most deeply concerns us to 
 consider how far they may be remedied, for in these 
 lies our real shame and reproach before GOD. We 
 might have more of the blessed results of the In- 
 dwelling of GOD, though we cannot, as yet, have all 
 His Fulness. 
 
 There may be undisciplined tempers, unrestrained 
 impulses, irregularities of thought or action, risings of 
 renounced evil not wholly subdued, which might long 
 ago have been put away had we been more faithful ; or 
 there may be imaginations, dreams, visions of self, or 
 of the world, allowed to dwell, which fill and excite us, 
 stirring us in various ways with a constant fertility of 
 creative power, with marvellous quickness disturbing 
 and distracting the sensitive impulses of our nature. 
 
 Or, again, there may be hindrances from without 
 arising from circumstances which we might escape. 
 As outward scenes press upon the orb of sight with 
 a bodily substantial force, irritating, oppressing it, 
 so all occurrences act on our excitable being, and 
 impress it, alas! so often overmaster it, carrying it 
 away captive. 
 
 Whether, therefore, or not, the inward sacramental 
 Presence has its true effect in us, must in part depend 
 on the soul's own self-discipline. We need to gain the 
 habit of self-control, a power of harmonizing our inward
 
 The Law of Progress. 43 
 
 movements, a power like to the Prophet's harp, pre- 
 paring the way for the manifestation of the Gift of 
 GOD. We have received more than the Prophet's in- 
 spiration. The very Life of all life, the very Fount of 
 light and wisdom, is given to us. We need, therefore, 
 all the more to gain this peace, this hushed silence of 
 the soul, that the effluence of the Divine Presence may 
 find a correspondence of mind, a capacity for its de- 
 velopment in the soul. 
 
 (4.) The following rules may assist towards this at- 
 tainment : 
 
 One simple rule is the use of ejaculations. They tend 
 to preserve a recollection of the greatness of the 
 Presence Which dwells within us. It would be better 
 with us, if we passed our days with frequent lifting up 
 of the soul, with such words in our hearts as these 
 " How great a Gift I have received !" " What a weight 
 of Deity is within my spirit \" " What a mystery of 
 life has entered into me !" " How unspeakable His 
 bounty, how touching His tenderness, how boundless 
 the generosity of His love \" " The very LORD of Hosts, 
 the very GOD Eternal is within me, is mine own, is 
 become my very soul, my life !" Surely, thus, many a 
 fall would be avoided, many a temptation mastered* 
 many a sinful tendency more certainly overcome. 
 
 Another rule tending to the same result is to hold 
 secret conferences with the Indwelling GOD. The soul 
 may truly say to itself, " I am not alone. I have a 
 companion, ever precious, ever dear, with me. I can 
 speak to Him. I can take sweet counsel with Him, 
 even with the Eternal, the Infinite, the all-perfect Love. 
 We are one; my heart is with His heart, His heart 
 with my heart. There is, though hidden from me, a
 
 44 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 growing of all that is within me, to unite with all that 
 cometh forth from Him." Or we may tell Him of our 
 troubles, ask His sympathy, implore His aid, when, 
 within the chamber of one's soul, there is no other ear 
 to hear. How might our thoughts thus mingle with 
 His thoughts, our spirits with His Spirit, bearing 
 witness one to another of what each feels ! 
 
 There were once three walking in the fire, when 
 suddenly there appeared a Fourth, and the form of the 
 Fourth was like the SON of GOD. So it is after every 
 Communion. At the dawning of the day I was by 
 myself alone. A little while, and I have knelt at the 
 altar, and lo ! Another has entered within me, and His 
 form is the very living GOD, and we move together 
 through the fires. The power of His Presence was on 
 the three faithful ones ; for not even the smell of fire 
 had passed on them, neither were their clothes burnt. 
 So may I walk with my LORD through the flames of 
 the day's trials. They shall not touch me, neither shall 
 the hair of my head be singed. Temptation cannot, as 
 before, affect me ; nor the evil that is around me move 
 me as of old. 
 
 Whenever the soul is kept in this recollected state all 
 that acts upon it acts for good every accident becomes 
 a Providence, every voice speaks of GOD, every passing 
 change is as the breath of air stirring the chords of the 
 lyre, drawing out holy desires, awakening saintly as- 
 pirations. The vision of another world is ever break- 
 ing through the expressive aspect of natural things, 
 and we are secretly moved to the unceasing exercise of 
 grace, because life within and around has become the 
 utterance of GOD ever felt to be reigning within us. 
 
 As these acts of recollection become an habitual
 
 The Law of Progress. 45 
 
 practice, the inner being is more and more habitually 
 influenced by it, till at last the ordinary state becomes 
 a perpetual consciousness of the Indwelling GOD, sus- 
 ceptible at all moments of most blessed influences, the 
 flowing out of the healing virtues of our LORD'S sacred 
 Body, of His Soul, of His secret Heart, working in us 
 ceaselessly. 
 
 This most precious inner Communion is the com- 
 pensation for every loss in this world, and its sweetness 
 more than counterbalances whatever the soul has sur- 
 rendered for CHRIST. It is Life given back for the life 
 which has been left, and " life more abundantly." It 
 is the assurance of the inward Truth of a life that 
 cannot die, to the soul content to withdraw itself from 
 that which is daily perishing. It is the making sure, 
 as far as is possible at this distance from His Seat of 
 Glory in Heaven, of His everlasting companionship. 
 It is as near an approach as the soul can know here of 
 the possession, the enjoyment of the Love which thrills 
 through Heaven, and makes that higher world to be 
 Heaven. It is Heaven begun, though veiled, secretly 
 hiding itself till the inward sight is purged, and the 
 will made one with GOD, and GOD become All in all to 
 the child of His election. 
 
 Two cautions may be added lest the soul be tried by 
 anxious fears, and sink despondingly in the apprehen- 
 sion that all its aims have failed, and the very purpose 
 of its self-devotion come to nought, when yet all such 
 sadness or doubt is utterly groundless. 
 
 (1.) The sense of our LORD'S Presence is not to be 
 looked for as an abiding consciousness, though felt to 
 be full of blessing at the time of Communion. The 
 blessed sense of the fulness of His unspeakable Gift
 
 46 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 may indeed swallow up all other consciousness, a power 
 of rest and delight thrilling through all our nature. It 
 is the elect soul's blessedness for the time ; the super- 
 natural elation which attests the invisible operation of 
 our LORD'S Presence; a sign and pledge of gracious 
 assurance that He is indeed come according to His 
 promise. But this assurance given, the ordinary con- 
 dition of the soul will return, and the sensations 
 awakened at Communion become only a recollection, 
 an object of faith cherished in the memory, though, it 
 may be, to rise up again and again as flashes of light 
 rekindle, remembrances which still speak and say to us, 
 " Yes, I am still here, I am with you still, though the 
 mode of My Abiding is changed ; I am thy own, and 
 thou art Mine ' for ever/ " 
 
 Or again, there may not be even in the actual re- 
 ception any feeling, any consciousness of what is re- 
 ceived. It may be part of our intended discipline that 
 the Gift of GOD should be wholly secret, unperceived, 
 to be known only by faith. It may be that the soul is 
 to learn the strength of living in the power of simple 
 trust ; to learn to be able to say, " I feel Him not, but 
 He is mine; I hold Him within me, though I have 
 experienced nothing ; I am as I was before, unconscious 
 of any change, yet I have received my GOD ; I have not 
 seen, but yet I believe. He has promised, and His 
 word is true, and I can trust Him. Though in cloud 
 and darkness, in silence and in vacancy, He has come 
 to me." Blessed the result of such a faith, if it can 
 endure firm and true, fond and ardent, as though it had 
 felt and seen, as though it had all the joy, as well as all 
 the certainty, of possession ! Blessed, most blessed, if 
 it can still continue to say, " We abide as One, Thou
 
 The Law of Progress. 47 
 
 my LORD and Thy unworthy servant, though all is 
 darkness ; I can go nowhere, but Thou art with me ; I 
 can do, I can bear nothing, but Thou wilt guide, Thou 
 wilt sustain me \" 
 
 (2.) Again, be not disturbed although no impressive 
 call has come, no startling change in your destiny 
 opened before you. The line of supernatural life may 
 run wholly in the midst of little and lowly things. 
 
 If one sign surer than any other be chosen to mark 
 the progress of the Divine life, it is when sanctity 
 prevails even in the minutest points of character, and 
 in ordinary ways. The least look, the faintest expres- 
 sion, the casual act, may tell more of the secret power 
 of JESUS in the soul, than world-famed acts of self- 
 devotion. The beauty of Holiness is shown in these 
 finer traits, as in a picture. It is not so much the 
 broad bold lines, the expressions of power, but the 
 delicate touches, which impart the special charm to a 
 work of art. The inferior workman shapes the limbs, 
 the main features of the statue the master hand alone 
 can add the finer lines and details of grace, on which 
 the likeness and characteristic beauty really depends. 
 So, too, in our life; an occasional effort even of an 
 ordinary holiness may accomplish great acts of sacrifice, 
 or bear severe pressure of unwonted trial, specially if 
 it be the subject of observation. But constant discipline 
 in unnoticed ways, and the hidden spirit's silent unsel- 
 fishness, becoming the habit of the life, give to it its 
 true saintly beauty, and this is the result of care and 
 lowly love in little things. Perfection is attained most 
 readily by this constancy of religious faithfulness in 
 all minor details of life, in the lines of duty which 
 fill up what remains to complete the likeness to our
 
 48 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 LORD, consecrating the daily efforts of self- forgetting 
 love. 
 
 O wonderful Presence of my GOD, forgive the past in 
 which we failed to correspond with the lavish gifts of 
 Thy grace. Bear with us yet awhile, Longsuffering 
 GOD ; grant that in the time to come, whatsoever Thou 
 wiliest for our probation under Thy chastening, may be 
 cherished by us as our dearest portion that the Inner 
 Mystery of Thy Indwelling glory may be more and 
 more revealed within us ; and as Thou art Thyself the 
 Gift of life to us, be also the Fulfiller in us of what we 
 ourselves must become to co-operate with Thee. Aid 
 us, that we on our part fail not; then, O GOD, most 
 blessed will that day be when we shall stand up with 
 the full consciousness thrilling through us of a perfected 
 oneness with Thee face to Face, never more to be lost 
 to our steadfast gaze, never to lose the full shining of 
 that Light, or the moulding of that Hand, working 
 upon and within our plastic forms the impression of 
 Thy likeness, to be at last perfected in us when we are 
 made One with Thee in the Glory of the FATHER, for 
 ever and ever. Amen.
 
 VI, 
 
 THE FRUIT OF LOVE. 
 
 THE blessedness ensured to us in this great Sacrament 
 of Love, as to its effects on our own inward life, through 
 its gift of union with our LORD, has in some measure 
 been set forth. Let us consider the effects it is intended 
 to produce on our intercourse with others. For the 
 Holy Eucharist is the perfect Oblation of CHRIST, and 
 self is overcome in proportion as we realize what we 
 receive of power to breathe His thoughts, and cherish 
 His feelings, conscious of what He is to others, as to 
 oneself. 
 
 In the prayer which immediately follows the recep- 
 tion of our LORD, the desire for this further grace is 
 put into our lips; we expressly say that we offer 
 " ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, 
 holy, and lively sacrifice unto Him." 1 
 
 This thought of self- dedication arises as the immediate 
 result of the blessedness of receiving CHRIST. The soul 
 possessed with the consciousness of its wonderful Gift, 
 through the self- forgetting sacrifice of its LORD, is drawn 
 to feel that the same spirit of self- oblation, the same 
 desire of sacrifice, should reign also within us, to be the 
 true counteraction of our natural selfishness, the cha- 
 
 1 Communion Service. Post-Communion Prayer of Oblation. 

 
 50 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 racteristic of its new and better life ; to be one with 
 our LORD in serving others, even as He has become 
 Life and Fulness of blessing to oneself. The partaking 
 of this sacrificed life of CHRIST involves, as its proper 
 result, the drawing of the heart to all whom He has 
 united to Himself by the same bond of love in which 
 He has bound oneself, the thankful captive of His 
 grace. 
 
 The effect of our LORD being within us is to expand 
 the range of our thoughts, so as to become more and 
 more co-extensive with His own. We become, more- 
 over, one not only with our LORD Himself, but with 
 His whole Body. This is to be regarded as our LORD'S 
 secondary purpose for us. His first work in us is our 
 own personal transformation. The further advance 
 is union with Him as regards His care for others, His 
 love by which He is equally present in them as in one- 
 self. These two desires, (1) of our new creation in Him, 
 and (2) of our union in love with all whom He owns in 
 His mystical Body, breathe together in His sacred 
 Heart, and should be felt in our hearts also, as the 
 kindred impulses of One Spirit. The longing for perfect 
 union with our LORD, as one's own private joy, should 
 combine with the longing to be one with all others in 
 whom He dwells, love ever flowing and reflowing, and 
 gathering strength as it absorbs together into one all 
 in whom He abides ; and in proportion as this is the 
 case, we attain more of Himself and of His Life, by 
 loving as He loves, and becoming more truly His, be- 
 cause one's own heart beats with truer response to 
 His Heart. 
 
 To see the momentous importance of this view of the 
 Eucharistic life, we must look yet higher, even to the
 
 The Fruit of Love. 51 
 
 eternal existence of GOD, of which it is a transcript. The 
 primal idea of the Being of GOD is that of Oneness of 
 Substance with Plurality of Persons. There is in GOD 
 one pervading life, one common nature, but with diver- 
 sities of personality. This perfect oneness in diversity 
 is the mystery of the Being of GOD, and is revealed to 
 us as the object of perpetual wonder, love, and adora- 
 tion. Now the perfected creature is to be formed so as 
 to represent GOD, to reflect the Being and Attributes 
 of GOD. He is therefore to represent this most mar- 
 vellous characteristic of GOD, this oneness of nature 
 with infinite diversities of distinct individuality. As 
 there is in the Adorable Godhead this Trinity in Unity, 
 this threefold distinction of Persons in Those Who are 
 absolutely One and Co-equal, because of One common 
 Substance and Nature, so there is to be wrought in the 
 creatures, between themselves, that they may become 
 the very image and reflection of GOD, an union in the 
 midst of vast diversity of persons ; and this is effected 
 by the preservation of our separate individualities and 
 mutual relations towards each other, while we are 
 bound together in one mystical Body in CHRIST, as a 
 whole and perfect Life in Itself. 
 
 This great truth has a very special manifestation in 
 the Holy Eucharist, for through Its virtue this union 
 of separate individuals is effected. It was because 
 of this connection that our LORD'S intercessory prayer 
 for the union of His Disciples arose, at the very time 
 when He instituted the Holy Communion, as the last, 
 the crowning petition which He offered for all whom 
 He would gather into Himself. He then prayed for 
 the perfect unity of His elect, "that they all may be 
 one, as Thou, FATHER, art in Me, and I in Thee, that 
 
 E 2
 
 52 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 they also may be one in Us j" 1 as " Thou and I," so 
 " they," to be a very resemblance of the same Oneness. 
 For this, the likeness of the Heavenly Reality, He 
 prayed as the true embodiment of the idea which had 
 brooded from the beginning on the Mind of GOD, as the 
 perfection of the creature's life. And ever since that 
 hour there has flowed forth from the Soul of CHRIST the 
 utterance of this same desire, as the ceaseless subject 
 both of His Intercession in Heaven, and of the Offering 
 of Himself in the Holy Eucharist on earth. 
 
 The connexion is clear. It is as though He said, 
 " I have given this My Body, and this My Blood, to be 
 unceasingly offered, and unceasingly received, as the 
 new and perfect life of man. I have instituted this 
 Mystery to be the same Gift to each one of My elect, 
 Myself passing into each one in the unity of a common 
 substance. And thus in this Divine Communion there 
 is a mystical but most real representation of the Union 
 of the Persons of the Blessed Godhead. As our different 
 Personalities coalesce in our One Substance, so the dif- 
 ferent members of My mystical Body unite in a true 
 oneness in Myself, and through Myself by the Spirit in 
 the FATHER. I have given Myself in My Fulness to 
 each one alike, that each may possess in his own sepa- 
 rate individual person the same life, to bind each and all 
 in one, even as the FATHER and I are One ; one common 
 ground of life, one substance, the same in each, yet with 
 distinct individualities of life remaining, as there are 
 separate Persons in the One Substance of GOD." 
 
 Our LORD, as He uttered this prayer, was manifestly 
 looking forth over the whole expanse of the future, and 
 embracing in His Heart all generations, and each single 
 1 S. John xvii. 21.
 
 The Fruit of Love. 53 
 
 individual in each generation. He was anticipating the 
 vast, expanding, ever-growing communion of His per- 
 fected mystical Body, and so the completed manifesta- 
 tion of Himself in His redeeming Love, through which 
 every separate soul finds its true relation and living 
 connexion with every other, perfected as Himself, the 
 several members of the One Body become " the perfect 
 Man," the marvellous Image in the world of creatures, 
 of the Ineffable, adorable Triune GODHEAD. 
 
 Thus, through the Presence of our LORD, and our 
 perfect union with Him in the Holy Eucharist, we are 
 in union with all other blessed creatures, who are one 
 in Him. Because of His union with them, we, too, who 
 are one with Him, must needs be in union with them 
 also. In Him the whole kingdom of the Incarnation 
 exists, and in His coming and giving Himself to us, He 
 reknits ever freshly the ties which bind us to all His 
 elect, because their life is in Him, even as our life is in 
 Him. The whole " multitude, which no man can num- 
 ber," who have passed through and in Him into other 
 worlds, live in that common life which He imparts, 
 and are bound to us, as we to them, by His Communion 
 of Himself, which is the Life of all. We cannot, indeed, 
 fully apprehend the mystery, for we are speaking of the 
 world of spirits, and our minds are limited to the ideas 
 of time and space, laws to which we are now subject in 
 this natural order of being, But the conditions which 
 determine our present nature are broken through in 
 the miraculous Presence of our LORD in the Holy 
 Eucharist. He is there brought close to us by a miracle 
 which transcends the natural order, which annihilates 
 time and space, and as we are united with Him, so also 
 in Him we are united with all who in its power live and
 
 54 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 move and have their being after the same supernatural 
 laws. It is said of the Blessed, " They follow the Lamb 
 whithersoever He goeth." 1 They, as creatures, have 
 indeed their local place and habitation, and they cannot 
 be present, as He is present, through His incommu- 
 nicable divine prerogative, where and as He will. But 
 wherever He is, or whatever He does, the links of their 
 common life in Him are gathered up and knit together 
 in Him, as the Source and Centre, the Sustainer and 
 Nourisher, of their supernatural being, and all who re- 
 ceive Him meet and touch in a real communion through 
 their common central life. There is a mystical unity, 
 through His Presence, in an unceasing perpetual con- 
 tinuity of life, running as an endless golden chain, 
 knitting all in one. 
 
 We cannot understand how these things may be, 
 but our inner hearts are in some measure conscious of 
 the strange reality. As we apprehend our LORD giving 
 Himself to us through the veils of the Sacrament, we 
 are dimly conscious of more than Himself being with 
 us in that hour. We feel drawn to a whole world of 
 life. An innumerable company are around us. Forms 
 that cannot be seen are felt living, as we then live, in 
 eternity with GOD. All we love are there. A common 
 life, that knows no bound, is thrilling, as a vast tide 
 with its countless waves of light, around and within us. 
 The whole world of the Incarnation is felt in the Incar- 
 nate. The Angels and Archangels, who have yielded 
 their delighted homage to that kingdom, who pro- 
 foundly acknowledge the exaltation of a nature lower 
 than their own to the highest Throne, one with the 
 FATHER, who exult to minister to the Blessed in whom 
 1 Eev. xiv. 4.
 
 The Fruit of Love. 55 
 
 their LORD dwells, they are united with Him in His 
 Sacramental Presence. The Catholic Church has ever 
 held that angels and archangels are around the altar at 
 the moment of the mysterious manifestation of our 
 LORD, and together with us adore. 
 
 And as with the Holy Angels, so with the Blessed 
 who have been redeemed from the earth. The links 
 that bind us to them are drawn more closely through 
 the same Mystery, because they ever live in the same 
 Communion, and as we receive our One LORD, our 
 union with them is quickened afresh. We are conscious 
 of the common life which connects us with the count- 
 less generations who are feeding on an inner vision of 
 the Same LORD, Which fills them more and more per- 
 fectly, while we, in sacramental mystery, are being 
 changed into the same glory. 
 
 The Holy Eucharist extends the blessed mystery of 
 unity of life, because all things both in Heaven and in 
 earth, are reconciled together in CHRIST, and through 
 Its virtue all the worlds of light are fused into one. 
 At the hour of our communion the very same life is 
 filling us, which is filling those inner spheres of Divine 
 glory. Love embraces and absorbs all, suffusing all 
 whom it penetrates, passing beyond our horizon, where 
 time and space are not, and connecting our lower world 
 with the spheres in which the beatified rest in fulness 
 of joy in the plenitude of His glorious Presence, even 
 as He is hidden in the Bosom of His FATHER. 
 
 And as the Holy Eucharist thus, on one side, con- 
 nects us with the multitude of the Blessed who have 
 entered within the veil, so, on the other side, It em- 
 braces all here on earth, who belong to Him, by a true 
 fellowship. All who here on earth live in the Com-
 
 56 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 M 
 
 munion of our One LORD, bound together in the same 
 unity by the participation of the same Substance, are 
 drawn one to another by the continual increase of a 
 common love, by ever renewed outflowings of grace, and 
 become more and more perfect in their union one with 
 another, as with their One LORD. 
 
 The effect of this union in Him should have its prac- 
 tical results. Its sacred power should do away those 
 natural impediments which separate one heart from 
 another, through differences and contrarieties of cha- 
 racter or position, obliterating them in the conscious- 
 ness of the one life which is growing in all who feed 
 upon the same sacred Food, and so receive into them- 
 selves the same Substance, of life. As to the eye of 
 faith all who are His form a perfect unity, so to the 
 heart, kindled by the same Spirit, there is one growing 
 fulness of love, arising from the consciousness of the 
 same Living, Life-giving Presence, reconciling and 
 combining all together amid all varieties of individual 
 personality, one glory possessing all alike, to form each 
 and all, in their various measures of grace, after the 
 same likeness of His own perfect Divine Humanity. 
 
 On this ground rests the call to active care and love 
 towards others, according to His will Who binds all in 
 one for the mutual interchange of loving duty and 
 kindly services. 
 
 "We rest, first, on the blessedness of one's own per- 
 sonal life in JESUS. Then arises the joyous sense of 
 union with all who are one with our LORD in His glory 
 above, and there see His Face. Then, next, is felt the 
 consciousness of a blessed fellowship with all on earth 
 who share the same supernatural life. The heart goes 
 forth as it apprehends the vastness of this commu-
 
 The Fruit of Love. 57 
 
 nity of life in our One LORD, even as He rejoices in 
 His life in them. And in the sense of that oneness 
 the heart forgets the differences which mar love, as 
 the mystical Body is stirred by the Divine call, the voice 
 of the Beloved, the pleading of the One Sacred Heart. 
 
 At the altar of JESUS we learn more and more of this 
 Divine Love : for when the FATHER from above looks 
 down on each one of us, He sees in us His beloved 
 SON, and in that sight of His Only-begotten taking up 
 His abode in us, and abiding in us, O infinite, in- 
 effable mercy of GOD ! He overlooks all that mars our 
 life, the impurities which still cling to us, the infirmities 
 which still beset us. He overlooks all, cleansing them 
 in the precious Blood, and hiding them from before His 
 Face in CHRIST for ever. He loves us in spite of our 
 un worthiness. His eye is fixed on the presence of our 
 LORD within us. He owns us as one with Him. He 
 heeds not the disorder, even though some fresh sinful 
 thought spring up within us. He is more ready to put 
 away our sin than we are to sin. He bears continually 
 with that constant liability to sin which still remains, 
 which cannot cease, except as we put off the burden of the 
 flesh. The yet clinging concupiscence of our deformed 
 nature He overlooks, as He sees the Person of His SON 
 abiding in us. 
 
 This is the ground of His love, and this causes our 
 hearts to be to Him the haven of His rest, the fulness 
 of His joy in us. While He beholds us as the thankful 
 recipients of the Indwelling Presence of His SON, cling- 
 ing to It, longing more and more to be filled with It, 
 He has a delight in us. He sees, moreover, what we 
 shall be in the future consummation of His purpose for 
 us sees in Its present beginnings the whole after de-
 
 58 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 velopment through the endless ages of what His Beloved 
 SON will be in us in the accomplished triumph of His 
 grace. The earthen vessel is already resplendent with 
 the heavenly treasure. The perishable Tabernacle is 
 lost to view in the radiance of that Presence, Which the 
 FATHER sees within, beneath, around, everywhere. As 
 this our acceptance in Him is the ground of hope for 
 ourselves, so we should be drawn to others, as He, our 
 GOD, draws to Himself all who are gathered within the 
 Kingdom of His grace ; for from Him, our One LORD, 
 flows forth the stream of life which fills by degrees all 
 who hunger and thirst after His perfect righteousness, 
 making all one, even as Himself and His FATHER are One. 
 
 We should look on others as GOD looks on us, 
 because CHRIST is in them as He is in us. It is His 
 Presence, alike in them and us, which forms a true 
 spiritual relationship, and we ought so to magnify that 
 Presence, be so lost in wonder in the consciousness of 
 It, have such a large-hearted faith in It, that in Its 
 power we should overlook failings, disorders, misunder- 
 standings, naturally keeping us apart, and hindering 
 mere natural sympathies. And if this earnest life 
 were sustained, it would tell on all our common inter- 
 course there would be a considerateness, a forgiving- 
 ness and forbearingness, a fellowship of kindness, ever 
 replenished at the same sources of the hidden life, 
 quickening all alike. 
 
 And where should this union be more perfectly ful- 
 filled than in those who, like yourselves, are continually 
 receiving their LORD, with such short intervals between 
 the times of their communion, 1 whose life has but one 
 end and one profession, of being ever most closely 
 1 The allusion is to Daily Celebration.
 
 The Fruit of Love. 59 
 
 united with the Fountain Head of this heavenly life, 
 the LORD of this ever blessed Fellowship ? Where can 
 there be such an abiding, ever-growing sense of CHRIST 
 in each and all, as in those who are knit together by the 
 close-drawn bonds of Religious life, one in the common 
 love of the Same LORD, and the same profession? 
 
 You would learn, were this life in GOD real and 
 earnest in your hearts, to think less and less of differ- 
 ences and disagreements, to bear and forbear in the 
 sweetness of a common blessed consciousness, so that 
 your life would become the faithful copy of that ever- 
 lasting Life in which the diversity of Persons only 
 multiplies the common love in the One Divine Nature. 
 The variations and distinctive individuality of the com- 
 ponent members of the Community would but increase 
 the harmony and joy, growing through the expression 
 of many graces, which have their beginning and their 
 ending in one and the same eternal source of life. 
 
 As day after day you adore and partake together of 
 the One Bread from Heaven, so day by day you would 
 be growing more and more into the unity of the self- 
 same Life, thrilling with its manifold pulsations of love, 
 coalescing in the same centre of a common Joy. 
 
 It is often advised as one of the lesser counsels of 
 love, for those who are estranged by variances, to kneel 
 side by side at the Altar, that stretching out their hands 
 together, as though closely linked in one, they may 
 receive their GOD in personal contact, and return 
 quickened with a common sense of the same Life 
 within them, all causes of difference lost in the common 
 consciousness of the same indescribable bliss. This 
 rule should be extended as a law of life after Communion 
 to continue as an undying impression, so that all hin-
 
 60 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 drances of love, all causes of misunderstanding, or dis- 
 pleasure, or distaste, as they arise, may be absorbed in 
 the sense of a perpetuated fellowship in the same super- 
 natural life. 
 
 Cherish then this most precious bond of union, that, 
 realizing the Presence of JESUS in yourself and in 
 others, you may be known as His by the tenderness 
 which flows forth from you and returns into you, the 
 loving-kindness which assimilates you in one common 
 unity of grace ; and this not merely by a formal com- 
 panionship, to be seen externally by the outward eye, 
 but as a real inward unity acknowledged by GOD Who 
 seeth in secret. 
 
 O GOD, our GOD, Who dwellest in that Love which 
 purifieth all being, and sweetly bindeth together all 
 Thy works, how blessed to hope, how full of joy to 
 believe, that one day, if we are true, we shall enter in 
 and partake of this same mind of love in Its fulness, to 
 be even as Thou art, and live with Thee and Thy Elect 
 together for ever. O may this perfectness at last be 
 wrought in us, that love knowing no let or hindrance 
 may draw us more and more into Thy own oneness of 
 life, our earthly fellowship becoming a true, though 
 faint, reflection of that heavenly society, which Thy 
 grace has begun to form even in this vale of tears, this 
 land of strife. Breathe it into our hearts, preserve its 
 fervour in us. May it be the imprinting in us of Thy 
 great Sacrifice, the power of a faith which worketh by 
 love, in which Thou, O GOD, wilt fulfil all Thy good 
 pleasure, the perfectness of Thy predestination in the 
 children of Thy election, the recompense of the sufferings 
 of CHRIST JESUS our LORD. Amen.
 
 YIL 
 
 SPIRITUAL AND SACRAMENTAL 
 COMMUNION. 
 
 A VERY important difference, of which all are conscious, 
 exists between Spiritual and Sacramental Communion, 
 between receiving our LORD simply by an act of faith, 
 and receiving Him under the Sacramental species. 
 They are distinct modes of receiving Him, and both are 
 true : for that Spiritual Communion has its own special 
 grace and blessing, has been at all times the belief of 
 the Church, and our own Church advises it when we 
 are hindered from Sacramental Communion. 1 
 
 The difference between these two modes of receiving 
 our LORD is generally understood to be as follows. 
 
 In Spiritual Communion we receive our LORD ac- 
 cording to our own powers and fitness, according to 
 our own measure of correspondence with His grace, 
 and consequently with limitations and hindrances, de- 
 pendent on our own defective capacity. The Gift is 
 regulated according to the measure of what oneself is. 
 It has therefore more the purpose of sustaining the life 
 that is in us, than adding fresh powers or enlarging the 
 endowments of the Divine Presence. 
 
 In Sacramental Communion, on the other hand, we 
 receive our LORD according to His own Fulness, as He 
 
 1 See the third Eubric in the Service for the Communion of the Sick.
 
 62 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 is in Himself, according to His own measure of love, 
 His own largeness of beneficence, His own power of 
 blessing, irrespectively of our own imperfections or 
 narrowness of capacity. 
 
 In the one case we attract our LORD, as it were, to 
 ourselves with, the drawings of which we ourselves are 
 capable ; in the other case He gives forth Himself ac- 
 cording to His own full and absolute purpose from all 
 Eternity of imparting Himself, in the unrestrained 
 generosity of His love, as a King giving largesses, as 
 a GOD filling all things with His Presence. 
 
 Spiritual Communion is as when, by opening a nar- 
 row channel of our own designing, we let in a portion 
 of the waters of the great deep on some natural level. 
 Sacramental Communion is as when the full ocean 
 flood-tide rises and lifts up the waters to their highest 
 range, and spreads itself forth, filling every cavity with 
 its own irresistible power. Sacramentally He comes 
 after His own way, in the Fulness of His own Purpose, 
 in the grandeur of His own Royal Gift, and pours Him- 
 self over and within His Redeemed. 
 
 Our consciousness in the two modes of reception differs 
 according to the difference of the Presence and of the 
 Gift : for in Spiritual Communion we are conscious of the 
 acting and reacting of one's own life on His Life, as we 
 open our hearts to receive Him with the sweet sense of a 
 love that embraces, a love that is embraced, a meeting 
 of one's own being with His Being, in the quickening, 
 stirring, softening grace, that the Blessed Spirit has 
 awakened, with peace and hope renewed. Such is the 
 consciousness in Spiritual Communion. But how vastly 
 increased are such sensations, how immeasurably fuller 
 is the sense of the Divine Presence in Sacramental
 
 Spiritual and Sacramental Communion. 63 
 
 Communion ! There all other consciousness is lost in 
 the one absorbing sense that He has possessed us, and 
 made us His own ; that He has filled us with Himself, 
 taken us captive, taken us into Himself, so that every- 
 thing of Heaven or earth has passed into the one idea, 
 " He is in me and I in Him." It is not merely the con- 
 sciousness of being together with Him, but of being no 
 longer one's own, no longer acting, thinking as of one- 
 self, no longer having any distinct life, a simple yield- 
 ing oneself up to be another's, because that Other has 
 filled one with His Fulness. All other movements of life 
 are in that moment suspended, and become as though 
 they were not, while the soul gives itself up to the one 
 thought, or rather, for it is scarcely thought, to the 
 one absorbed sense of joy and rest, such as is ex- 
 perienced in raptures of silent prayer of which such 
 Communion is the crown and perfectness, because it is 
 not oneself, but Himself in us, Who is thus communing 
 in us and through us with the Living GOD, Himself the 
 perfect GOD. 
 
 Another question arises in connexion with Sacra- 
 mental Communion, as to the length of time the special 
 sacramental Gift, the Presence which possesses the 
 soul, lasts in its Fulness. Is it so that our LORD abides 
 in us only so long as the outer forms of the Sacrament 
 abide in us, the special inner secret Presence received 
 through the outward elements being lost with them? 
 But this would be too much to identify the inward and 
 the outward, when our LORD in His secret Gift is 
 merely taking the outward form as a vehicle, a means 
 of entering into us, to be with us afterwards according 
 to His own Power, irrespective of the accidents or cir- 
 cumstances of the perishing creature. Or again, having
 
 64 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 once received, is it enough ? Is one Communion suf- 
 ficient for the whole after life? Does our LORD ever 
 afterwards abide because of the one reception, so that 
 after-communions add nothing to the one Gift ? This, 
 again, is inconsistent with His own word, which iden- 
 tifies that reception with the image of the Bread of 
 Life, which needs to be received day by day. 
 
 How then are we to understand this mystery? A 
 distinction needs to be observed. Our LORD'S imparting 
 Himself to us does not imply that we are always to be 
 in the very state in which we are when we actually re- 
 ceive Him. This would be inconsistent with our earthly 
 condition; it would be Heaven itself before its time, 
 an entrance completed into that fulness of joy which 
 is reserved as the promised beatitude of a blissful eternity, 
 when our transformed and glorified nature will become 
 capable of an unchanging, abiding unity of Life in GOD. 
 It would be inconsistent, as with our earthly state, so 
 with our earthly discipline, with the law of gradual ad- 
 vancement. The Eucharistic Presence is intended to 
 be a foretaste of Heaven, a coming in, from time to 
 time, of a most blessed accession of Divine Strength, an 
 antepast of the Eternal Communion which will here- 
 after be ever full, yet ever-increasing. It is indeed, for 
 the time, a fulness of possession, a peaceful absorbed- 
 ness in the Divine Life, overshadowing and possessing 
 our whole nature; but it is not intended that this 
 should continue the same on our return to our habitual 
 converse with the outer world, its claims of duty and 
 of fellowship, its cares and its conflicts, its trials and 
 endurances. 
 
 In every renewed reception, indeed, we receive an 
 increase of grace, as the result of another act of
 
 Spiritual and Sacramental Communion. 65 
 
 complete union ; but afterwards we return to our more 
 ordinary state, ever advancing, indeed, according to the 
 degree of our co-operation with our LORD, yet still 
 ever, with the advance, retiring to the habitual level, 
 even while conscious of His Presence. Not that the 
 influence, the power of His Presence is withdrawn, but 
 that, according to the law of our gradual growth, we 
 subside into what we are ourselves by grace enabled 
 to be; we return from that high converse which has, 
 while it lasts, a consciousness of entire possession, a 
 completeness and fulness of union, into a sense of 
 needed effort, the exercise of our own power and 
 energies, which, though secretly sustained by Him, 
 are yet our own. Not that we are not still in Him, 
 not that we have not still all the assurance of the 
 oneness of which the Eucharist is the Divine Seal and 
 Pledge, but that there is a withdrawal from the soul 
 of that conscious flood-tide of grace which, pausing for 
 a while at its height, ebbs, often quickly, drawn back 
 into its own depths, not indeed ever far from us, not 
 gone out from us, but hidden, its effects remaining to 
 be worked into and out of us through active practical 
 correspondence of our being with His, our mission in 
 the world with His mission in us. 
 
 Here then let us stay and seek to grasp a truth to 
 which, if we are faithful, we may ever look for renewed 
 peace and strength. Whether we speak of the Divine 
 Communion as receiving the Infinite into oneself, or 
 oneself being lost in the Infinite ; whether the one or 
 the other expression most clearly defines the actual 
 reality, we know not; for both express the mind of Holy 
 Scripture, and are therefore both literally true. We 
 read of being " baptised into CHRIST." So likewise, in 
 
 F
 
 66 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 a yet profounder sense, we are assimilated with CHRIST, 
 as we feed on Him in His Eucharistic Presence. We 
 read of being " hidden with CHRIST in GOD/' as though 
 we passed through the Divine Humanity into the In- 
 finiteness of the Godhead, our own finiteness being 
 taken up into the vastness and innermost Light of the 
 Being of the Creator, through the fulness of our union 
 with the Only Beloved SON, the express Image of the 
 FATHER. On the other hand we have the assurance 
 of being " filled with all the fulness of GOD," as if we 
 contained Him, were possessing Him, as if we could 
 circumscribe Him, even taking Him into ourselves, so 
 as to have the whole Blessed Trinity abiding in our- 
 selves, the outward forms of some wonderful grace, 
 as if we were receptacles in which the ever Blessed, 
 Glorious Godhead finds a local abode. And both these 
 expressions meet in our prayer of "humble access/' 
 just before the critical moment of consecration and re- 
 ception ; for we then pray that " we may dwell in Him, 
 and He in us." 
 
 Either way, then, we may speak of the marvellous 
 Gift, the amazing mystery of Eucharistic Union. We 
 may view, each oneself^ as__a Cavity in the shore, into 
 which the waters of the ocean pour out their fulness ; 
 or as a waif caught from a rock, and taken up into the 
 deep waters, to be upborne upon the bosom of the great 
 deep, moving as it moves along its boundless track. 
 
 O most marvellous Love of GOD ! Thou unitest Thy- 
 self with Thine Own, and fillest them with Thyself. 
 Wonderful and Mysterious GOD, thus most intimately 
 near to us, and yet so profoundly hidden from us ! To 
 know Thee as Thou art, to see Thee without a cloud, 
 without a veil between to shroud Thee from our longing
 
 Spiritual and Sacramental Communion. 67 
 
 gaze, this surpasses all powers of conception. But 
 even still more do we seem unable to comprehend Thy 
 real Presence within us such as we are now, that Thou 
 surely art thus in us entirely our own. This seems the 
 more wonderful, that Eternity and Infiniteness are 
 hidden in us even as we are. We ponder, as we seek 
 to realize, the blessed assurance of what is ineffable, 
 incomprehensible, what we believe and adore, as our 
 own Life in Thee now, and long to know Thee more 
 perfectly, as Thou art. Thou art in my_self, and myself 
 in Thee; and this in the Fulness of Thy mysterious 
 perfections. If I return to my ordinary state, to live 
 according to the grace given to me, separate from 
 the actual communion with Thee, it is only because 
 I know I may return again and again into the same 
 consciousness, to taste again and again of the same 
 Fulness to be poured out upon me in the ever-recurring 
 tides of supernatural life and unmeasured richness of 
 blessing. 
 
 The question remains to be asked by each one for 
 himself, with increasing earnestness, " How can I live 
 more truly according to this faith ? Can I not more 
 fitly, and with increased power, correspond with this 
 inward Life, this great Gift of my LORD ?" And, again, 
 " What are the qualities most needful to cherish, that I 
 may be fitted so to live in the power of this wonderful 
 union with the Lifegiving GOD ?" Growing reverence, ' 
 more fervent love, quickened sensitiveness to the Jeast '' 
 shadow of sin, increasing care of self- discipline, more 
 recollection of His indwelling Presence, more constant 
 watchfulness, deeper belief in the blessed possession, 
 more perfect guarding of all inward, as well as outward, 
 
 F 2
 
 68 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 movements and impulses of the body, which has become 
 instinct with the Fulness of the Divine Life, greater 
 earnestness in fulfilling the mission on which the LORD 
 sends us forth between the intervals of our blessed 
 intercourse with Him, the subdual of self, as it rises 
 again and again to mar His work in us, and contest 
 His reign within us, strong wrestling with our frailty, 
 lest it draw us down, and cost us the utter loss of Him 
 these, and suchlike exercises of the spiritual life, 
 seem specially needful to be cherished, and to be esta- 
 blished in us. 
 
 Consider what is wanting in these respects ; what is 
 lacking in us to follow wholly the call for secret onward 
 growth, so that the tenor of our lives may be more 
 harmonious with our true condition, and that there 
 may be the more faithful fulfilment of the workings of 
 Heavenly Grace in the soul's ordinary life. 
 
 There needs, moreover, to be a very careful, constant 
 preparation for the reception of this Great Mystery, in 
 anticipation of the approach of our LORD, in looking 
 forward to His renewed gifts. If we were to hear a 
 voice telling us that at any moment we might be actually 
 in Heaven, gazing, feeding upon GOD, in the fulness of 
 a perfected vision, what a startling announcement it 
 would be ! What a gathering up there would be of the 
 whole inner consciousness into that one amazing ex- 
 pectancy, everything else that ever before occupied us 
 passing away from the mind ! Yet what is it but the 
 Same Object without sight, indeed, without trans- 
 ference of place, still, though unseen, veiled, yet 
 surely the Same ; the same reality of the Divine Pre- 
 sence, the same richness and sweetness of Divine Glory, 
 the same in Himself, though not as yet possibly the
 
 Spiritual and Sacramental Communion. 69 
 
 same to us. And if so, there is need for all care in pre- 
 paration, to stay our steps amid the hurried movements 
 of our life on earth, to gain time, however inadequate 
 the effort, to gather up our consciousness, saying within 
 oneself, " I am going to be possessed with that Divine 
 Presence of Him Whom I ceaselessly adore and love. 
 He will arise and come and present Himself before me, 
 and pour Himself forth upon me as a flood, the whole 
 blessed Humanity of my LORD, the whole infinite God- 
 head of the ineffable Trinity." 
 
 And if it be necessarily so with the preparation, it 
 must be so likewise in the after care, the carrying out 
 practically, as we retire from the altar, of the grace we 
 have received in the joy of our conscious possession. 
 Even though we cannot keep this consciousness as full, 
 as vivid as at the first, while we think and speak and 
 act, and bear our Cross, and labour on, and go about 
 the work of our daily life, yet the results of what has 
 passed upon us ought to be still manifesting themselves 
 in us, penetrating us by its power through all the expres- 
 sions and outgoings of our being, giving an Eucharistic 
 character, a tone and spirit of Divine Communion, to 
 . the least expression of our daily life. Are we not to be 
 marked still, as we go to and fro, by signs which will 
 manifest to all around, that the Infinite GOD has con- 
 descended to unite Himself with us in a marvellous 
 union, to take up His abode in us ? 
 
 O surely, while this assurance of the reality of His 
 Presence within us is embraced by our thankful, re- 
 joicing hearts, one aim, one purpose, one earnest resolu- 
 tion there should be to live this Sacramental Life, that 
 we may be known by the great "cloud of witnesses " 
 who compass us about, the watchers around the Throne
 
 70 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 of GOD, that we are indeed taking earnest care that 
 the manifestation of CHRIST may be found in us ; that 
 through the outer veil of our words and acts which 
 make up our daily life, GOD'S piercing eye may discern, 
 as their vital and ever growing principle, the power of 
 that Presence Which He condescends so wonderfully to 
 impart. 
 
 O LORD, help us in Thy own fulness of Grace, and 
 grant that Thou, Who art All in all to us, mayest sustain 
 in us such a power of correspondence with Thy Love ; 
 for Thou must not only give Thyself, Thou must also 
 give the power and the will to live unto Thee. Thou 
 must give all that the creature's helplessness needs to 
 keep Thee in remembrance, as we bear Thee about in 
 us. Thou must keep down and overcome in us all 
 that is at variance with Thy loving purpose for us. 
 For without Thy aid I cannot hope to co-operate with 
 Thee, however greatly I long and strive. Would that 
 I might say with truth, resting on this Thy unfailing 
 grace ; c It is no longer I that live, but Thou, O CHRIST, 
 that livest in me ; " and the life which I now live in the 
 flesh I live by the faith of the SON of GOD, Who loved 
 me, and gave Himself (not only) for me/' J but to me, 
 to be in me, that wholly and for ever, I may be one 
 with Thee/ 
 
 1 Gal. ii. 20.
 
 YIIL 
 
 THE SINLESS LIFE. 
 
 IT was of old questioned in the schools of theology, 
 whether the SON of GOD would have come in the flesh, 
 if man had not sinned. Some thought that He came 
 only as a remedy for the Fall, that His Incarnation be- 
 came necessary only because sin could not otherwise 
 be healed and overcome ; that therefore we owe our 
 glorious estate in the perfected Humanity of CHRIST 
 to our lost condition. Others, on the contrary and 
 their opinion has prevailed, taught that our LORD'S 
 coming was irrespective of the Fall; that it was de- 
 signed from the beginning for the ultimate perfection 
 of the creature. And it is, indeed, scarcely possible to 
 believe that the wonderful exaltation of the creature 
 involved in the incarnation of GOD, could have resulted 
 from his Fall ; that we should be gainers by our sin. 
 
 According to this view it appears that GOD'S only 
 true idea of Humanity is Humanity as it is in CHRIST ; 
 that GOD originally planned to form the creature on 
 this most perfect model, that he might be raised into 
 union with Himself; that the idea of the Divine Mind 
 was to be carried into effect through His only-begotten 
 SON taking upon Himself the human nature in union 
 with His Own Divine Nature; and that this is what 
 the Scriptures mean, when He is spoken of as "the
 
 72 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 First-Born of every creature ;" that He is the first idea, 
 the first substantial Form of Humanity which awoke in 
 the Mind of GOD, and that only after Him, and because 
 of Him, and as partaking some more, some less of 
 His Likeness, the predestined communion of His Elect 
 was to be formed ; that therefore it is not that CHRIST 
 came for us and because of us, but that we were brought 
 into being because of Him, He the express Image of 
 the FATHER, we, in our several degrees, more or less 
 images of Him, and, in proportion as we partake of 
 His Likeness, partaking of His Beatitude and His 
 Glory. 
 
 This same question affecting our Blessed LORD, affects 
 also the Holy Eucharist. It is equally open to debate, 
 whether this great Sacrament would have been insti- 
 tuted if man had not sinned. It may be said, that it 
 was given to us only that we might be healed of the 
 effects of the Fall, as a means by which GOD would 
 communicate Himself to fallen man, to restore him to 
 what he had lost. The other view is that, whether man 
 had sinned or not, the Holy Eucharist would equally 
 have been ordained, that through it, as communicating 
 the life of the Incarnation, the creature might be per- 
 fected; that man, in his original unfallen condition, 
 during his state of probation, would have received eternal 
 life from GOD through the outward veil of this same 
 Mystery, to be thus trained and fitted to see Him un- 
 veiled, and live in His visible Presence for ever. 
 
 The decision as regards the institution of the Holy 
 Eucharist follows the judgment we form as to the In- 
 carnation. If we believe that the Incarnation would 
 have taken place as the first idea of the creature in the 
 Mind of GOD, irrespective of sin, the Passion and suffer-
 
 The Sinless Life. 73 
 
 ings being only superadded as the necessary form which 
 the Incarnation took because of the sin of man needing 
 atonement, so we may believe, with regard to the Holy 
 Eucharist, that if there had been no sin, it would still 
 have been instituted, only with different results. There 
 would have been no healing of the fallen nature through 
 it, for there would have been no need of healing ; but 
 there would equally have been the need of nourish- 
 ment for the creature, as well as of raising the creature, 
 and thus assimilating him to GOD. There would have 
 been the same communion as now between GOD and 
 man, through the medium of the same Sacrament, only 
 no longer for cleansing, but for sustaining and perfect- 
 ing the soul and body in their gradual advance to glory. 
 
 See, then, to what an exalted position this belief lifts 
 up the Blessed Sacrament ! What a field of view it opens 
 out to us as to its real nature ! For, whatever may be 
 its cleansing, its power of atoning virtue, its first design, 
 its leading thought, is irrespective of sin, is simply to 
 unite us with GOD, to enfold us in a sinless Communion 
 with Him, to make us perfectly one with Him, as it 
 would have been before the Fall, before even the temp- 
 tation to separate from Him had arisen. And still by 
 this means, thus continued, in spite of the Fall, we are 
 brought for a while into Communion with GOD, as if 
 there had never been sin. 
 
 It is so with regard to our LORD Himself, as He 
 gives Himself to us, and also in the view in which He 
 regards us. With regard to our LORD Himself, He 
 presents Himself to us in the Blessed Sacrament freed 
 from the marks of the sin which He endured for us, 
 and which marred His Beauty. His Passion is wholly 
 finished, and the humiliation through which He is con-
 
 74 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 nected with sin has ceased. Though in this Sacrament 
 He offers Himself as a Sacrifice for sin, yet He pleads 
 it as a thing that is past. All marks of suffering are 
 gone from Him, and nothing but the peace, and bright- 
 ness, and perfect heavenliness of the glorified condition 
 into which His Sacred Humanity is exalted, attaches 
 to the view of His Sacramental Presence. He is there, 
 indeed, as the One Source of Atonement, but still this 
 aspect of the Mystery is held in subordination ; it is 
 only because He pleads what He has borne for us. 
 His Sacramental Presence is in the radiance of the 
 Eternal Light, in which for ever He abides as His 
 proper Home. It is as though the storm had passed, 
 and the perfect calm of radiant joy had succeeded ; as 
 though the restful union of His perfected Humanity in 
 GOD only remained as the one pervading idea to dwell 
 upon the souls of His Faithful. 
 
 In accordance with this idea, the expressions used in 
 the Eucharistic Service in the very act of imparting 
 Him to us, have been framed. This appears more clearly 
 if we compare with them the mode of administering Holy 
 Baptism. The gift of grace in Baptism is accompanied 
 with the express mention of the need of striving against 
 the sin which the regenerate child of GOD is sent forth 
 to meet and overcome. He is commanded to be a 
 " faithful soldier of CHRIST, to fight manfully against 
 the world, the flesh, and the devil." Baptism looks to 
 his future need in the prospect of the sore conflict 
 against sin, in which he is to fulfil his course in the 
 strength of GOD. It presupposes all the risk, the 
 struggle, the constant watchfulness. But not so in im- 
 parting the Gift of the Holy Eucharist. Then the mind 
 is led to dwell only on the Body and the Blood, which
 
 The Sinless Life. 75 
 
 are the well-springs of the purified Life, in which we 
 live for ever; on the remembrance that He is ours who 
 is the Glory of the Resurrection : on the thankfulness 
 with which we should be filled, as being at rest in GOD. 
 No other idea is to intrude itself. Sin is withdrawn ; 
 the very thought of the possible return to sin is kept 
 back. The idea of the necessity of having to battle 
 with sin, is for the moment put wholly out of our view. 
 There is no mention of it, no coupling of the miserable 
 fact with the Presence of the Creator. The perfectness 
 of the heavenly union is not to be disturbed. The 
 supreme bliss is not to be clouded with the thought of 
 our still lingering in a world of sin, of our having to 
 fight against it. The only ideas impressed are : " The 
 Body, the Blood, of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, preserve 
 thy body, thy soul, unto eternal life ; eat, drink, in re- 
 membrance that CHRIST died for thee, feed on Him in 
 thy heart, be thankful." Nothing of sin, or of the 
 struggle with the world, is heard by the ear; the heart 
 dwells only on the thought of the blessing which has 
 been received. It is as though Heaven were actually 
 opened to us, and our life had passed into the Life 
 of JESUS, into the innermost circle of the Adorable 
 Trinity ; as if the fulness and perfectness of the after- 
 eternity of bliss had actually come before its time. The 
 one only thought is that of our blissful Communion in 
 GOD. All else is separated off. We have, as we return 
 from the altar, to fight against sin as before, but at the 
 time of Communion the consciousness is mercifully 
 withheld, that the enjoyment of the Divine Mystery 
 may be complete. Sin is not spoken of. It is as though 
 it were not, as if there were no sin in us, nor evermore 
 any sin to arise in us.
 
 76 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 Our preparation and immediate approach is intended 
 to cherish the same idea. The Eucharistic Service is 
 conceived with the extremest care to put away sin, as 
 a thing healed, before we partake of the perfect Life. 
 We are presumed to be in entire peace with GOD, before 
 we approach. If there had been sin to hinder it, 
 a separate sacramental cleansing is ordained. The 
 "benefit of absolution," to which the Church directs 
 us in such case, is a distinct exercise of the absolving 
 power, not part of the service itself. But notwith- 
 standing this previous reconciliation with GOD, there 
 is in the Service itself a very solemn confession, 
 followed by an exercise of the absolving power, that 
 even the lightest fault which may have been committed, 
 even in the act of preparation, may be put away. The 
 absolution in the Service is a special superadded pro- 
 vision made for us, just before we touch GOD, and are 
 touched by Him, lest even the shadow of a fault, or of 
 the thought of sin, may at the very last moment inter- 
 fere with the completed joy of a perfect union with the 
 All Holy. It is not, indeed, that this sacramental re- 
 ception of our LORD is without a healing and cleansing 
 power in itself; for this must accompany His Presence 
 wherever He is. Such power must be specially active 
 in the Service in which His Atoning Death is com- 
 memorated, and His Sacrifice for sin mystically renewed. 
 But this blessed truth is, as it were, the silent under- 
 tone of the mystery it is not the prominent idea of 
 the Eucharist. The imparting Himself is the leading 
 object, the offering and the cleansing are but means 
 towards it. Sin has been already put away, and the 
 communication of the sinless One to the cleansed soul 
 ; is the one desire. He who comes to enter in sees no
 
 The Sinless Life. 77 
 
 longer any sin to bar His perfect possession, and the 'I 
 FATHER sees no more even the soul itself, only His 
 Beloved SON pervading, possessing it. It is the re- 
 deemed and purified from the earth meeting the 
 Redeemer and Purifier from Heaven; the accepted 
 creature from below united with the perfected God- / 
 head from above, in an endless ineffable embrace of 
 love. 
 
 At such a moment our hearts may go forth in an un- 
 troubled sense of unspeakable blessedness, for Heaven 
 is indeed already ours. Our eternity of bliss is ensured 
 in the accomplished union of the everlasting GOD and the 
 creature of the election of His love, made one in CHRIST, f 
 This is the intended glory and rest to be enjoyed at' 
 each time of reception, sin and the world shut out ! 
 from the hallowed circle in which the soul is enwrapt \ 
 in GOD; all consciousness, for the time, lost, except ' 
 only the Fulness of GOD, and oneself in GOD. 
 
 Oh ! marvellous gift of Love, speaking to us of the 
 triumph of grace over sin and death, of peace in the 
 midst of care, of the light that knows no clouding ! 
 
 Each reception of this sinless power of indwelling- 
 grace is, moreover, a fresh starting-point of newness of 
 life. Through it we may be ever more and more going on . 
 unto perfection, for it is ever a renewed commencement , 
 both of more perfect converse with GOD, and of a truer 
 intercourse with the creature. 
 
 First, with regard to GOD. We may start afresh 
 from this mystical union of oneself, known and seen 
 only in CHRIST, with CHRIST living in us to guard and / 
 keep us for Himself. If this grace were to operate ac- 
 cording to the purpose of GOD, what would the intervals - 
 of such Divine Communion be ? There would be cease-
 
 78 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 less love in the perfectly accepted creature communing 
 with predestinating love in the Heart of GOD ; purity 
 of the divinely cleansed soul rejoicing in its fellowship 
 with the very Source of Holiness ; peace in the soul fed 
 by the Peace which reigns eternally in Heaven ; virtue 
 ever growing through the constant inbreathing of the 
 Spirit's secret inspirations. Such would be the in- 
 tervals of communion, if the true response of the creature 
 met the truth of GOD ; if the acting and reacting of the 
 marvellous fellowship fulfilled its purpose and accom- 
 plished its end. 
 
 (2.) So, too, with regard to those with whom we hold 
 converse among the creatures. As between ourselves 
 and GOD there would be a tenderly affectionate, a per- 
 fectly trustful intercourse, founded on the consciousness 
 of this closeness of union, so with regard to others our 
 intercourse would be grounded on the belief, that with 
 them we share the common lot of a perfectly accepted 
 state of purest love, GOD looking on them and us alike, 
 as though they, even as ourselves, were altogether sin- 
 
 I less in Him, seeing in us and them alike His only Be- 
 loved SON, and Him only; as though being taken up 
 together into Heaven, we were together going forth to 
 carry out our mission on earth, to return again and 
 again to be enwrapt together in the Fulness of the 
 same Ocean of Bliss. Would not such be our inter- 
 course with others who, like ourselves, had received our 
 LORD, if we felt alike that we were the subjects of the 
 same amazing mystery, if the same pervading sense 
 penetrated us, and leavened all our converse and this 
 a consciousness to be ever renewed as we feed continually 
 at the same altars ! How would the sweetness of the 
 love of CHRIST animate our conversation ! How would
 
 The Sinless Life. 79 
 
 the conscience resent, and rise earnestly to condemn 
 the very least departure from Him Who reigns within 
 us and them, and Who had become the only acknow- 
 ledged law of our life ! 
 
 Some few rules for the regulation of our thoughts 
 may be added. Dwell on the design of the perfectness 
 of our nature as it exists in the Mind of GOD, and as it 
 is embodied in the Divine Humanity of JESUS. Think 
 that thou art true only as thy own life corresponds with 
 this Divine ideal. View thyself as the canvas on which ( 
 the Hand of GOD is painting the forms and beauties of I 
 what He perpetually sees in His only-begotten SON. 
 
 (2.) Look at yourself, and your appointed life, not- 
 withstanding all faults and imperfections, as formed 
 into a capacity to receive continual impressions of that 
 intended perfectness embodied in the life of JESUS. 
 Look at each one of your members, each faculty, as in- 
 tended and fitted to be the organ of exhibiting some 
 perfection of His life ; yourself called into being only 
 for this purpose, only for Him and in Him, for the one 
 end of being formed in His Image, to be glorified together 
 with Him in the FATHER. 
 
 (3.) Think that GOD so loved, so desired the existence 
 of the creature, even your own life ; so willed that His 
 Own Glory should be manifested in the perfection of. 
 the creature, that after He had seen all that is most 
 perfect in thy LORD, He shed Himself forth for the 1 
 extension of the same life. He did not rest, He was not 
 satisfied, till the perfectness of the Life of CHRIST might ' 
 be formed in thyself; that His eyes might repose on ! 
 thee, and say, It is " very good/' seeing CHRIST formed 
 in thee, not CHRIST in Himself alone.
 
 80 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 (4.) Think further how the wonderful Incarnation of 
 the Glory of GOD was marred by the Passion, His Soul 
 desolated by the sorrows of the Agony, His Body torn 
 on the Cross, only because this perfectness of union could 
 not be wrought out, except through this amazing Sacri- 
 fice; because, rather than His design should fail, He, 
 our GOD, would bear all that pain, and all that shame of 
 humiliation ; and that thus, notwithstanding all we have 
 caused Him to endure, He looks upon us, He lives in 
 us, as though we had never grieved Him. 
 
 O JESU, O Sacred Heart of the living GOD ! Grant 
 that we fail not now to preserve this grace ; that Thou 
 mayest evermore find rest in us, our sin being indeed 
 wholly put away, and Thyself evermore growing unto 
 the formation of a true likeness of Thyself within, that 
 Thou mayest hide Thy face away from all of evil that 
 still involuntarily remains in us, while all the more we 
 cling to Thee. 
 
 O wonderful love of GOD ! O unspeakable pity ! O 
 grace incomprehensible ! So draw us, and quicken us, 
 that we may evermore arise to meet Thy love, that it 
 may ever sustain us in the intervals of Communion 
 with Thee, as we endeavour to fulfil what Thou hast 
 purposed for us, to keep true to Thy intention in giving 
 Thyself to us, even though temptation assail us, or 
 frailty strive to break forth again, and nature revive to 
 strive with GOD. Blessed GOD, this is our longing, our 
 inmost heart's desire : do Thou accept it, and enable 
 us to accomplish what we have resolved. And if this 
 might be indeed our present life, to be increasingly 
 drawn, to be hidden within the constant recollection of 
 this Divine Communion, what will it be when Thy
 
 The Sinless Life. 81 
 
 grace shall have accomplished its perfect work in us, 
 and we really are for ever what now in CHRIST Thou 
 seest us in sacramental mystery to be, when the veil 
 through which we see Thee now is taken away, and 
 there is nothing, not even the shadow of any outward 
 form, intervening between Thyself and Thy creature ; 
 when Communion with Thee will be visible, palpable, 
 tangible, every sense rapt in the conscious possession of 
 Thyself, and of oneself in Thee; when we shall be 
 perfect, even as Thou, the First Begotten from the Dead, 
 art Perfect; when we shall know as we are known, see 
 as we are seen, and love as we are loved when " that 
 which is in part shall be done away," and " that which 
 is perfect is come." 1 
 
 1 1 Cor. xiii. 10.
 
 IX. 
 
 THE SACRIFICE. 
 
 WE have been dwelling on the gracious love of our 
 LORD in giving Himself forth to us so abundantly, so 
 freely, in the Holy Eucharist ; the tender desire of union 
 which seems to exhaust itself in the fulness of His 
 great Gift, so far beyond all that could be conceived 
 possible on earth. This, however, is but one, though 
 the most amazing, aspect of the mystery which in that 
 hour is transacted between oneself and GOD. 
 
 Under this one aspect of the mystery we are merely 
 passive, receptive, only the subjects of this mysterious 
 pouring forth of Divine Life. It concerns only what 
 we partake of, the love of our LORD towards us. Of 
 what we ourselves do towards Him ; of the active part 
 which we have ourselves to take, little has as yet been 
 spoken. In love among the creatures, among ourselves, 
 when hearts are knit together, the fulness of the joy 
 arises not merely from the going forth of another's love 
 to oneself, as if oneself were to be only the silent re- 
 cipient of another's gift. The joy is in the mutual 
 response, the meeting together of two streams of affec- 
 tion going forth from either side, acting and reacting 
 on each other. This common action, felt to be thrilling 
 through each other, is the cause of the complete absorbed 
 joy; the rest experienced is in the consciousness of the
 
 The Sacrifice. 83 
 
 sensations of a mutual affection, while each receives 
 into himself what the other gives, and each is blessed 
 in the giving. 
 
 So it is in this high Mystery. It is not merely that 
 oneself receives all, being acted upon as GOD gives forth 
 His Life to possess us, but in our going forth also of 
 ourselves, to give ourselves to GOD in a community of 
 loving desires and mutual satisfaction. 
 
 The leading idea pervading the whole mystery of the 
 Eucharist, is that of self-oblation. And this, first, as 
 it regards our LORD Himself. Our LORD'S Oblation 
 and Sacrifice of Himself is here commemorated and re- 
 newed by ever fresh pleadings. It is the same Sacrifice 
 again and again presented before the FATHER, or rather 
 the memorial of the One Sacrifice, and as our LORD 
 continually gives Himself, so we as ceaselessly offer 
 Him, His merits, His Passion, with all its atoning 
 virtue. We offer His precious Body and His precious 
 Blood in ever renewed memorial, as He gives them in 
 ever living efficacy. And this offering of loving faith 
 on our part, and this marvellous Gift of entire self- 
 sacrifice on His part, is one great portion of the active 
 correspondence of love, the meeting of our heart with 
 His Heart, which constitutes the blessedness, the 
 fulness of the emotions of that hour of Divine Com- 
 munion. 
 
 There were three distinct Oblations of our LORD 
 which are mystically renewed as we offer His atoning 
 Sacrifice at our altars. 
 
 (1.) Our LORD delivered Himself up in the Last 
 Supper in the upper chamber. He did so by an expres- 
 sive action prefiguring His death, before He gave Him- 
 self to be received in Communion. For as He raised 
 
 G 2
 
 84 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 the sacred elements, He said, " This is My Body, which 
 is given for you ; this is My Blood which is shed for 
 you :" and this before He gave them to be taken. It 
 was the complete surrender of Himself, through the 
 force of love, when as yet there was no constraint, when 
 no violence had been laid on Him. Wicked men were 
 afterwards to bind Him on the altar of the Cross, as 
 the victim whom they willed to slay. But in the 
 Upper Chamber, not even the full pressure of the FA- 
 THER'S will was brought to bear on the obedient im- 
 pulses of His suffering Soul, as afterwards was shown in 
 the Agony. As yet at that last Supper He was tasting 
 only the joy of a sweet secret intercourse with His 
 " friends," all resting in love and peace, and the world 
 wholly shut out from their view. But even then He con- 
 signed Himself voluntarily to the victim's death. " For 
 the remission of sins" His Body was then " given." 
 His " Blood of the New Testament" was then shed in 
 will. The Sacrifice was then entire. The surrender of 
 Himself was finished. The Lamb of GOD was sealed to 
 death by His own free act, as these sacrificial words 
 which interpreted His action passed His lips. 
 
 (2.) The Oblation of the Cross differed from that of 
 the Last Supper, because it was an offering of Blood, 
 even unto Death, the actual sacrificial stroke reaching 
 the inmost life, and penetrating in bitterest pain all its 
 keenest sensibilities. It was also an oblation under 
 violent constraint, though made His own, not merely 
 by the predestination of His own Divine Will decreeing 
 it from all eternity, but also by His human will con- 
 senting, accepting the full weight of the Agony and the 
 Shame, with all the aggravations that man's malice or 
 Satanic hate could heap upon His meekly surrendered
 
 The Sacrifice. 85 
 
 Person. This was the crowning, the perfecting of the 
 act of sacrifice, because an accomplishment in fact of 
 the soul's purpose. It was still a delivering Himself 
 up of His own free choice, though others' hands bound 
 Him to the tree, and lifted Him up from the earth, to 
 outward seeming, as they listed, but really as He Him- 
 self " had determined afore should be done." 
 
 (3.) Another Oblation was yet to follow, one which 
 never ceases, and it differs from both the preceding 
 ones. It takes place in Heaven Itself, before the 
 Eternal Throne, and the Infinite Godhead thereon seated 
 in the Radiance of the Joy into which He has entered. 
 There, where our LORD has taken His place in His 
 Glory at His FATHER'S Side, He offers Himself, with 
 all His merits, all the fruits of His Passion, all the 
 virtues of His Precious Blood and the Obedience of 
 His whole Life on Earth. He " ever liveth" presenting 
 Himself, " making Intercession for us." It is the per- 
 fected Atonement on which the Eyes of GOD ever rest, 
 and in which He sees His own Elect for ever accepted 
 with His Beloved SON, as an Oblation from which pain 
 and all earthly humiliation has passed, in which sacrifice 
 has attained its most transcendent form of love, its 
 most perfect union with the Life of GOD. 
 
 Now these three oblations meet, because they are 
 mystically reproduced and renewed, in the sacramental 
 Offering made on our altars. For, there, first, our 
 Blessed LORD'S very act, and very words of sacrifice in 
 the Upper Chamber of the Blessed Sacrament, are re- 
 peated, and in the very same connection with the 
 Divine Communion ; "This is My Body, Which is given 
 for you ; this is My Blood of the New Testament, Which 
 is shed for you." They are heard again as before, and
 
 86 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 with the same results. The full application of the life- 
 giving virtues of His surrendered life are given forth 
 with the same fulness. For it is the very Same LORD, 
 with the same Sacrifice and Oblation of Himself, secretly 
 present and secretly acting as the Same true " Priest 
 after the order of Melchizedek," through the hands and 
 lips of His human instruments applying the same pre- 
 cious Blood, and pleading the merits of the same Sacri- 
 ficed Body, as an act of redeeming love, separate from 
 death. 
 
 And so, again, (2) in the same Offering on our 
 altars there is the true representation of the very Death 
 of the Adorable Victim ; for in the bread being broken, 
 and the wine poured out, and the Two, the Body and 
 the Blood, severed the One from the Other, Death is 
 mystically consummated afresh. The Eternal Lamb, 
 as one dying, is again and again laid on the altar, and 
 thus presented before the eyes of the FATHER, and be- 
 fore the world. The finished work of the precious 
 Victim, of the one Life alone Life-giving, wholly sur- 
 rendered in the Fulness of Divine Love, is renewed in 
 a mystical Dying, a mystical Blood-shedding, and a 
 mystical Obedience of the Will, offered through the 
 Eternal Spirit. Our LORD undergoes a sacramental 
 Death under the sacred outward forms mystically be- 
 come one with Him, through the outward ministry of 
 His earthly representatives whom He has commissioned 
 for this express end. 
 
 (3.) In the same memorial Offering, perhaps even 
 still more intimately, is represented the Oblation of the 
 ascended and glorified LORD, His all-prevailing Inter- 
 cession in Heaven, instinct with His whole collected 
 life of sacrifice. Our offering is indeed one and the
 
 The Sacrifice. 87 
 
 same with that heavenly Oblation, as though it were 
 being projected from above, and extended within the 
 sphere of this lower world, by the power of the Divine 
 Spirit connecting the heavenly and the earthly act of 
 Sacrifice, the heavenly and the earthly voice of Inter- 
 cession. For the great Oblation in the Heavens is 
 ceaselessly made only that its virtue may embrace the 
 earth, and exalt the earthly kingdom of the Incarna- 
 tion into union with the heavenly, effecting the con- 
 summation of His love through the union of the earthly 
 with His own everlasting Priesthood. 
 
 Thus the three great acts of Oblation meet and live 
 ever fresh before our eyes, in forms consecrated by His 
 own ordinance Who is their life-giving Reality. The 
 oblations of time unite with the offering which " ever 
 liveth" in eternity ; the earthly forms of the sanctuary 
 without the veil, with the Invisible Truth of the One 
 accepted Sacrifice ever present before GOD within the 
 veil, through which alone "mercy rejoiceth against 
 judgment." And through this union, and this alone, 
 the lost creature is seen in the radiant glory of Divine 
 Love, embracing and embraced. Even bound about as 
 we are by the sin-stained bonds of our fallen nature, 
 we can thus participate in the never-ceasing " Sacrifice, 
 Oblation, and Satisfaction for the sins of the whole 
 world," and know that we are accepted and beloved, 
 redeemed and renewed, by a perfect justification through 
 "the offering of the Body of JESUS CHRIST once for 
 all," nay, even made " Kings and Priests" before Him, 
 as with our hearts and our lips we join in the One all- 
 availing Sacrifice of Love. 
 
 There is a yet further offering on our part which re- 
 lates more completely to ourselves. The offering we
 
 88 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 have been considering is not of ourselves, but of Him 
 through Whom alone whatever we offer can be accepted. 
 It is the Offering mystically, through outward forms, of 
 the true Lamb of GOD Himself. But having thus 
 pleaded Him and His Sacrifice, we are then led, stirred 
 by His Spirit, kindled by His love, to offer, as He of- 
 fered Himself, our own lives, which through His Offering 
 for us He had sanctified. It is this which completes 
 the blessedness of the Eucharistic Mystery, and makes 
 it no longer wholly to rest on what our LORD is and 
 does for us. For it is not His love and self-sacrifice 
 alone which pours forth its fulness. Our own spirit 
 unites with His, our own heart goes forth with like im- 
 pulses of love, and the joy of the Eucharist is consum- 
 mated in the mutual act of self-oblation. We give our- 
 selves to our LORD, our GOD, even as He gives Himself 
 to us. 
 
 This is the great act which in our Liturgy succeeds 
 the Communion, and is united with a renewed oblation 
 of the Sacrifice of our LORD. For in the Post-Commu- 
 nion prayer to our " Heavenly FATHER," in which we 
 " entirely desire His Fatherly Goodness mercifully to 
 accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving," 
 even the Body and Blood of CHRIST, hidden beneath 
 the outward elements, we add an offering of ourselves; 
 "And here we present unto Thee, O LORD, ourselves, 
 our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and 
 lively sacrifice unto Thee." We thus, as far as He 
 enables us, give even as we receive. We dare to use 
 words which imply the very same act in which Thou, O 
 blessed JESUS, hast glorified the FATHER, and redeemed 
 the world; for Thou, indeed, callest us to be wholly 
 Thine, even as Thou hast made Thyself to be wholly
 
 The Sacrifice. 89 
 
 ours; to make an oblation of ourselves as entire, ac- 
 cording to our measure, a sacrifice like to Thine, that 
 the Eucharist of love may be a common act of mutual 
 devotion ; Thou in Thy Infmiteness, we in our feeble- 
 ness ', Thou in the generous lavishness of Thy Divine 
 Love, we with our straitened hearts ; Thou in all the 
 glory and brightness into which in Thy Humanity 
 Thou hast passed, we still so corrupt, so imperfect even 
 at our best estate. And yet even this our offering Thou 
 wilt in Thy mercy accept, regarding it as perfect in Thy 
 sight, because Thou seest us to be only what Thou art 
 Thyself in us, seest us only in Thyself, and lovest in us 
 what Thy love has newly created in us, to be Thy own 
 glory in the day of Thy power. 
 
 It is this coalescing of a twofold act, the whole self- 
 surrender on our part with that whole self- surrender, 
 such as man's could never be, on His part ; the mutual 
 consciousness of the reality of a love sparing nothing, 
 which on His side gave up Heaven to bless His enemies, 
 Himself gaining nothing, which on our side gives up 
 only the causes of all our misery to possess Heaven, 
 and the very GOD of Heaven, as ours, the wholly unde- 
 served gift of freest love, in the Holy Eucharist these 
 offerings of GOD and His redeemed creature meet and 
 are renewed ever more and more. 
 
 Here, too, we learn the nature and the characteristic 
 quality of self- oblation, such as ours must seek to be, 
 if we would be as our LORD, and unite our life with His. 
 Our self-surrendered life will, if true, take the same 
 course of progressive development, and embody the 
 same manner of spirit animating its daily course. We 
 read our lesson in the successive forms of oblation 
 which have been already noted as marking His per-
 
 90 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 feet Sacrifice, mystically renewed in the Eucharistic 
 Service. 
 
 First, the self-surrender was without pain or struggling, 
 out of the pure fount of a great desire, the stirring of 
 the strongest love, while the consequences of such an 
 act of devotion were as yet undeveloped. Such was the 
 Oblation in the Upper Chamber of the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment. 
 
 So our first act of self-surrender will be out of the 
 pure free will of a loving heart, from the simple pressure 
 of a great desire after GOD, not knowing what it in- 
 volves, only longing to be wholly His, resolved to hold 
 back nothing of its own, whatever the coming trial may 
 be. This, which is the beginning of a course of self- 
 devotion, ought to remain on throughout our whole 
 after course. This freshness of simplest desire and 
 trustful love is never far separate from a true sacrifice. 
 Whatever the subsequent trial, whatever the struggle 
 involved, whatever fearful testing may come, the free- 
 dom of this first pure devotion will ever mark the 
 steadfast soul, the temper of mind in which trial is 
 faithfully borne, as it becomes more and more purified 
 and exalted. 
 
 This self-surrender assumes new forms, as did the 
 progressive Sacrifice of our LORD, when the soul ex- 
 periences the violence and constraint of the outward 
 pressure of actual trial. Then, as GOD wills, more or 
 less of the fierceness of the struggle, the agony and 
 desolation, the shame and humiliation, involved in the 
 sacrifice, appear. Clouds of fear and horror may sweep 
 across the soul, the holy light be quenched, solitariness 
 and the loss of all human sympathy succeed the sweet- 
 ness of the first surrender, and the soul, forced in upon
 
 The Sacrifice. 91 
 
 itself, must learn to bear alone the weight of its feeble- 
 ness, the piercing of the nails, the penetrating thorns, 
 the inmost spirit's deep wrestling, intolerable but that 
 grace, equal to every need, ever breathes inwardly its 
 own ghostly strength, upholding, comforting. Under 
 such testings self-devotion becomes a deeper thing, is 
 felt to be more a possession of the soul, matured and 
 calm, subdued and chastened ; feeding a steadier flame, 
 though with less of the fires of the imagination ; more 
 of the will, less of the senses ; more of the pure light 
 of GOD, less of the delusive flatterings of self. 
 
 The third stage of self-oblation is like what we con- 
 template in our LORD now, as He intercedes for us be- 
 fore the FATHER'S Throne in the transcendent glory of 
 His Ascension, made perfect through suffering like, 
 if likeness we may dare to call it, so infinite the 
 distance to which He has soared beyond any possible 
 earthly attainment. It is the gift of grace, descending 
 from above, His own precious work in His own favoured 
 ones, which comes after trial faithfully borne, having a 
 brightness and a peace passing all understanding, lights 
 breaking out, ineffably tender and sweet, as from be- 
 hind the cloud when the storm passes, when the soul 
 renews its offering, as though it were its first and only 
 real act of devotion. GOD is then felt more intimately 
 present in the light of His love, returning after a tem- 
 porary loss, because it has become more real and consoling 
 from the fresh assurance gained through the experience 
 of conscious support and consolations, in feelings wholly 
 unimagined, and unimaginable, till the trial-hour is tasted 
 as angels ministering to JESUS when the agony of temp- 
 tation ceased. This most wonderful stage of self- oblation 
 is marked by a calmness peculiarly its own, and a gentle-
 
 92 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 ness which losing, it may be, something of its first fresh 
 fervour, has gained a strength and security of peace, 
 which is increasingly felt to be a more than super- 
 abundant recompense of any loss, and growing onwards 
 to the perfect and abiding possession of GOD. 
 
 Ordinarily these three different modes of self-sur- 
 render, or such faint approximations towards them as 
 we may attain on earth, follow each other in the same 
 order in which they were manifest in our Blessed 
 LORD'S own life of sacrifice. They may, however, in- 
 termingle one with the other, and combine together in 
 infinite gradations, alternating in actual experience. 
 But the spirit of them all meet and coalesce in each 
 single Eucharist, giving to the Oblation and Sacrifice 
 of our LORD its practical bearing on our personal life. 
 
 Together they form the completeness of what passes 
 in ideal purpose, however unconsciously expressed, in 
 that mysterious action between the soul and its LORD, 
 which awakens the thrilling response of the heart of the 
 faithful communicant to meet His sacred Heart's love. 
 "Lift up your hearts;" "We lift them up unto the 
 LORD." The meeting of the two acts of love corres- 
 ponding to each other, is the fulness of Eucharistic bliss 
 the feeling, in His Heart that He has won us, in our 
 heart that we are won ; on His part that He has gained 
 the victory over the evil will once reigning in our na- 
 ture, on ours that through the sweetness of His draw- 
 ing we have renounced the evil and are wholly clinging 
 to Himself the only Good. 
 
 Beyond this, and growing out of it, there is the fur- 
 ther most blessed rest in the trust, to the fulfilment of 
 which we look forward, that hereafter He will knit us 
 to Himself with an everlasting bond of love, when the
 
 The Sacrifice. 93 
 
 entire promise shall be accomplished, when His expecta- 
 tion of presenting His redeemed, in His own perfected 
 image before the FATHER, as the triumph of His bitter 
 Passion and long waiting of desire, will be attained, and 
 in us the joy of an union, tasted only in its beginnings 
 here, shall become the unchanging and endless beatitude 
 of the enraptured soul, the recompense of a trust that 
 failed not, through trial, at last, if not throughout, 
 sweetly and humbly borne, His compassionate grace 
 sustaining all our feebleness. 
 
 Let us take heed, then, that we stop not short in our 
 view of the Holy Eucharist, as if the giving forth of 
 love were wholly on the side of our LORD, and ours 
 only a passive reception of His precious gift of Him- 
 self. We have an assured acceptance, as we offer in 
 Him all His merits, all the virtues of His Sacrifice, 
 with Himself the adorable Victim. But He looks to 
 receive from us the response of the covenant, the reso- 
 lution offered, the longing desire, the earnest vow. He 
 accepts as His expected recompense what the heart has 
 resolved in secret, the fulness of the sensations of love 
 and faith pervading thankful devotion, as we draw near 
 to receive Him, the Food and Sustenance of our souls, 
 giving ourselves to become the Food of His longing 
 desire to save and bless at any cost to Himself. He 
 looks to receive from us, even though He gives all the 
 power of the Oblation, a gift like to His own giving. 
 His Divine Love preventing, drawing on, lays claim to 
 all His work in us, though He receives it as if it were 
 our own. 
 
 See, then, the lesson that remains. Before the 
 meeting of mutual love, before the fresh covenant 
 which the Eucharist seals with sacramental grace, re-
 
 94 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 solve again and again what your special offering of that 
 hour shall be, even as you think of what you stand in 
 need, that you may ask some fresh gift. Even though 
 it be no more than one resolution, He accepts it. Any 
 mark of longing to be more perfectly His, any single 
 aim to make the likeness to Him more complete, He 
 will treasure in His sacred heart. Such an act must 
 surely tend to make the life more a living sacrifice, a 
 more entire self-oblation, and nothing less than this, 
 O Blessed JESUS, dost Thou ask; surely nothing less 
 can we regard as an adequate return from those to 
 whom Thou givest so much. 
 
 O do away, Blessed JESUS, with the narrow straiten- 
 ing of our cold hearts. Remove from us everything 
 which hinders the completeness of our self-surrender. 
 O do Thou enable us to maintain that fervour with 
 which we first gave ourselves up to the glory of Thy 
 love ! And through all our after struggles, and des- 
 pondencies, and trials, do Thou maintain in us the pure 
 simplicity of soul and oneness of purpose, which Thou 
 wilt bless, and conform it to be like Thy own first 
 thought of sacrifice : " Lo, I come to do Thy will, I am 
 content to do it; yea, Thy law is within my heart." 
 Then, indeed, we may look forward to the time in 
 the far distance, when we shall not be ashamed at Thy 
 coming, but shall stand in our lot in anticipation of the 
 witness which Thou shalt give for us before the FATHER. 
 May it be that Thou canst in that hour confess, that 
 when Thou earnest, we met Thee; when Thou gavest 
 Thyself to us, we, too, gave ourselves and all to Thee ; 
 that we did together ofttimes seal the perfect Offering 
 in one mutual act of common self-sacrifice.
 
 The Sacrifice. 95 
 
 O LORD JESUS, may such be our Eucharists, such 
 our times of Communion, such our renewings of these 
 acts of mystery, which, like precious jewels, stud the 
 chain of our lives, that Thy Presence, as It increases 
 in us, may multiply in us the graces which shall develop 
 hereafter into the sunlit glory in which we may shine 
 as the stars, for ever and ever. Amen. 

 
 X. 
 
 THE SACRIFICE (continued.) 
 
 THE act of sacrifice, as already shown, forms a material 
 part of the Blessed Sacrament, and constitutes one 
 great object of which they can have their full share 
 who do not at that particular time communicate. 
 The principle of sacrifice runs throughout the kingdom 
 of grace, especially pervading our Blessed LORD'S life. 
 For the very Incarnation in itself was a sacrifice. It was 
 GOD giving Himself for the world. And every action 
 of His life in the flesh partook of this same character ; 
 for each act was a separate offering of His own perfect 
 obedience, to be accepted of the FATHER in reparation 
 of our disobedience, and each action had its own separate 
 meritorious virtue and efficacy. This self-sacrificing 
 spirit, pervading His Incarnate Life, reached its climax 
 on the Cross when, as a victim, He offered Himself to 
 die for us, in the shedding of His most precious Blood, 
 for the " Blood is the Life," sealing the self-surrendered 
 will which constituted the essence, as it was the real 
 acceptableness, of His Sacrifice. It has been shown, 
 moreover, that this Sacrifice of Death made but once, 
 and never to be repeated, was not the closing of His 
 Sacrifice. Rather it became the groundwork of a con- 
 tinued sacrificial act in a higher sphere of existence. 
 He ascended to Heaven there to offer Himself for us.
 
 The Sacrifice. 97 
 
 Indeed, our LORD did not enter on the full exercise of 
 His Priesthood till He ascended into Heaven. 
 
 It is necessary to consider this portion of the subject 
 more fully. 
 
 According to the appointments of the Levitical sa- 
 crificial system, it was not the slaying of the victim that 
 constituted the offering of atonement before GOD. The 
 stroke of death preceded the offering, was not itself the 
 offering ; it only formed the material of the offering. It 
 was the after-offering by the Priest of the Blood of the 
 slain victim, that constituted the sacrifice of atonement. 
 It was therefore as the fulfilment of the many types 
 going before, that, His Death being accomplished, when 
 therefore He had " somewhat to offer," our LORD, as- 
 cending with His Own Blood, offered it in the Holiest 
 Place " to obtain eternal redemption for us." It was then 
 only that He became, in the full exercise of His power, 
 " a Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek." He 
 had been before laying up in Himself His infinite store 
 of merit, the grounds of His acceptableness, to which 
 every act, every movement of the will, every detail of 
 suffering, had been adding its own virtue, and all in an 
 accumulated fulness intensified in value beyond all 
 possible conception, when the seal of death, in itself 
 the perfection of self-oblation, was set upon them. 
 Afterwards He was to commence in the highest Heavens 
 His full High-Priestly ministry, offering Himself, for 
 ever presenting Himself there as our Atonement, our 
 Peace. In this " the True Lamb of GOD" differed from 
 all the types going before prefiguring His Sacrifice. In 
 the offering up of the victims in the Temple there was 
 necessarily a succession of different creatures, each dying 
 as it was laid on the altar, and consumed. One pro- 
 
 H
 
 98 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 longed line of offerings through death was kept up by 
 a series of successive victims ; the continued succession 
 of their perishing lives foreshadowing the one ceaseless 
 Offering of the One Victim Who passed through death 
 only to enter upon an unchangeable existence, there to 
 exercise an everlasting Priesthood in the continued 
 oblation of an imperishable Sacrifice. 
 
 The type of the old Levitical Law was most signi- 
 ficant, wonderfully representing the inner Truth. After 
 the victim was slain at the altar in the outer Court of 
 the Temple, the Priest bearing in one hand his censer 
 with a live coal from the Altar, and in the other a 
 vessel with the blood of the victim, passed within the 
 Holy Place ; and there before the veil which shrouded 
 from mortal sight the Presence of GOD, he sprinkled 
 the Blood on the horns of the Altar, the incense kindled 
 by the sacred fire at the same time rising up and spread- 
 ing within the Holiest Place. Thus daily he made 
 atonement for the sins of the people. This was the 
 daily sacrifice of Israel. Still more solemn was the act 
 of the High Priest, year after year, ascending further, 
 entering even within the veil itself into the very abode 
 of the Living GOD, and sprinkling the very Mercy-seat 
 on which His Glory rested, as its chosen earthly abode. 
 Alone with GOD he stood as he ministered the annu- 
 ally renewed act, symbolizing the perpetuated Offering 
 of Him Who has now entered in once and for ever to 
 abide, the Man sacrificed for men, the GOD pleading 
 with GOD, Himself the One ceaseless Propitiation pro- 
 curing endless treasures of grace through His inex- 
 haustible merits. Through our LORD'S Person thus 
 ever presented in Heaven all acceptable prayer is 
 offered, all sacrifices reach the Heart of GOD, sin is for-
 
 The Sacrifice. 99 
 
 given, grace is won, an ever fresh reconciliation is being 
 sealed, and the kingdom of the redeemed is sustained 
 ever increasing, ever drawing on to its perfection. 
 
 Divine Wisdom has contrived that this great act of the 
 propitiatory Offering of the Everlasting SON of GOD, in 
 the glory of His Humanity, should be extended to the 
 Earth; that we His Elect in these our earthly sanc- 
 tuaries, should participate in that Heavenly Offering, 
 and in that all-availing Intercession evermore grounded 
 upon it. He has ordained a real presentation of the 
 very Same Sacrifice under earthly forms by earthly 
 hands, the Eternal Spirit bringing into a perfect unity 
 the heavenly and the earthly, so that what is ever 
 being done in heaven, is ever being represented also on 
 earth. The unity is complete, for under the outward 
 form of the visible ministry, there is the Same Person 
 and the Same Sacrifice. For on earth under the shadow 
 of the earthly Priest, CHRIST Himself is the true cele- 
 brant, the true consecrator; and under the shadow 
 of the Bread and Wine, His Body and His Blood are 
 the true Sacrifice. The earthly instruments are but 
 shadowy forms. CHRIST is the one Priest, the one 
 Victim, and from both the heavenly and the earthly 
 ministration arises the same pleading, the same Inter- 
 cession ; the pleading of the same precious merits, the 
 intercession of the same quenchless love. For this end 
 as well as for the life-giving Communion of Himself, 
 our LORD ordained the perpetuation of His sacramental 
 act. We are to " show forth our LORD'S Death till He 
 come," and in this Memorial Offering all who are pre- 
 sent may unite, even though they communicate not. In 
 the case of the Priest communion is of necessity, or 
 there would not be a true sacrifice. The Priest must 
 
 H 2
 
 100 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 eat of the Sacrifice which he offers, for the consumption 
 is the completeness of the surrender of the sacrificed 
 life, and therefore of the sacrifice. But this same 
 necessity does not lie in the same way on others who 
 are present. They only need to unite themselves with 
 him, the celebrating priest, and in joining with him 
 they make his offering their own, sharing with him in 
 its blessedness. 
 
 To the soul of one thus present at the Eucha- 
 ristic Sacrifice, and by faith beholding the mystical 
 Oblation, the long series of the acts of sacrifice of the 
 Divine Victim and its manifold details, are manifested. 
 The love that brought Him down from heaven; the 
 long weariness of painful toil; the aspirations of the 
 obedient mind ; the self-devotion to scorn, and shame, 
 and pain; the surrendering Himself to those who 
 thirsted for His blood ; His night of wrestling in the 
 Agony ; His going forth to be scourged, and mocked, 
 and spit upon, and condemned by false accusings ; His 
 bearing the shameful Cross, and letting Himself be 
 laid upon the Altar of the Cross; the nailing of His 
 Hands and Feet; the wrench of unutterable pain as 
 He was lifted up on it, and, fulfilling the forms of 
 the typical sacrifices, limb after limb laid upon it in 
 their appointed order; the desolation of heart, the 
 thirst, the throes, the quivering of the flesh as the 
 bitterness of death penetrated to the inner seat of 
 life ; the Divine Humanity all wounds and humiliation 
 hanging between heaven and earth, a spectacle to GOD, 
 to angels, and to men, all pass before his eyes; and 
 then beyond this sacrifice of Blood, the Oblation of the 
 same Human Body, and the same precious Blood, now 
 wonderfully, ineffably glorified, with the same obedient
 
 The Sacrifice. 101 
 
 will, the same perfect love, the same but evermore exalted 
 beyond the reach of pain, the " one full, perfect, and 
 sufficient Sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the 
 sins of the whole world/' in heaven presented before 
 the FATHER; the whole order of the perfect Sacrifice 
 presents itself to the mind of the worshipper at the 
 earthly Altar, and is pleaded there in union with the 
 ever visible Oblation in Heaven. Joining in this mys- 
 tical action, we reach out our hearts and our hands 
 together with the Sacrifice which touches both the 
 worlds, and urge onward through all time and space 
 the efficacy of His Atonement, the full results of His 
 redemption, which He, the Divine Victim, wills to be 
 dependent on such continued pleadings and inter- 
 cessions. 
 
 From this its sacrificial virtue there result important 
 distinctions between this and all other Sacraments, 
 which it is important to note. The difference consists 
 chiefly in three particulars. (1.) All other Sacraments 
 have the sanctification or cleansing of the soul as their 
 special gift, as the sole cause of their institution. Thus 
 Baptism is limited to the one purpose of imparting 
 the gift of regeneration. Absolution in like manner is 
 the ministry of forgiveness and renewal to the fallen. 
 Their virtues are limited to the benefits conveyed to 
 their recipients. They reach the full extent of their 
 power in their communication to each soul of their 
 several inward graces. They minister to no further 
 end. But it is not so in the case of the Holy Eucha- 
 rist. Its objects are indeed coextensive with the whole 
 scheme of Redemption. It is the coming of our LORD 
 in the Flesh to be present amongst us. It is the com- 
 memoration of all the benefits of the Incarnation. It
 
 102 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 is the great act of thanksgiving for the love of GOD in 
 reconciling and uniting us to Himself. It assimilates 
 the Elect together in one Body, and is the means and 
 pledge of unity. It communicates the Body and Blood 
 of CHRIST as the food of eternal life to both the soul 
 and body. And in addition to all these objects which it 
 fulfils, it is the constant renewal, and so the perpetua- 
 tion on earth, of all the virtues and merits of our 
 LORD'S Atonement, the continued pleading and appli- 
 cation, with distinct covenanted promise, of His One 
 prevailing Sacrifice. As the Incarnation involved the 
 whole process of our redemption, even so the Holy 
 Eucharist commemorates, pleads, and applies all its 
 saving virtue. 
 
 (2.) Again, while other sacraments exhaust the pur- 
 pose of their institution in conveying their promised 
 graces to those who partake of them, and are limited 
 to this end, the Eucharist on the contrary is not con- 
 fined to its own operation. Wide as its own results 
 are, it is also in a true sense the ministerial means of 
 maintaining the efficacy of all the other sacraments, in- 
 asmuch as they depend on the merits of our LORD'S Sa- 
 crifice, and the Holy Eucharist is the one only means in 
 the sacramental system of perpetuating the merits of that 
 Sacrifice. The Holy Eucharist thus stands essentially 
 related to the rest of the sacraments by ministering to 
 the continuance of their benefits. It has an universal 
 application as regards its own manifold objects, and 
 also as regards all other ordinances, because it is on 
 earth the perpetual Memorial of the Offering on which 
 sacramental grace depends. Its influence thus reaches 
 throughout the whole sacramental system by reason of 
 its propitiatory power, i.e., its power of pleading and
 
 The Sacrifice. 103 
 
 bringing into operation the propitiatory virtue of our 
 LORD'S meritorious Sacrifice. 
 
 (3.) Again, all other sacraments are limited in their 
 effects to the living. They cannot reach beyond the 
 grave. They have their full accomplishment in the 
 persons of those who are able to partake of them. But 
 as our LORD'S Oblation and Intercession extend to 
 other worlds, and maintain the whole kingdom of His 
 redeeming Love, no less wide in its bearing and in- 
 tent is the offering of the Eucharist, which is the 
 earthly counterpart of His Oblation in Heaven. The 
 prayer in which we offer " our sacrifice of praise and 
 thanksgiving/' is expressly said to be for the " whole 
 Church," i.e., not that limited portion of it which is on 
 this side the veil, but also for that great and ever in- 
 creasing portion of the Body of CHRIST, which has 
 passed within, as well as for those as yet unborn, about 
 to succeed us in the after ages. We pray through the 
 virtue of that Offering which we present to the FATHER 
 that " the remission of sins, and all other benefits of 
 His Passion," i.e., whatever grace each and all of the 
 Elect may ever need, may be vouchsafed in its fulness 
 and perpetuated. It, therefore, reaches forth to all 
 worlds, to the future, equally as to the past and the 
 present. Its power of intercession is unlimited as the 
 Love of Him Whom it pleads. Through its efficacy we 
 can extend, as far as the ministrations of the covenanted 
 people avail, the benefit of our LORD'S atoning Death 
 everywhere, to all who are capable of receiving it, 
 through the power given to us in union with our LORD, 
 as, by virtue of our sacramental agency, we set in motion 
 and extend everywhere the healing streams of the Spirit 
 of life flowing from the Heart of GOD.
 
 104 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 Moreover, consider the state of mind in which we 
 may rightly join in this great act of sacrifice. Two 
 special features of an acceptable state I would mark. 
 
 (1.) One is love, for the whole Sacrifice of CHRIST 
 is but the outpouring of love. His continued Offering 
 of Himself in Heaven is but the translation of that 
 love to a higher sphere with increased power to bless. 
 His enabling us to make an offering which He may 
 accept at our hands, is because of His love to us. Love 
 must respond to love. Love alone can offer up what is 
 of love to Love waiting to accept it. Only as we are in- 
 fluenced by love, which is the Spirit of the Sacrifice, can 
 we hope to reach the Heart of GOD, before Whom that 
 Sacrifice is pleaded. Without love there would have 
 been no CHRIST, no Passion, no sprinkling of the Blood 
 of Life, no Intercession in Heaven, and so without love 
 there can be no real act of sacrifice, no union with the 
 pleadings of Him Who offers Himself for us, no ac- 
 cess to the Heart of GOD. "The love of GOD shed 
 abroad in our hearts by the HOLY GHOST, Who is 
 given unto us," is specially the grace that prepares us 
 for Communion, and for joining in the mystical Offer- 
 ing. Love in its ardour, its boldness, its confidence, 
 love in its full assurance of being one with Him in His 
 Passion, His acts, His Sacrifice, can alone meet His 
 love as He comes to give Himself love no longer pas- 
 sive, not merely a contemplation dwelling on the sweet- 
 ness of conscious union, but love actively, energetically 
 going forth in response to His love, which, embracing 
 GOD, embraces the whole world in GOD. In each one 
 truly, fully joining in the great Eucharistic Service, this 
 effect is realised. We unite in offering ourselves with 
 Him, Who has drawn us in one body to Himself, to
 
 The Sacrifice. 105 
 
 present us as one man in Himself to the FATHER. This 
 common act fulfilled in the Sacramental Oblation in the 
 Body and Blood of the Atoner, is the intensest expres- 
 sion of love flowing out with a power felt through- 
 out the Heavens, carrying all before it, and anticipating 
 the final triumph, when visibly in the heavens the Son 
 of Man shall be glorified in His Elect, and they in Him, 
 for evermore. 
 
 (2.) One other grace equally needful is the spirit of 
 self-sacrifice, growing in sincerity and power more and 
 more to resemble His with Whose Oblation we unite 
 our own. What self-condemnation must be implied in 
 uniting oneself with the Eucharistic Sacrifice, and with 
 all who, whether in heaven or on earth, are pleading It 
 before the FATHER, and yet to allow in the soul any 
 thought or purpose alien to its spirit, to make reserves 
 where He who spared not His life for us is pleaded as 
 our only Hope ! What a sad reproof must rest upon 
 the heart of one who feels, " I behold and adore the 
 Divine Victim, Who spared nothing because He loved 
 me, Who in His Agony thought of me, and drank the 
 bitterest dregs of the cup for me, and now offers Him- 
 self for me in heaven with all the merit of His perfect 
 Sacrifice, but in my own soul love is straitened and self 
 prevails." It is not, indeed, that any one can hope to 
 say, " The sacrifice of myself is complete ; I shrink 
 from no loss, no surrender of my will; I know no 
 swerving from the perfect Mind of GOD." This entire 
 conformity of our being with His Being, is part of the 
 glory which His Elect shall share with Him in the ful- 
 ness of bliss in Heaven, but the ever growing tendency 
 towards It, the keeping nothing willingly that is alien 
 from It, the bringing more and more each part of one-
 
 106 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 self under the impression of It, into union with It this 
 may be ours now. The yielding up all that remains of 
 imperfection and variance of feeling, to be conformed to 
 the spirit of His love and self-devotion, even to the 
 bracing of the soul to bear pain and loss, the humilia- 
 tion that crucifies, the stroke that slays the reluctant 
 flesh, this at least we must seek to do in simplicity of 
 faith and constancy of desire, if we would meet Him as 
 He comes to us, if we would unite with Him as He 
 draws us to His Sacred Heart, if we would go forth in 
 the confidence of accepted love to fulfil the call which 
 binds us to Him. 
 
 O Blessed JESUS, we would not take off our eyes from 
 that Form, in the substance of our very flesh, in which 
 Thou standest with the marks of death before the FA- 
 THER, the prints of the nails still visible upon Thee in 
 Thy radiant glory. The Church, from the beginning, 
 has preserved the mysterious truth, that Thy Sacrifice 
 still continues. It rests not, saying, " Lamb of GOD 
 that takest" not hast taken, " away the sins of the 
 world;" and on this confidence that the ministry of 
 love still continues, the atoning offering as fresh now in 
 its meritorious power as at the beginning, it prays Thee 
 to have mercy upon us ; and, as we believe, so may we 
 grow into union with that Heart that offers us in cease- 
 less intercession in heaven. Only grant us a portion of 
 that same spirit, that same love, which sustains the 
 world, and rescued us from death. So made one with 
 Thee, may our names be graven upon Thy Hands, as 
 Thou liftest them up before the FATHER'S Eyes, that 
 our portion may be among Thy own Elect for ever. 
 Amen.
 
 XI. 
 
 THE DIVINE MISSION. 
 
 IT has been well said of the Blessed Sacrament, that it 
 is at once the chief revelation of our LORD and His 
 chief Hiding Place ; the two apparently contradictory 
 conditions coalescing in the same Mystery. The state- 
 ment has a deeply practical bearing. Although in the 
 Blessed Communion we most closely touch our LORD, 
 and are touched by Him, feel His contact and taste 
 of His Fulness ; yet we are but perplexed if we there- 
 fore endeavour to trace more clearly His Footsteps, or 
 think to comprehend the manner of His Presence. He 
 is in this wonderful nearness as inscrutable as ever. 
 It is rather as if the nearer He came, the more He im- 
 parted Himself to us in our present state, the more 
 impervious the veil that is drawn between Him and us, 
 as though the very excess of light rendered the vision 
 more impalpable; the more impossible it becomes 
 to penetrate the screen within which He conceals 
 Himself, if we are not content to receive Him in 
 pure unquestioning faith. Therefore it is an axiom 
 of Truth, that while we know as a fact the reality of 
 the Divine Presence, yet the mode in which It is ful- 
 filled, we know not. We are at best but as children 
 listening to some strange music, or looking upon
 
 108 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 mysterious visions, awakening deepest raptures of feel- 
 ing, while they lisp solemn words, incapable of appre- 
 hending the meaning. 
 
 It may, however, help us the better to enter into the 
 blessedness of this profound Mystery, if we observe the 
 distinction which has to be made between GOD'S In- 
 dwelling in the creatures, and His Mission. They are 
 two distinct objects of thought, two distinct economies 
 of grace which we can explain in words, and express in 
 theory, however little we may be able to penetrate 
 and understand their profoundly hidden truth. In 
 entering into this great question, it is specially to be 
 observed, that if we seek for more knowledge than our 
 minds can apprehend, the vision becomes only the 
 more perplexed, and passes from us as a dream. Ob- 
 scurity arises from the very effort to see more clearly. 
 There is a seeing by faith which is real and true. But 
 the very fact that it is by faith only, marks a limit 
 beyond which the illumination of the mind cannot ex- 
 tend. If content with simplicity of faith, the soul 
 is imperceptibly led on into mysterious depths of an 
 unearthly consciousness. If it would strain beyond, 
 through natural efforts of its own power, it sinks back 
 baffled and confused. 
 
 The Indwelling of the Divine Persons has a realiza- 
 tion in the case of all creatures from the very fact 
 of their creation. GOD in creating does not withhold 
 Himself from the creature He has made. He con- 
 tinues to abide with what He has created, and only 
 through such Indwelling the creature is sustained in 
 being, and is enabled to fulfil the purposes of its crea- 
 tion. He abides in each creature according to its 
 capacity, maintaining its operations and developing its
 
 The Divine Mission. 109 
 
 intended growth. This law is essential to all created 
 life, even in unintelligent creatures. 
 
 Divines have distinguished this Indwelling of GOD 
 under three heads, which are real distinctions though 
 they run into each other and may not always be easy 
 to separate, His Essence, His Presence, and His 
 Power. These are fulfilled in His Indwelling, and in 
 these respects He is Indwelling in all His creatures. 
 By His Essence GOD underlies the being of the 
 creatures, so as to cause them to continue in being as 
 He at first willed each to be, abiding with them as 
 their sustaining force. By His Presence He imparts 
 the varying qualities and forms which characterise the 
 several creatures. By His Power they act and exercise 
 their faculties according to laws which are the expres- 
 sion of the ceaseless action of His Will. These dis- 
 tinctions which the science of the Saints has contrived 
 to fix, are but the drawing out into detail of the 
 simple Truth of the Word of GOD, which reveals the 
 fact, that in Himself the Creator, all things " live and 
 move, and have their being." The simplicity of Scrip- 
 tural language unfolds into these separate ideas; for the 
 Infiniteness of GOD is the going forth of His Essence to 
 sustain the creatures, and through this putting forth 
 of His Essence He is in a manner present, for He is 
 present where His Essence is present, and thus His 
 Power is also present, and has effect, aud enables each 
 creature to act and be what He wills. 
 
 This profound law of life has been in operation since 
 the beginning, and its manifestation varies in degrees 
 according to the nature and capacity of the individual 
 creatures, and the W T ill of GOD for each. 
 
 But a wholly new mode of Divine communication
 
 110 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 arose with the Incarnation of GOD. The manifestations 
 of the SON, and the inspirations of the Spirit, which 
 had pervaded the earlier dispensations, were but antici- 
 pative gifts, as the dawn precedes the day, heralding 
 the wonderful Communion with GOD which was in the 
 fulness of time to be accomplished through the links 
 of a common nature binding GOD and Man in one body 
 in CHRIST. This new mode of communication of the 
 Divine Nature is called by the term, ' ' Mission." It 
 is therefore only in the New Testament that we read 
 of GOD being "sent." There for the first time we 
 are taught that " GOD so loved the world, that He sent 
 His only begotten SON, that whosoever believeth in 
 Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." 
 And again, "This is life eternal, to know Thee, the 
 only true GOD, and JESUS CHRIST Whom Thou hast 
 sent," as if summing up all He was to be to His Own in 
 this term, thus expressing the completeness of the trans- 
 action which had taken place in the Heavens, in regard 
 to the Incarnation, between Himself and His FATHER. 
 The same term is, moreover, used as it had not been 
 before, of the Eternal Spirit. The Spirit had been in 
 the world of the creatures, and in man above all, in 
 manifold active operations, striving against evil, and 
 leading on to perfectness of life. But His special work, 
 as One sent, began with the new dispensation which 
 arose through the Incarnation. Then only do we read 
 such words as these : " When He, the Comforter, is 
 come, Whom I will send unto you from the FATHER." 
 It was because of the change implied in this sending, 
 that it could be said, as though He had not been 
 present till then, " The HOLY GHOST was not yet given, 
 because that JESUS was not yet glorified."
 
 The Divine Mission. Ill 
 
 The term implies a going forth beyond the sphere of 
 Godhead into lower regions of life, to raise them into 
 some closer relations with Itself than their proper na- 
 ture implied or could effect ; an extending of GOD, as it 
 were, beyond Himself to draw up nature into union with 
 Himself. GOD is "sent" as revealing and operating 
 what before was secret and unformed ; to create afresh 
 a new covenant of higher life in new bonds of love, as a 
 fellow- creature might be sent amongst the creatures to 
 represent a higher power, to communicate new gifts, to 
 cement new bonds of earthly fellowship. 
 
 To the Second and Third Persons of the Blessed Trinity 
 alone is this term applied ; nor indeed could it be ap- 
 plicable to the First Person, for there was none to send 
 Him. But it is very noticeable that a corresponding 
 term is used in reference to the FATHER, which also ap- 
 pears for the first time in the New Covenant. He is 
 there said to "come" and "abide" with His Elect. 
 Thus our LORD says of the FATHER, as in perfect union 
 with Himself, cf If a Man love Me, he will keep My 
 words, and My FATHER will love him, and We will 
 come unto him, and make Our abode with him." 
 Therefore, a change has passed over the Presence of 
 the FATHER in His Communion with His Elect, similar 
 to what has affected the Person of the SON and of the 
 Spirit, some additional imparting, like to, though not 
 identical with, Mission. A new and more intimate 
 communication of Himself has taken place, correspond- 
 ing with the Mission of the SON and of the HOLY 
 SPIRIT. 
 
 The language of Holy Scripture has changed, because 
 there has been a change in the Divine Dispensations. 
 A wholly new order of communion between GOD and
 
 112 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 man has come into operation, over and above that Pre- 
 sence of Essence and Power, which under the earlier 
 covenants had exhausted the relation between the two 
 natures, except so far as the last and more perfect dis- 
 pensation had a retrospective effect. 
 
 The term, "Mission/' in its natural and simple sense, 
 would mean that the person spoken of moves from place 
 to place, or passes to some spot where he had not been 
 before. But these ideas are manifestly inapplicable to 
 the Divine Nature, and moreover GOD, as we have seen, 
 had His Indwelling in the creature before the Incarna- 
 tion. The term as here used implies that GOD, con- 
 tinuing to be present as before, is where He was, in a 
 wholly different way, so as to produce a wholly different 
 effect ; that He gives Himself under conditions wholly 
 new, and with a largeness of gift unknown before. He 
 comes forth as He had never come forth before. He 
 reveals, He communicates Himself in a way that was 
 withheld, or could not be, till the appointed time was 
 come, and the ordained means were provided. And 
 the Incarnation was the immediate cause of the mo- 
 mentous change, the mode and channel of the super- 
 added mystery. 
 
 Our subject leads us to confine our view more 
 specially to the operations of the Person of the SON of 
 GOD, since it is He Whose Presence is specially revealed 
 and communicated in the Holy Eucharist. And His 
 Mission is to be distinguished into three distinct pro- 
 cesses. 
 
 There is, first, the justification of our nature, enduing 
 it with the Righteousness of GOD, and raising it above 
 itself to partake not merely of the perfect cleansing of 
 sin, but of a living union with GOD. This is the ground-
 
 The Divine Mission. 113 
 
 work of our renewed life, giving us a capacity above 
 the order of man's natural powers, so as to be able to 
 correspond with the grace, and follow the calls, of GOD. 
 The second result is the formation of the special 
 graces which characterize the life of JESUS, and growing 
 gradually into His likeness in act and temper and 
 habitual tone. It is the actual impression of the very 
 Mind of our LORD in a nature kindred with His own, as 
 the former is the capacity of receiving such impressions. 
 The third result is the blessedness of conscious union, 
 an intensity of rest and consolation in the assurance of 
 Divine personal love, a superadded influence of the 
 Indwelling of GOD, beyond the formation of grace and 
 virtue, even as the sweetness and rich varied colours 
 of the flower are a crowning glory beyond the mere 
 formation of the fruit, and organs necessary to sustain 
 and propagate life. 
 
 Such, generally speaking, is the Mission of the SON 
 of GOD, acting on the personal life of His Elect. But 
 we have here to confine our view to the special effects 
 assured to us in the Holy Eucharist. And the dis- 
 tinctive characteristic of this Blessed Sacrament is that 
 all the results of the Mission of the SON of GOD, in their 
 greatest fulness, here meet and are combined. While 
 other ordinances are the instruments of conveying some 
 particular grace, the Holy Eucharist is the immediate 
 channel of all the gifts of GOD in CHRIST. It alone 
 contains and conveys the grace of the Divine Humanity, 
 the living, life-giving Presence of the Incarnate GOD, 
 and all of life that He conies to impart. The justifica- 
 tion of our nature and person, the impression of the 
 Mind of CHRIST, the joy shed abroad through the per- 
 fect union of love, all are there, where He in the ful- 
 
 i
 
 114 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 ness of His communicative energy is present. All are 
 there, because He Himself, the Source of these Divine 
 operations, is there, in a fulness unknown to any other 
 Dispensation, or any other Sacrament in the New Dis- 
 pensation. And with our LORD, as a consequence of 
 His Presence in the flesh, the complete gift of the 
 Spirit, and the Communion of the everlasting FATHER, 
 according to the full measure of His Abiding, are im- 
 parted also. 
 
 Within the range of the general results of this Di- 
 vine Communion there is also a law of special grace, 
 corresponding with special intentions. The idea of 
 offering special intentions at the Blessed Sacrament, 
 is grounded on the belief that He Who thus comes 
 in His Fulness, will shed forth particular effects of 
 His Presence in greater prominence at the parti- 
 cular time, to be specially impressed on the soul, in 
 answer to special prayer. Thus the Blessed Sacrament 
 is received at the hour of death to fortify the soul 
 , for its departure; or on ordinary occasions special 
 grace may be sought to keep some particular resolu- 
 tion, or strength to meet some particular temptation. 
 For, as our LORD is there in all Fulness of grace, so 
 a particular desire may attract a particular form of 
 grace. He may, in response to earnest prayer, or as 
 crowning a special devotion, shed forth Himself in spe- 
 cial gifts or powers, according to His will. He may 
 assume (so to speak) special shapes of Divine life, to 
 impart Himself, as we then more urgently need Him. 
 
 We may judge from "what has been here said, what 
 our part must be in corresponding with this wonderful 
 approach to GOD, thus coming on His mission of love
 
 The Divine Mission. 115 
 
 to us. It is evident that our part is to draw out, and 
 store up in ourselves, by loving desire, and growing 
 earnestness, more and more of the treasures of this 
 only true life. He must be ours, not merely as a 
 profound joy, but as an operative energy of transform- 
 ing Life ; as One within us putting forth His Hands to 
 mould our plastic natures, and shape our retentive 
 faculties in form and features of His own stature, as 
 life communing with Life, answering the touch of the 
 unseen E/enewer of our fallen state, making us after 
 the fashion of His own glory. 
 
 We must bear in mind, moreover, that as our LORD 
 has a mission toward us, even so we, as a fruit and 
 result of His mission, have our mission also to fulfil for 
 Him. As He is sent forth from Heaven for us, so we, 
 partaking of Him, are sent forth likewise in the very 
 same energy of life, which descending from above is to 
 pervade and transform the earth. 
 
 The FATHER sends the SON, the FATHER and the SON 
 send the Eternal SPIRIT. The united force of the two- 
 fold mission acts upon us, and we too are sent. What 
 our LORD, through the SPIRIT, hath come to be in us, 
 we are to go and be ourselves wherever He sends us. 
 As we retire from the Altar with the Life of GOD within 
 us in the fulness of Its creative power, our first thought 
 in the certainty of this blissful union with our LORD, 
 would be to say ; " I am blessed, unspeakably blessed ; 
 I have all, I am complete in my GOD. My LORD is 
 mine, and I am His." And the eyes are raised to 
 Heaven, moved even to tears, in the consciousness of 
 what has been received, and become a real living pos- 
 session, the whole being expanded, elated, restful, in 
 the sense of being hushed in the bosom of the hidden 
 
 i 2
 
 116 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 GOD, one's own GOD, conscious of the expansive power 
 of His Infinite Love within us. If, however, in that 
 moment of rest, and thankfulness, and joy, we pause 
 on our way simply dwelling on what oneself hath par- 
 taken of, as though it were to end in the possession, 
 then, indeed, there would be an utter and most grievous 
 falling short of the Divine purpose. Our LORD'S own 
 mission would be complete, but not the mission of His 
 Elect, of the faithful one united to Him, whom He had 
 by His condescending love drawn to Himself, to be the 
 representative of His Presence to the world. In that 
 
 t hour of supreme bliss, in which we retire from the Altar 
 
 \ to enjoy our treasure, and to contemplate the certainty 
 of our union with GOD, we must add this further 
 
 thought ; " He is come to me that I may go forth in 
 Him, with Him, whithersoever He goeth. He has 
 been sent to me, and now He sends me. He has given 
 Himself without stint, without measure, in the entire 
 sacrifice of Himself; and He has done this in order 
 that in the same spirit, with the same intention, I may 
 go forth as one sent also. According to the same 
 Divine law of life, He is sending me forth to others." 
 
 This consciousness should be sustained throughout the 
 interval of our Communions. Till we receive Him again, 
 with the same renewed results, our thought should con- 
 tinue to be ; " My mission is now to be fulfilled. Instinct 
 
 ' with the Presence of my LORD, I am on my path of duty, 
 in the course of which He hath sent me, bearing the 
 cross measured to my strength. As the FATHER is ever 
 sending forth His SON, so He, my LORD, is still sending 
 me. As in His sending the FATHER is glorified, His 
 purpose for which He came fulfilled, because He has 
 given Himself to me, even so I am glorifying Him,
 
 The Divine Mission. 117 
 
 even so in responsive love I am still giving myself to 
 others in Him." 
 
 Bear this still in mind. So give even as thou hast 
 received. As thou hast taken Him into thyself, so 
 give Him forth. As thou hast been possessed by that 
 generous mission of heavenborn love, so let all the out- ( 
 goings of thy life, possessed by the same spirit, be ever 
 giving forth out of thyself that Life from thyself. In \ 
 thy acts, in thy words, in all thy appointed course, be ' 
 thy mission that of one chosen by GOD, united with the 
 life-giving LORD, living, breathing, speaking, acting 
 after the same law with Him. What else is the fulfil- 
 ment of the sacramental life issuing out of sacramental; 
 union ? What else the drawing out of the thread of life, 
 spun within thine own soul by the creative energy, which, 
 first springing out of the FATHER'S Being, has descended 
 through the SON by the SPIRIT, to run throughout 
 the creature whom He hath chosen to be the image of 
 His own perfections ? Such is the circle of the life of 
 the Incarnation. The everlasting SON was sent forth 
 that He might return to His FATHER with the gathered 
 increase of the fruit of His Passion, and in the final dis- 
 pensation, in that Day when the Kingdom of the SON shall 
 be delivered up to the FATHER, and He returns to GOD 
 with the full recompense of His Mission, it will be seen 
 in the Manifestation of the sons of GOD, how much of 
 fruit each one of His Faithful has gathered in to the Glory 
 of His Name, in acts of sacrifice and deeds of love which 
 He has enabled them to fulfil. The circle of life will then 
 be complete. Take heed that the life which is thus 
 within thee does not end in thyself. Be not as the talent 
 laid up in a napkin and hidden in the earth, profitless, 
 the possession of the slothful, the doom of the unfaith-
 
 118 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 fill. Rather go forth with it that it may bear fruit, that 
 thy " LORD, at His coming, may receive His own with 
 usury ;" that He may then see the faithful development 
 of His Life in thy own person, " chosen of GOD and 
 precious," as He gave up His own Divine Person for 
 
 , thee. And as we cannot penetrate the manner of the 
 Presence of this Life within us, though we experience 
 its workings, so in your case Others will feel the effect 
 
 ' of the Presence of GOD with thee, will see that thou 
 
 I " hast been with JESUS," while yet the secret cause, the 
 inner Life Itself working in thy inner being, they will 
 have no sense to apprehend, so inscrutable is that mys- 
 tery, of which thou art the subject, which yet ever more 
 
 ; and more manifests itself through thy outward form. 
 
 O Blessed JESUS, do Thou grant that as we are indeed 
 Thine own, in whom Thou wiliest thus to communicate 
 the fulness of Thy gifts, so we may not faint or sink 
 beneath the burden of Thy Divine Nature thus wonder- 
 fully infused into us, nor disappoint Thy expectations ; 
 but may continue pressing forward towards the end, 
 the prize of our high calling, in earnest endurance and 
 careful self-discipline, that so we may be known as 
 Thine, and Thou mayest be glorified in us. 
 
 O hidden GOD ! hidden even from ourselves, more and 
 more hidden, as we approach ever nearer and nearer to 
 Thee, grant that Thy inscrutable Presence may at last 
 shine forth in us in all the glory of Thy Divine life, 
 which Thou hast willed us to attain, that meanwhile its 
 fruit may abound, and we become the blessed instru- 
 ments of Thy will, the manifestations of Thy Mind, iu 
 our day, even as Thou hast ordained for us. Amen.
 
 XII, 
 
 THE RETREAT ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 THE time of Holy Communion is a Retreat, a solitude 
 in the immediate Presence of GOD even though we may 
 be in the midst of a crowd. It resembles the scene upon 
 the Mount, where Moses met GOD, and the LORD passing 
 by revealed Himself. Moses was alone with GOD, retired 
 from the world, raised above it, and above all inter- 
 course with external objects, in the stillness which reigns 
 on mountain summits, a faint image of the ineffable 
 peace which surrounds the Home where the Redeemed 
 will at last find their rest in GOD. Holy Communion 
 is the covenanted anticipation of that peace. 
 
 Moses was called by GOD Himself to enter into his 
 Retreat, in order to bring his mind into harmony with 
 the Revelation he was about to receive. 1 For care and 
 anxiety had brooded heavily on his mind, oppressed 
 with the burden of the sins of the people whom he was 
 leading. He had trembled at the prospect of the pos- 
 sible withdrawal of GOD'S Presence and support, and his 
 own failing from conscious helplessness. In this troubled 
 state he sought peace ; and what was his resource ? It 
 was not enough for him that the Angel's Presence was 
 assured to him. It was not enough that the sins of his 
 people or his own failings of heart should be forgiven ; 
 1 Exod. xxviii.
 
 120 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 not enough that the Covenant of peace was renewed. 
 There arose within his soul an intense desire soaring far 
 beyond all these assurances, the desire for light and 
 guidance from a personal manifestation of GOD Himself. 
 And this desire could not rest without an earnest effort 
 to gratify it. From the profound longing arose the in- 
 tense cry : " I beseech Thee, show me Thy Glory." All 
 lesser influences passed from his soul, even fear, and the 
 burden of care, and the sense of loneliness. All sup- 
 ports of a subordinate kind, the rich promises, the pro- 
 phecies, and the many external signs of the nearness and 
 unfailing Almighty power of GOD, sank into compara- 
 tive insignificance. His soul had risen to the appre- 
 hension of a Vision of blessedness beyond all that had 
 as yet been vouchsafed to him. The merciful answers 
 to his previous prayers had encouraged him to ask for 
 what alone could satisfy him now, and leave behind no 
 possibility of doubt or fear for ever afterwards. " Show 
 me Thy Glory." Unveil Thyself. Remove this screen, 
 this thick cloud that gathers round Thee, notwith- 
 standing Thou art ever near to me. However closely 
 my soul feels Thy Presence, it is not enough; let me 
 see Thee. Reveal the mighty secret of Thy Nature. 
 Show me Thyself. 
 
 Observe how wonderfully GOD meets this desire. A 
 response far beyond what Moses could possibly have 
 realized, though so far less than he had dared to ask, 
 breaks forth from the cloud. Out of the depths of the 
 Being of GOD a Voice spoke "I will make all My 
 Goodness pass before thee." I will indeed proclaim 
 My Name, and thou shalt know Me in all My Love. 
 The words seem to imply that GOD had been waiting 
 for an opportunity to reveal Himself to His servant,
 
 The Retreat on the Mount. 121 
 
 as if in the fulness of His own desire, He was taking 
 advantage of His servant's prayer. There is no pause, 
 no hesitation in meeting the request so far as it could 
 be granted. When afterwards GOD fixes a limit to His 
 revelation of Himself, it does not appear as though He 
 were unwilling to grant even the full desire, that there 
 was any hindrance in Himself, hut only because His 
 servant was unable to endure the Brightness of the Vision. 
 " Thou canst not see My Face." It is not that He 
 would withhold anything that had been asked. In the 
 Divine Mind Itself there is no apparent reluctance. 
 " Thou canst not." It is the incapacity of the Creature, 
 not the reserve of GOD. The hindrance arises partly 
 from the necessary limitation of a created nature, partly 
 from the consequences of the Fall, not from the aliena- 
 tion of the Divine Nature. That " No man can see 
 GOD and live," expresses a law that affects the conditions 
 of created life, not the Creator's love. And in what 
 follows we see how with most studious care GOD, in 
 granting His servant's desire, guards him against the 
 possible risk even of the Revelation which he was ca- 
 pable of receiving, tempering the intensity of the splen- 
 dour of the communication by the interposing veil 
 within which He withdraws, as He reveals, Himself. 
 GOD places Moses " in the cleft of a rock," and with 
 His own Hand covers him as He passes by, so that His 
 servant may see the lingering radiance that hung around 
 His retiring Form, when it was impossible for him to 
 behold the Face or Substance of His Presence. The 
 fact, however, remains, that the Glory of GOD which he 
 asked to see, did pass by him with no veil save the 
 covering of His Own Hand, an outshining of His Own 
 Person between Himself and His servant's eyes. It was
 
 122 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 not, however, as we learn from the words in which GOD 
 expresses Himself, His Own Person in His very Essence, 
 on Which Moses thus looked through this veil, but only 
 His moral Glory, His Mind, His essential character, 
 His " Goodness," the ineffable perfection of the attri- 
 butes of His secret Heart. 
 
 What Moses actually saw in that hour, he saw as a 
 reflection in his own being. It was not that which was 
 external to himself that he was looking upon, but by an 
 introspective gaze he saw that external object which 
 passed by, cast upon the spectrum of his own soul, as 
 in the bodily sight the eye does not see the object it- 
 self, but its reflection in its retina, an object within it- 
 self which is the counterpart of the real object on which 
 the eye gazes. The great Prophet, in the hour of his 
 marvellous contemplation, saw within the glass of his 
 own being the Image, the representation of the inner 
 Mind of GOD Himself. It was to him as it will be at 
 the last great day when GOD Himself, the One Object 
 absorbing all other objects, will form a reflected vision 
 of Himself within the souls of the redeemed, and in 
 the glorious contemplation of that inner world, the 
 veil being at last withdrawn, there will be a twofold 
 Vision, the very Person of GOD Himself consciously 
 apprehended, and His Form of glory reflected within to be 
 the possession of the soul itself. For thus the scriptural 
 expression which speaks of the Vision is to be under- 
 stood, " Face to face," Object to object; the Glory dis- 
 played so as to be apprehended within by all who are 
 capable of receiving Him; the objective and the sub- 
 jective Visions become one, coalescing and embracing 
 each other, to be ever developing into profounder depths 
 of consciousness through the endless ages.
 
 The Retreat on the Mount. 123 
 
 This Vision will not be as the passing shadows which 
 occupy our sight here on earth ; for the glorious Form 
 reflected in the soul to which the Face of GOD is re- 
 vealed, is an actual real Presence in the soul, and is 
 there not merely by a reflective faculty, or by the intro- 
 spective gaze of the soul looking into itself, but as an 
 abiding power which diffuses itself within the substance 
 of our being, which stamps itself upon us as upon a seal, 
 penetrates it, conforms it to itself, takes it up into it- 
 self, till the soul becomes the very Life of GOD, a life 
 therein revealed, not merely as an image reflected in a 
 glass which when a man passes by he sees no more, be- 
 cause the object reflected is no more within the scope 
 of his vision, and was there only because he gazed upon 
 it, his eye itself creating it for his momentary embrace 
 as a fleeting thought, but as a life which abides, as a 
 distinct form of character, as a very shape and substance 
 which the receptive faculties of the ever-gazing soul 
 absorb within, entranced, transubstantiated into it. 
 This glory, this blessed seal of the living GOD, this in- 
 ward vision, which is the reflection of the vision which 
 the illuminated spirit by faith beholds, grows in its 
 measure in this present state, and is the ground of the 
 inner sacramental life. 
 
 The full glory of the Divine Communion is, that the 
 very substantial Presence of the Living GOD is com- 
 municated, and the soul receives and feeds on the very 
 Light and Power of the Vision which in faith it 
 beholds, to be formed after its Likeness. The two, 
 the Vision and the new character of life formed after 
 It, are the result of the Divine Communion, the new 
 creation of GOD in the soul of His Elect, which, 
 as He passes by, He casts from Himself as the reflected
 
 124 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 glory of His veiled Presence, to be an abiding pos- 
 session. 
 
 Each return to the Blessed Sacrament is the re- 
 entering into a Retreat in which such a life is again and 
 again renewed. It is going where the LORD is to be 
 seen more ready to reveal Himself than we to ask the 
 grace which He reveals ; a fresh gazing on His Good- 
 ness which He spreads out before us, that He may con- 
 form to Himself the inner life as it receives the impres- 
 sion, and pledges itself with renewed fervour to rise to 
 that supernatural union with Him, which is the true 
 fulfilment of His purpose for us. 
 
 Viewing, then, our Eucharistic Communion under 
 this aspect in harmony with this scene upon the 
 Mount, let us lay to heart some lessons which may 
 be helpful to us, in order to correspond more per- 
 fectly with the intention of GOD. 
 
 I would not dwell on the abstraction of thought 
 which is manifestly needed to divest the soul of care 
 and anxiety, the quietness that should reign around 
 one's life that it may be separated from outward things, 
 so as to place the soul in the attitude most truly in 
 unison with GOD'S revelation of Himself. This absorbed 
 recollectedness is a self-evident condition of such seek- 
 ing after GOD ; but besides this there are special points 
 taught in this scene, which may be less apparent. 
 
 (1.) In the largeness of desire expressed in the prayer 
 of Moses there is a lesson as well as an encouragement. 
 It teaches us that we may be bold with GOD. It implies 
 that GOD is generous, and that we may presume on His 
 generosity ; that we may draw largely upon His Benig- 
 nity. We may take for granted His willingness to be
 
 The Retreat on the Mount. 125 
 
 lavish in His gifts. There is too often an absence of 
 this trustful spirit even in the holiest persons, the most 
 surely accepted worshippers of GOD. There is a 
 trembling fear lest one feeling himself unworthy should 
 ask too much, lest the petition should be beyond the 
 possible gift of GOD. Or there is a misgiving as to the 
 possible consequences of aspiring for any high revela- 
 tion of GOD, as if the soul were incapable of correspond- 
 ing with it. Mingled with this there is, moreover, the 
 influence of old habits, of prepossessions marring the 
 soul's expanding energies, and preventing the onward 
 pressure of grace. Further there is the fear of risk, 
 where there may have been failing before, risk lest 
 the soul should draw down upon itself a judgment be- 
 cause of renewed failure, rather than an increase of 
 grace because of renewed desire. 
 
 We see no trace of such feelings of apprehension in 
 the case we have contemplated. On the contrary, there 
 is courage and confidence, the utmost possible reaching 
 forth of the soul breaking beyond all bounds of past 
 experience. We see a grand scope of fervent desire 
 rising up so as to embrace the very fulness of the bliss 
 of heaven, even though the soul which breathes such a 
 desire had been just before weighed down with the ut- 
 most fear and anxiety. Surely when GOD responded to 
 this desire He meant to show that He was pleased with 
 it, that He would deal, as He had been dealt with, 
 generously ; that He would reveal Himself largely to a 
 largeness of heart resembling His own. 
 
 (2.) We learn, that when GOD answers such desires, 
 He is careful that what we ask shall only be given so 
 far as is safe for us. As He placed His Hand be- 
 tween Moses and His unveiled Glory, allowing His
 
 126 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 servant to look only on what he could endure, even so 
 surely will He guard us against the risk that attends 
 any rashness in the longing, while He grants the utmost 
 fulness of desire that He approves, giving what we are 
 able to receive, while He withholds what would only 
 injure us. Therefore even in making large requests an 
 fresh resolutions, we ought to be always trustful, that 
 He will limit the meaning of our petition to the capa- 
 cities which He recognises in our souls. He will ac- 
 knowledge the truth of our intention, even though our 
 words may be beyond our power, and accept us accord- 
 ing to what He knows our spiritual capacity to be. 
 
 (3.) Again, with this largeness of desire there must 
 be the growing readiness to correspond with the grace 
 that the desire wins, a will to embrace the revelation 
 of GOD in its practical results. Moses was evidently 
 advancing in the consciousness of an increasing capacity 
 while on the Mount. At first his mind appeared only 
 to take in the need of the guiding and supporting 
 Presence of GOD, to sustain him in his onward course 
 under so great a pressure. But his soul grew in its 
 hopes of attainment, and at last he rose up to the idea 
 of apprehending the full greatness of the Mind and 
 Character of GOD. This growth of the human mind, 
 when fixed earnestly on any definite aim, is one of its 
 most important laws. A mind really giving itself to 
 acquire any particular science, grows rapidly in the 
 power of apprehending fresh deepening views as they 
 open in its pursuit. As an advance is made in know- 
 ledge the mind is enlarged and strengthened in its 
 capabilities of receiving more truth. Both the field of 
 knowledge enlarges, and the mind increases in power of 
 intelligence ; and with the power the appetite or desire
 
 The Retreat on the Mount. 127 
 
 to increase enlarges also. This law of the growth of 
 the mind in natural science, is analogous to the growth 
 of the soul fixed upon GOD, in the longing desire to 
 apprehend Divine truth. The vision of GOD grows with 
 the desire to apprehend Him, and both the capacity 
 and desire of the soul increase with the enlarging 
 vision ; they act and react upon each other. And the 
 growth will continue according to this law of mutually 
 responsive action, a growing vision of GOD, and an 
 ever-growing desire of the faithful soul, each attracting 
 the other, each developing with the other, till they be- 
 come one in an infinite capacity, so that the creature 
 knows even as it is known. 
 
 (4.) Again, this same intercourse of the great Saint 
 of the Old Covenant with GOD, explains a fact at which 
 men often marvel. How wonderful it is that while so 
 much is hidden from us, we are yet enabled to see so 
 much ! Both the hiding of the Hand of GOD, and His 
 revealing, are alike wonderful. His Hand is placed be- 
 fore our eyes to conceal, when yet we see as through 
 the cleft secret depths of His inmost Heart, which 
 even Angels desire in vain to look into. While an im- 
 penetrable veil is spread before our sight, yet what 
 startling openings, what unexpected glimpses of that 
 world of life, of the mystery of the Presence of GOD, 
 are at times mercifully vouchsafed to us ! And we are, 
 in truth, sensibly drawn on by this alternation of the 
 two apparently irreconcilable principles of concealment 
 and revelation. 
 
 (5.) Again, we here learn to lay to heart how good 
 it is to wait upon the LORD, to watch the opening 
 Vision with minds calmly set to abide His time, and 
 though with growing desire to understand, yet acknow-
 
 128 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 ledging our unworthiness to apprehend, our incapacity 
 of judging what knowledge may be good for us, what 
 may be hurtful. There are times and seasons for the 
 revelations of GOD, ebbs and flows of His movements, 
 and He Who knows what is in man, can alone judge 
 when we can see and live. There may often be the 
 greater blessing in the expectancy, in the resolution 
 to wait, to acknowledge our ignorance and trust, and 
 so abide peacefully in the cleft of the Rock, con- 
 fident that when He lifts the veil before our purged 
 sight, we shall find that the time of probation for such 
 wondrous bliss was most surely needed. The greatest 
 marvel at last will be, that to such as we have been, 
 the light was ever vouchsafed, and that yet an eternity 
 lies beyond, incapable of exhausting the wonders of the 
 Vision. 
 
 (6.) We must keep in mind the difference between 
 ourselves and the Prophet of the earlier Covenant, 
 a difference which raises us incomparably above his 
 condition, so that the Vision which only " passed by 
 him," is for us an ever-renewed Presence, even our 
 LORD Himself, because He is come to abide in us, 
 and is ever revealing Himself to the illuminated soul 
 which has faith to embrace Him. He reveals Himself 
 not only for a moment when His servant is called up 
 to the Mount, as one incident in his mysterious jour- 
 ney ; we can enter as we will into Retreat with Him 
 within our own hearts, uniting ourselves with Him 
 by the abiding power of a living faith, which is " the 
 substance of things hoped for," the unfailing "evi- 
 dence of things not seen." We are ever standing on 
 the Rock. We are ever being touched by the Glory 
 which is passing by. We are ever seeing through that
 
 The Retreat on the Mount. 129 
 
 Hand whether It conceal or open the Vision. Only 
 we must preserve our soul's capacity thus to apprehend 
 by diligent care and watchfulness, lest the world draw 
 us down, and thus narrow our capacity for GOD, or 
 debase our spiritual taste, or chill the ardour of our 
 desires. We must bear in mind that with the ever- 
 renewed and increasing revelation, there must be a 
 growing conformity with the Vision as It is revealed 
 to the eyes of faith, an actual working out of its results 
 in the visible life, according to the law which ever 
 accompanies the promise; "The just shall live by his 
 faith." 
 
 O LORD, unless Thou Thyself Who art the unspeak- 
 able Gift, be also the Giver of the grace to receive the 
 Gift, how shall we be sufficient for these things ? In 
 the lavishness of Thy outpoured love prepare Thy ser- 
 vants, that with inspired spirits they may apprehend 
 the heavenly Vision ; that nothing may be lost of that 
 which Thou art gone to prepare for them ; that their 
 after life may bear witness to the blessings which Thou 
 hast shed upon them, through Him Who is the only 
 "Light that lighteneth every man that cometh into 
 the world," to Whom be glory for ever.
 
 XIII, 
 
 THE REPOSE OF FAITH. 
 
 THE life of sacramental union with GOD seems strange 
 and alien to our natural life, and impossible to reconcile 
 with our sinfulness and many infirmities. That this 
 apparent contrariety, however, is no evidence of its un- 
 reality may be concluded from the amazing contrast 
 which exists between our LORD and the poor earthly 
 elements through which He condescends to communicate 
 Himself. He speaks as though He recognized no dif- 
 ference between those earthly elements and Himself. 
 He speaks of Himself and them as one " This is My 
 Body;" "This is My Blood." The words imply a 
 sacramental identity; and where His Body and His 
 Blood are, there by virtue of the Hypostatic Union is 
 CHRIST Himself. 
 
 If it were an angelic presence to be thus associated 
 with forms of earth, the contact would seem to be im- 
 possible. Were such a Presence revealed it would be 
 more than our nature could bear ; for when, as we read 
 in the Old Testament, angels appeared, though veiled 
 under kindred human forms, the sight was so over- 
 powering that even prophets beholding them were as 
 men struck dead. 
 
 No marvel, therefore, that the contrast involved in a 
 sacramental union, not with an angel or archangel, but
 
 The Repose of Faith. 131 
 
 with the Creator of angels, with the Everlasting GOD 
 Himself, must appear a thing impossible. If one could 
 not see His Face and live, how can we actually receive 
 Him within our nature, and not be overwhelmed ? How 
 go forth, and not sink beneath the weight of such a 
 Presence ? But if the poor earthly elements preserve 
 their being in such a marvellous union ; if such a re- 
 conciling of the Uncreated and created is possible ; if 
 He can condescend to such a position relative to the 
 inanimate creatures, the argument against our possible 
 union with Him, because of the infinite contrariety of 
 nature, the contrast of His greatness and our nothing- 
 ness, falls to the ground. 
 
 It is but one part of the mystery, that GOD has so 
 accommodated Himself to our capacities, so restrained 
 His communication of Himself, that we feel not His 
 real greatness. He so tempers His approach, so veils 
 His Majesty, that the Divine Communion becomes the 
 gentlest, the tenderest, the most perfectly restful hour 
 of our life. As we advance in spirituality, and so come 
 nearer to GOD, this profound mystery will not appear 
 less strange than it did at first. On the contrary, as our 
 eyes become more purged to see, as our spiritual power 
 becomes greater, so the more incomprehensible is the 
 truth. Hereafter, when we shall have passed where all 
 is light, and we behold the mystery in the full radiance 
 of the glory of the world to come, it will strike us with 
 yet greater amazement, that such an accommodation of 
 the Infinite Godhead to our littleness could have been 
 made possible even to infinite Love. 
 
 There is, indeed, nothing to which we can compare it. 
 Nowhere throughout the creation has GOD communicated 
 Himself in such fulness as to His own Elect. The 
 
 K2
 
 132 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 Hypostatic Union, the union of the Divinity with the 
 Humanity in CHRIST, is the one only example with 
 'which we can compare our new state. Among the 
 creatures the transformation we are contemplating 
 stands absolutely alone. Next to GOD Himself, and 
 inferior to Him alone, we stand in the order of the 
 creation, yet essentially separated from it by this dis- 
 tinction. It is not merely that He is in us, as the 
 Author of our Being, as He stands related to the inani- 
 mate creatures, or as the Author of life to living crea- 
 tures, or as the Author and Preserver of the powers of 
 sensation to sensible creatures, or as the Author and 
 Revealer of knowledge to intelligent creatures, nor 
 merely as the Sustainer of supernatural powers of life, 
 as He is the Fulness of a supernatural glory to the 
 angels and Heavenly Hierarchies. Above and beyond 
 all this, through the communication not merely of 
 powers and gifts, but of Himself, and through impress- 
 ing the very Likeness of Himself in a nature akin to 
 His own, He stands related to us ; and this not by one 
 act, one exercise of love, but by an ever renewed im- 
 parting, like to the pulsations of the ceaseless flow of 
 light which in the material world gladdens and glorifies 
 nature, by His own Infinite attributes adapting them- 
 selves in a special and most marvellous manner, a very 
 oneness of life, through the actual Presence of Himself, 
 the Very Substance of the Very GOD. 
 
 It is to be noted that the communications of this 
 Divine Life act primarily and directly on the spirit, or 
 higher element of our nature. What S. Paul says of 
 the HOLY GHOST, " The Spirit witnesseth with our 
 spirit," is true also of the Divine Humanity and the 
 Presence of CHRIST in us. It is with the spirit, or
 
 The Repose of Faith. 133 
 
 highest faculty of our complex nature, that He holds 
 His mysterious intercourse, coming first into contact 
 with it, and there first imparting Himself. 
 
 He Who, though in a true human Body, the very 
 same Body that He took of His Virgin Mother, and 
 in which He hung on the Cross, is yet all Spirit, first 
 seeks that in us which is most nearly kindred with the 
 spiritual Body in Which He now abides in Heaven with 
 the FATHER. From thence, from His first high converse 
 with the spirit within us, His Presence descends, as it 
 were, to the lower component parts of our nature, 
 taking up into Itself, or diffusing Itself into, all our 
 faculties and organs in order, by a mysterious accom- 
 modation of Himself passing throughout even our ma- 
 terial structure, our very bones and flesh, making our 
 bodies a temple for Himself. His own Body and His 
 own Blood glorified, resplendent with the light of 
 Deity, find even in our natural bodies a home, a means 
 of communication and of abiding, so as to hold inter- 
 course with us, and impress Himself upon us even unto 
 the extremities of our being. How strange it is, that 
 even the higher portions of our being can be sustained 
 in communion with the Eternal Spirit ! How much 
 more strange that any lower or more ordinary faculty 
 can be brought into contact with such a communication 
 of Himself ! 
 
 And yet what a contradiction to Himself must He 
 experience; what a revulsion to His own Divine con- 
 sciousness, when He enters within us ! It is as though a 
 foreigner were to arrive in some distant land, and find 
 there habits and customs, tastes and associations, wholly 
 different from what he had known in his own land, a 
 different language, and unwonted means of support.
 
 134 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 Such is our LORD'S coining to us. Too truly still 
 " His ways are not our ways, neither His thoughts our 
 thoughts." The Invisible, the All Perfect, the Holy 
 One, GOD from out of the depths of His own Land of 
 Glory, coming and raising His tabernacle in the midst 
 of our fallen nature, seems strange to the one in whom 
 He comes to make His abode. He comes as a way- 
 faring man among a people of a strange tongue, scarcely 
 finding means of communication or common ideas. 
 Only by degrees the powers of intercourse and capacity 
 of understanding grow up. Slowly He is able to com- 
 municate Himself as He desires. Slowly we are able 
 to understand Him. Yet just as the traveller, tarrying 
 patiently in his new abode, finds more and more kindred 
 ideas hidden beneath the apparent differences, and 
 grounds of mutual trust, so that at last where all had 
 been so strange, he finds a second home, his cravings 
 for sympathy and companionship satisfied, even so our 
 LORD finds by degrees, or rather creates within us for 
 His own rest in us, capacities to understand Him, and 
 inclinations, one with His own, thoughts and tastes in 
 common ; and we, too, become conscious of seeing Him 
 no longer as a stranger and sojourner, and apprehend 
 His meaning, and know His voice, and correspond with 
 His movements. And then more and more consciously 
 is felt a power of intercourse, the interchange of 
 thoughts and ideas; and what was once so contradictory 
 becomes clear, and full of a wonderful delight, a joy of 
 fellowship, a rest of trustful, mutual love, though with 
 increasing amazement and even with growing fear, be- 
 cause the more we understand Him, so much the more 
 the awfulness of His Majesty, and the sanctity of His 
 Presence, come forth to view, brood over us, and haunt
 
 The Repose of Faith. 135 
 
 us with a power before which gradually other conscious- 
 ness fades, other intercourse becomes comparatively as 
 of no account, all else seen to be of the earth, earthy, 
 and this, the Second Man, the LORD from Heaven, the 
 true and only Life. 
 
 Most important it is to understand what it is that 
 has to be brought about, before this Union, however 
 firmly sealed in Sacraments, will become to us an actual 
 and conscious reality. 
 
 Two ends have to be gained. One is to naturalize 
 (if we may use the expression) in our souls that mys- 
 terious union of our LORD with our own hidden inner 
 life, to adjust the two lives, harmonizing the play of 
 both powers, to form our own ideas into sympathy with 
 His, to turn all our desires into the same current of 
 feeling in which His desires find their rest, to " bring," 
 as S. Paul expresses it, "every thought into the 
 obedience of CHRIST," into obedience to that strange 
 Presence which has possessed us, that thus He, our 
 GOD, may become the reigning, all-directing LORD and 
 King of His new, His chosen abode. 
 
 Secondly, we have to naturalize ourselves to the new 
 world which has grown up around us as strange to us, 
 as His Presence was strange at first. For all has 
 changed, even as^ we ourselves have changed, with the 
 new life which has possessed us. Where He is, Heaven 
 must soon unveil itself. All that is visible, or tangible, 
 assumes a new colouring. " Old things are passed away, 
 behold, all things are become new." 1 As we become 
 consciously possessed with that new Life, and our whole 
 nature grows into harmony with It, so necessarily we 
 look on outward nature, on those with whom we have 
 1 2 Cor. v. 17.
 
 136 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 to do, on the events and passing incidents with which 
 we are brought in contact, with different eyes, viewing 
 them in new relations, with a new sense of duty and a 
 higher love, interpreting them now according to the 
 Mind of GOD, seeing them as He sees them, thinking 
 of them, dealing with them, feeling towards them, as in 
 GOD, as we bear about His Presence within us. At 
 first, indeed, as our new life opened to us, all these 
 outward objects even those most dear to us, even 
 those most closely and most commonly associated with 
 us seemed no longer in harmony with us as before. 
 We know not at first how to reconcile the newly- 
 acquired consciousness with the old relations, how to 
 adjust the claims of the new life and those of the 
 natural life still so closely bound about us. We feel 
 at first as if by what seems a translation into a new 
 order of being, we had become aliens to our former 
 friends and companions ; we fear to lose our new-found 
 treasure if we continue our wonted intercourse with 
 those to whom nature's fond ties had linked us; we see 
 not how we can continue true to the one without being 
 false to the other; we are perplexed and anxious. It 
 requires time to see truly, as changed objects require a 
 change of focus in the instrument of vision. Only by 
 degrees do we see how we may become really more true 
 tojthe one life, as we become true to the other; that 
 the new point of vision and the new consciousness in 
 GOD, have not really necessarily separated us from our 
 former ties, rather have brought us closer together in 
 Him ; have not removed us further, only translated both 
 together into a higher sphere of being. What was dear 
 before has become yet dearer in CHRIST, Who now rules 
 our hearts. What claimed of us duty or love after the
 
 The Repose of Faith. 137 
 
 natural order, has laid on us the sweet pressure of a 
 higher love, a more exalted dutifulness. All has risen 
 to a higher perfection, but nothing is really lost within 
 the changed field of view, as the eye more and more 
 acquires the delighted power of seeing all in their true 
 relative positions, each receiving a fresh meaning and 
 a deepened interest by the new connexions which have 
 been formed. The purged spirit, taught to gaze on the 
 supernatural life within, around it, sees more truly what 
 nature claims of GOD, how the will of the LORD is ful- 
 filled in all that bears the stamp of His own ordaining. 
 Nature and Grace become one in Him Who is the 
 Author and Preserver of both the worlds, or rather 
 Who makes the one the instrument of developing the 
 other, as the Resurrection body rises out of the body 
 of our humiliation. 
 
 There are four practices that may be mentioned as 
 helpful to the attainment of this state of spiritual 
 understanding. 
 
 (1.) One is an introspective Communion with what 
 is going on in us, meditation on the mysterious facts on 
 which we have dwelt, and their issues ; the communing 
 within, the conference held in wondering adoring love 
 with the august Truth, of what nevertheless no sense, 
 however fine or delicate, can appreciate or take cogni- 
 zance. Moreover, beside this inward musing on the 
 mysterious certainty, the exercise of the enkindled 
 imagination on what it involves, what it demands, its 
 laws, its habits, its inspirations, its faint whisperings, 
 its gentle impulses of all that is " pure and lovely and 
 of good report," there arises the thought, how to fulfil, 
 how to apply these high instincts, these heavenly pre- 
 cepts, issuing not so much directly from heaven as from
 
 138 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 a reflected heaven within our own bosom not so much 
 from GOD alone as from GOD reigning on the throne of 
 our hearts, seated at the springs of the active energies 
 of the intelligence, the will, the affections, the centres 
 of our interior life. 
 
 (2.) A second mode of furthering this great end is to 
 cultivate the spirit of faith in the Unseen and the Im- 
 palpable ; to put forth as it were the arms of the soul, 
 in the longing to embrace the Presence which has 
 entered into it, stretching out and expanding the whole 
 being as it exhausts itself in the desire to grasp It, to 
 cling to It, to keep It ; to strengthen the tendency which 
 grace implants ; to rise above the conclusions of sense 
 and reason into the world closing everywhere around us, 
 which rests only on the truth of CHRIST and the re- 
 vealing of the Spirit ; and by such exercise to become 
 the more ready to believe that more than we can think 
 or feel or apprehend is passing upon us, within us, even 
 while we are " troubled about many things ;" that 
 nothing is too great to believe possible of Almighty 
 Power and Love. The hope of the Eucharistic life 
 being fulfilled in us, rests greatly on the belief of such 
 boundless possibility, on the living conviction that the 
 sources of Infinite development are as a well-spring 
 within us; and needful it is that such faith should 
 grow, lest it be fulfilled in us as once fatally of old, 
 " He came unto His Own, and His own received Him 
 not," while yet " as many as received Him, to them 
 gave He power to become the sons of GOD, even to 
 them that believe on His Name." 1 
 
 (3.) The third practical suggestion is special devotion 
 to the HOLY GHOST as the organ of the Godhead in the 
 1 S. John i. 11, 12.
 
 The Repose of Faith. 139 
 
 communication of the Divine Humanity. For He first 
 ministers the grace of consecration, causing the Body 
 and Blood of our LORD to be present, then next reveals 
 Him to the soul, opening more and more of the Mind 
 of JESUS as the soul is able to bear it, infusing into it, 
 and interpenetrating it with the hope of that higher life 
 of His Divine Humanity ; and then communicates Him 
 to those prepared to receive Him. He is still the Friend 
 of the Bridegroom, Who prepares His way, and attends 
 upon His movements, and rejoices in His Presence and 
 His glory. It is indeed the joy of the HOLY GHOST, to 
 communicate CHRIST and help to perfect the union 
 between Him and the soul of His elect, leading the 
 Bridegroom to the Bride, waiting and ministering till 
 the union become more and more perfect. 
 
 Blessed SPIRIT, ever giving out Thy life for others, 
 and ever rejoicing in another's joy, content if only the 
 object of Thy Divine Mission be accomplished, and then 
 only retiring that Thou mightest have nothing of Thy 
 Own, Thy sacrifice of Thyself as complete as the offer- 
 ing up of the Eternal SON, Who sends Thee to us from 
 the FATHER ! Special devotion to Thee is the drawing 
 out of our desires as a response to Thy Own, that Thy 
 grace in return may be enlarged, and shed forth more 
 and more abundantly as the joyous ministry of Love ! 
 
 (4.) The further grace to cherish, which is also the 
 secret discipline that strengthens and refines the soul, 
 that it may correspond with the heavenly visitation, is 
 patience patience with our own weariness in waiting; 
 with the hardness through which our stubborn natures 
 are being broken down ; with the necessary slowness of 
 our progress because of our incapacity for grace ; with 
 the order of the Divine dispensations in His individual
 
 140 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 dealings with us, because He gives " grace for grace/' 
 restraining His greater abundance till His former 
 gifts meet with a truer response and a profounder 
 gratitude. 
 
 We need to exercise ourselves in these things, that 
 our " profiting may appear unto all," but most of all to 
 Him "Who watches ever most keenly with His steadfast 
 gaze, "Whose honour is concerned in the faithfulness of 
 those to whom He has trusted Himself, in whom He 
 seeks to find a fitting resting place. 
 
 Alas, for the sad and desponding heart ! If for the 
 bright and hopeful it is difficult to realize the Indwell- 
 ing Presence, and the sacramental powers working in 
 us, because of their strangeness so foreign to our proper 
 nature, what must it be to one lacking in faith, and 
 downcast amid the mists and vapours that ever hover 
 around this earthly state, and cloud the shining of the 
 heavenly light ! 
 
 But note what is really the cause of this self-engen- 
 dered hindrance. It is not the infirmity of a fallen 
 nature, because it is the very fact of our fatal weakness 
 even unto death, which brought down CHRIST from 
 above. It is not that there are still lingerings of our 
 former sins, for He enters in for the very purpose of 
 cleansing us, and the blotting out the soul's stain is 
 part of the miracle of mercy involved in His Presence. 
 It is not unfaithfulness to the great Gift in former 
 times, for there is an ever fresh complete fulness in 
 each Communion which obliterates the neglects of for- 
 mer Communions. All such hindrances only plead the 
 more powerfully, the more touchingly, because of the 
 greater need, and such hindrances are " common to 
 man." He finds them alike in all to whom He comes,
 
 The Repose of Faith. 141 
 
 varying only in degree. The real hindrance more com- 
 monly, at least in the faithful and devout, arises out of 
 the soul's tendency irrespective of any positive evil, but 
 aggravated by such evil the tendency to brood on its 
 own defects, till it loses itself in its self-contemplation, 
 sees only itself, and loses the vision of its LORD, Who is 
 still within it, though hidden, or sees His Face only dis- 
 torted or perhaps looking angrily through the darkness, 
 as orbs of light are seen through the stormy clouds 
 which the lower levels of the earth's surface generate. 
 The hindrance is the soul's own persistent shrinking 
 from the free, generous benevolence of GOD; the re- 
 luctance to cast itself on the all-forgiving, all-enduring, 
 all-reconciling love of our LORD ; the difficulty of com- 
 prehending the amazing truth of the possible co-existence 
 of His Infiniteness with the littleness of the creature ; 
 of such a life as ours with the awful nearness of Him 
 Whose " Name is Jealous/' before Whom " the very 
 heavens are not clean." Fears, scruples, self-accusings, 
 self-complainings, distrusts, doubtings, pass rapidly 
 across the face of the soul, agitating, perplexing, filling 
 it with irrepressible anxieties, at variance with the dic- 
 tates of faith, overmastering them, till it sinks down 
 spent and exhausted with the vain struggle, till it lets 
 go its hold and gives itself over as lost, while yet it ac- 
 knowledges the boundless love and exhaustless compas- 
 sion of its LORD towards others, towards all but itself; 
 it dies to faith and hope while honouring GOD in others, 
 and even thinking to honour Him the more through the 
 self-abandonment of its own despair. 
 
 How can such a soul be aided in its sore distress, the 
 increased strangeness which the Sacramental Life must 
 present to such a one, a soul perishing even while help is
 
 142 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 close at hand, come on purpose to give aid at the instant 
 need, more ready to grant than we to pray? One 
 remedy is to lean one's own failing faith on the more 
 trustful, assured faith and convictions of others, so that 
 the spirit of faith may communicate itself to the sad and 
 darkened spirit by a mutually organic sympathy. As 
 the palsied man had need to be " borne of four," and so 
 let down through the roof at the feet of that strange 
 Presence of healing power, around Whom the world in 
 its helplessness and amazement crowded, and was healed 
 through their confidence, their faith, indeed, not supply- 
 ing what his own lacked, but quickening and enabling 
 him through the force of their sympathy and perseve- 
 rance, even so one soul may strengthen another, as it 
 may intercede for another; and borne on the outward 
 trust of another's stronger faith its own feeble energy 
 may be enabled to rise. 
 
 The faith of ages, the witness of the Catholic Church 
 of all time to the sure abiding Fulness of the Presence 
 of our LORD, and all His powers of forgetting and for- 
 bearing love, may become the groundwork of a trustful 
 childlike assurance, before the face of which all doubts 
 and fears will vanish away ; or even in the very worst 
 estate of paralysed despondency one may constrain 
 another to wait on in patience, like the poor cripple of 
 Bethesda, beside the streams of healing, assured how 
 others have found health and reviving, and that if the 
 sufferers only wait patiently long enough by the spot 
 where the healing virtue moves, more than the angel's 
 presence will at length be felt and seen, the Eternal ap- 
 proaching the chosen soul, will surely at last be known, 
 His voice be heard, and the unquestioned sense of per- 
 sonal individualising love will penetrate the enfeebled
 
 The Repose of Faith. 143 
 
 consciousness, filling it as with the rekindling of the 
 first love, the thrilling joy of restored health. The 
 remedy of the disease of ages may be the work of a mo- 
 ment, or even if this cannot be, and the soul is so help- 
 less, so incapable of rising to meet Him as He approaches, 
 yet still if one but cry, though only as the blind man by 
 the wayside, he may be assured that at last his SAVIOUR 
 will pass by, the cry will reach Him, the spirit of con- 
 stant desire will draw Him to the sufferer's side, " He 
 will surely come, He will not tarry/' And even though 
 all be strange and dark, and Eucharistic truth fall list- 
 lessly as an unknown tongue upon the ear, and there is 
 no understanding, no heart to apprehend the darkening 
 mystery, and one stand alone among the unbelieving 
 and the careless, the world around seeming only to con- 
 firm and countersign the collapse of such fondly trea- 
 sured hope, vainly struggling with a general unbelief, 
 one may still cast oneself on the conviction of the Apos- 
 tles, who when all left Him yet still lingered by His 
 side, not that they could see and comprehend the mys- 
 tery of the sacramental life, but because they felt that 
 He must be true, or truth must cease to be, that if He 
 were false there could be none in heaven or earth to j 
 trust : " LORD, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the 
 words of eternal life." 1 And yet the very craving of 
 their souls for life was proof indestructible that He Who 
 made them willed such cravings not to be in vain. 
 However dark His words, however veiled His Presence, 
 however hidden the promised bliss, they would wait in 
 trustful rest of pure faith on Him Who promised, till 
 in His own time He unveil His Face, and light spring 
 out of the darkness. 
 
 1 S. John vi. 68.
 
 144 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 Nor will He fail such as trust in Him. He will fulfil 
 His own purposes, for it was the very accomplishment 
 of His one great design of giving Himself to such as 
 trust in Him, that brought Him forth from heaven. 
 " GOD so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten 
 SON, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, 
 but have everlasting life." 1 The long, almost despair- 
 ing waiting for a blessing, may seem, as it were, to be 
 all fulfilled at once. There may come the tide of the 
 fulness of Life and Light and Joy, rushing in through 
 the whole being. Though He may will us to wait 
 during long periods of time, even years of painful ex- 
 pectation and suspense, yet He can cut short His work 
 at last, and accomplish all His Will, as in a moment. 
 His Predestination must fulfil its course. He may will 
 to be glorified all the more after the long waiting. The 
 morning joy is all the brighter because of the linger- 
 ing of the night. The flood tide rises the higher when 
 the ebbing is the lowest. The most brilliant sun- 
 shine is after the passing of the storm. GOD seems to 
 delight in contrasts, as we call them. The changing of 
 His hand, to us so startling, may be simply a necessity 
 of His greatness. Life and Death touch each other's 
 confines with a rapidity that must ever startle, and yet 
 the interchange remains an abiding law. So learn we to 
 wait His time, nor ever cease to trust Him. The very 
 helplessness we feel, may be but the prelude to some 
 more amazing manifestation of His love. 
 
 O LORD, Whose Name is secret, work in us the con- 
 viction that Thou art still our own, and though life 
 itself sinks within us, and we seem passing into the 
 nothingness out of which Thy hand was stretched forth 
 1 S. John iii. 16.
 
 The Repose of Faith. 145 
 
 to draw us into being, and all around grows dark and 
 confused, yet Thou art GOD, and there is none other, 
 and Thy word endureth for ever in heaven, and we 
 cast ourselves on Thee. "Thou wilt keep him in 
 perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee, because 
 he trusteth in Thee/' 1 
 
 1 Isa. xxyi. 3.
 
 XIY, 
 
 THE WORSHIP OF THE DIVINE PRESENCE. 
 
 WE have dwelt on the exceeding joy and wonderful 
 powers of the mysterious life which flows into us 
 through the intimate union which the mercy of GOD 
 hath wrought for us through the Blessed Sacrament, 
 as the means of perfecting His Elect in Himself. We 
 have hitherto dwelt chiefly on this Mystery with refer- 
 ence to those who communicate, and seen their ines- 
 timable gain, their mysterious joy, and how it is to be 
 secured. But is there then no benefit for those who are 
 present without communicating ? Are we to limit the 
 blessedness of the Sacrament to those who partake, and 
 is there no inward joy or special work of love between 
 themselves and their LORD in those who, though ordi- 
 narily partakers of Him, yet, whether from not venturing 
 to approach so often, or from passing hindrance, desire 
 to draw near to Him without actual reception of the 
 awful Gift Itself? 
 
 Surely when we call to mind the words of love from 
 our LORD'S Own Heart, that His desire is to be " among 
 the sons of men," and to " dwell in the habitable parts 
 of the earth ;" and hear Him saying to all, " I will not 
 leave you comfortless, I will come unto you," thus 
 speaking evidently of the companionship which, though
 
 The Worship of the Divine Presence. 147 
 
 withdrawn from sight, He longs to be evermore con- 
 tinued with His Elect; and moreover consider what it 
 cost Him to separate Himself the wrench, if the ex- 
 pression may be allowed, it evidently was to Him, as 
 the terms of Holy Scripture testify, when He was con- 
 strained to leave the disciples at the 'hour of His 
 Ascension, 1 we may, pondering such expressions, 
 gather from them that one part of the Divine Institu- 
 tion, beside that great purpose of communicating Him- 
 self to be our inward hidden Life, was the continuance 
 of that felt nearness of intercourse, that sweet conscious- 
 ness of companionship, which otherwise would have been 
 lost and for which the human heart ever yearns towards 
 those we love, a consciousness independent of any act 
 such as Communion implies. Such a purpose would 
 be accomplished by the appointment of a visible form 
 notifying His Presence, even though Himself could not 
 be seen. Actual sight is not essential to the feeling 
 of the nearness of those we love, whose treasured 
 memories are borne fondly in our hearts. It is not 
 merely when we actually see them that our souls are 
 filled with delight in the sense of our being with them 
 and they with us the least accustomed sign of their 
 presence is enough to awaken the whole train of loving, 
 restful, delighted thoughts, in which we live with them. 
 We enter the house where one whom we love dwells, 
 and at once the look of everything within assures us of 
 him, that he is near, and the heart is at rest. All ob- 
 jects speak of his presence the chair, the open book, 
 the implements of daily familiar use, tell at once the 
 
 1 See especially S. Luke's account of the scene : " And it came to pass, 
 while He blessed them, He was parted (Sieo-rr;) from them, and carried 
 up into heaven." The words imply a separation, aa if by force. 
 
 L 2
 
 148 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 whole story, bring at once before the mind all the 
 precious associations that gather round the thought of 
 the loved person : he lives before us in vivid substantial 
 reality, through the power of association. And the 
 feeling that at any moment he may appear only adds 
 to the pleasurable sense of close fellowship which we 
 experience from the unmistakable signs of his nearness. 
 
 This same universal law of our nature necessarily 
 rales our consciousness also in the case of the Blessed 
 Sacrament, for our LORD laid hold of this instinct, a 
 law of His own implanting, in order to fulfil His 
 promise of continued companionship, when it became 
 no longer possible for the outward eye of man to behold 
 Him. He would still be near to the soul He loves, 
 and satisfy its cravings by the fullest possible enjoy- 
 ment of that fellowship. And He effects it by means 
 of the actual sight, not of Himself, which could not yet 
 be and ourselves live, but of the signs and symbols 
 which His Word has sealed to be the means of recog- 
 nizing His Presence, assuring us that where they are, 
 there He is, there we can hold sure converse with Him. 
 
 When we behold those outward signs, Himself is 
 proved to be there. We are at once entranced and 
 filled with this consciousness, and the mind is satisfied 
 and absorbed as at no other time ; and this may be in- 
 dependently of the Communion which follows. He is 
 there, and the assurance of the visible symbols is enough; 
 it is the certain pledge of our sacramental relation to 
 Him. Communion is necessary for the actual felt em- 
 brace of Himself within one's own self, but without 
 this we may have the satisfaction of the feeling of our 
 being near to Him, and His being near to us. At any 
 moment He might suddenly appear. If He willed He
 
 The Worship of the Divine Presence. 149 
 
 might instantly break through the veil which screens 
 Him from mortal eyes, and in bodily substance His 
 Form, His Face, stand out to view, where the covenanted 
 signs of His Presence are. 
 
 During the time that we are wrapt in love before these 
 outward symbols our assurance is the same as if we 
 actually beheld Him with our bodily eyes. Our con- 
 sciousness of what He is to us, is as unquestioned, yea, 
 rather far more, than what they saw or felt who beheld 
 Him under the veil of that Body of His humiliation, 
 which hid His inner life. What faith now mystically 
 discerns, is relieved of all that marred and clouded with 
 doubt that glorious Presence, and is clothed with all the 
 light and beauty which invest His Form as He is within 
 the throne of GOD. Faith sees Him now in the heavenly 
 glory in which alone He lives, as itself is kindled with 
 the same light through His Spirit uniting heaven and 
 earth, suffusing the Form beheld and the soul that be- 
 holds, with rays of the same glory. 
 
 Moreover, to be thus near to our LORD, even though 
 we do not actually receive Him, cannot but be fraught 
 with blessing. We read how they brought sick folk, 
 and laid them down where the Apostles passed, that 
 even " the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow 
 some of them," and become the source in some measure 
 at least to them of healing power. Our LORD, as the 
 crowd pressed upon Him, let pass through the very hem 
 of His garment the virtue which healed the sick woman 
 who touched it. An effluence was shed abroad around 
 Him, emanating from Him, and passing upon those pre- 
 pared to receive it. The savour of the sweet ointment 
 was diffused beyond its own substance. Thus too " the 
 Sun of righteousness" was to arise " with healing in
 
 150 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 His wings." Around Him, beyond Him, wherever He 
 moves, He reveals Himself. Effluences of light, and 
 peace, and joy, are shed abroad, indirect effects of 
 His nearness, over and above the fulness of life which 
 from His Divine Person, possessed and possessing us, 
 becomes our abiding joy. As by the stirring and 
 hovering of wings there is shed out healing virtue, 
 freshening streams of power, sweetness of Divine conso- 
 lations, besides and beyond the gushing of Life pro- 
 ceeding directly from His Sacred Person. We can 
 hardly but be stirred to quickened faith and tenderer 
 love, as we pray before the consecrated signs of His 
 Presence, His coming near to bless. What each may 
 need He knows, what may gladden each heart is to 
 Him a precious thought, and there may come some 
 emanation from Himself which may supply that very 
 j need and reach that longing desire. Nor can we sup- 
 pose that the soul which has thus approached, with its 
 longings of desire and pleadings of its need, can go back 
 from Him wholly empty and unchanged, when it has 
 been so close to His amazing Fulness. 
 
 There, too, we may meetly prepare ourselves for the 
 reception of our LORD, if unable at the time to receive 
 Him. For however great our care to fit ourselves for 
 a true union with Him, He Himself by His Spirit 
 must prepare us. He Himself brings forth the wedding 
 garment to clothe His guest at the Feast of Love. It is 
 His FATHER'S drawing which brings the soul to Him. 
 His own attractions will bring out more and more in 
 us of what will be pleasing to Himself. It is His Spirit 
 cleansing it with absolving grace which removes all the 
 hindrances, if any grave fault has intervened to check 
 the confident approach, if the peace and rest of child-
 
 The Worship of the Divine Presence. 151 
 
 like trust needs to be repaired; and where the special 
 absolving grace is scarcely needed, the abiding near 
 Him for awhile cannot but reassure the soul that 
 trembles lest it should too hastily draw yet nearer. To 
 be breathing the atmosphere which His Sacramental 
 Presence breathes; to cheer and gladden the soul with 
 the brightness that surrounds the shrine of His abode ; 
 to be drinking in fresh resolves, quickened desires, purer 
 aspirations and more vivid faith, where Angels and 
 Archangels are folding their wings to adore Him in His 
 earthly sanctuary, leaving even Heaven for awhile to do 
 Him honour, this cannot but be to catch at least 
 something of the grace shed abroad from His Person, 
 and to gain a deepened love making the soul more 
 worthy when the time of actual reception is come. 
 
 There is for all in such attendance the opportunity of 
 adoring our LORD, in itself the profoundest peace, and 
 an elevation of soul which transforms earth to Heaven. 
 To unite oneself with the multitudinous host of the 
 Blessed who are adoring Him on the visible Throne of 
 His Presence above, recognizing the Unity of His 
 Person and the Reality of His Substance, the oneness 
 of the veiled and the unveiled glory of the Incarnate 
 GOD, as He adapts His earthly manifestation to our 
 present state, while yet He leaves not His abode of 
 ineffable Light where the Heavenly Hierarchies cease- 
 lessly worship Him, this is even now to be in Heaven. 
 It is to honour Him for His own dear sake, without 
 the benefit to ourselves which Communion gives. And 
 it may be all the more pleasing to Him, because of the 
 many profanations and irreverences of those who discern 
 Him not, and pass Him by, or knowing Him to be 
 there, turn their backs upon Him, or because of the
 
 152 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 lack of devotion in those who do discern Him and yet 
 fail to pay Him that homage of praise which is His 
 due. Love, if it were possible, would ever seek to 
 repair the dishonour of the loved one. The very fact 
 that He is disowned by others, quickens the desire to 
 surround Him with additional marks of loving reverence. 
 Our acts, indeed, can add nothing to GOD ; nor can one 
 creature compensate for, any more than he can redeem, 
 another. We cannot repair a wrong done to Him, as 
 though one's own offering of love could be accepted in 
 another's stead, to supply the loss, or do away the 
 wrong, or set another free. But love is generous, and 
 the heart's desires have, because of love, a value which 
 is not their own, when heart meets heart in mutual 
 sympathy. And when again and again our LORD as 
 of old in visible Presence, so now in sacramental verity, 
 comes, and His own receive Him not, He must needs 
 turn with satisfaction to those who count it joy even to 
 be near Him, though they then seek no more, or draw 
 not nearer, because they wait till their more perfect 
 preparation has made them less unworthy. They come 
 and tell Him what that interval of Communion has 
 been to them, beyond all other times ; how the longing 
 for the Gift of Himself has grown with the growth of 
 that Reception, how the increasing frequency of that 
 wondrous Gift fills their heart with thanksgiving. 
 They come and tell Him all this in His very Presence, 
 and certainly it must be an act very pleasing to Him. 
 To own our LORD when He mercifully comes to us, 
 though we do no more, while the world proudly passes 
 by, or canvasses with sceptical questioning the awful 
 Mystery, as a mere controversy of the day, on which 
 men may choose their sides, while He withdraws not
 
 The Worship of the Divine Presence. 153 
 
 His dishonoured Presence, in His longing to bless even 
 those that turn away from Him, this is surely an act 
 of love all the more precious because there is so much 
 to disappoint and grieve. 
 
 There is the yet further blessing which accompanies 
 the prayer made over the great Oblation, the joining 
 in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. But this needs to be 
 viewed as a separate subject by itself, and has already 
 been considered as a main part of the Sacramental 
 Mystery. 
 
 It is a most precious thought, enlarging our view of 
 the tenderness of the love of GOD, that when He would 
 bless us He superadds benefits which seem unnecessary 1 
 for the attainment of the particular end in view, but 
 serve only to increase our joy, or magnify His good- 
 ness. Thus it is, as already observed, throughout 
 nature. To the forms of inanimate things, besides 
 what is needful for life and the exercise of their powers, 
 GOD has added other features, made only for enjoy- 
 ment or beauty. Such are, in the material world, the 
 many-coloured petals fringing the productive organs of 
 flowering plants; or, in higher spheres of life, the 
 exquisite joys of pure friendship, and all the delightful 
 adornings of form or movement, of voice or feature, 
 which combine to give the real charm to human life, 
 and yet are not needful for its support. So it has been 
 in the institution of this great Sacrament; we see like 
 signs, as we might expect, marking the Same Hand and 
 the same blessed purpose. It was ordained for the 
 special purpose of pleading the Sacrifice of Atonement, 
 and feeding the Elect with the food of immortality. 
 And to fulfil these objects would have been enough for
 
 154 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 life and holiness. But this was not enough for His 
 love : not enough for the largeness of His purpose to 
 bless. He would superadd to these blessings the secret 
 joy which arises from the sense of His nearness ob- 
 jectively perceived, consciously felt, so as to impart to 
 the yearning spirit the rest of assured belief in His 
 companionship, notwithstanding all our unworthiness, 
 so closely renewed from time to time ; a companion- 
 ship silent indeed and impalpable to outward sense, yet 
 to the faith which can see beyond the outward form, 
 one ever speaking of love, and desire, and the certainty 
 of a perfect union hereafter, as though no other end 
 ! were to be accomplished. 
 
 What more, blessed LORD, couldest Thou have done 
 for Thy own Elect ? What remains for us to ask, but 
 that Thou shouldest so enable us by Divine faith and 
 the inner sight of supernatural consciousness, that we 
 may rise to a true and real perception of what Thou 
 dost thus evermore consecrate to our use, through which 
 Thou wouldest work out such ceaseless beneficence ? 
 send out Thy Spirit, and raise us to the height 
 of this great Mystery. May the sevenfold Lamp of 
 Fire ever burning before Thy throne kindle us, as we 
 adore Thee before Thy altar-throne on earth, inflaming 
 our hearts, and enlightening them, that they may be 
 enabled readily to catch something of the spark of 
 flame from the fulness of the radiance so close to us, 
 though veiled beneath such earthly and inadequate 
 forms ! Yea, blessed LORD ! Thou Thyself must enable 
 the powers of our senses and our inner perceptions to 
 correspond with Thy most gracious purposes for us. 
 Enable us so to correspond, as Thou drawest us more 
 and more closely, that we may meet Thee thus coming
 
 The Worship of the Divine Presence. 155 
 
 to us. In seeking this, we are asking what Thou, O 
 good LORD, desirest even with a greater desire, pleading 
 Thy own Intention, pressing home on Thee Thy own 
 purpose. For Thou seekest us, not we seek Thee. 
 Thou hast said, " Seek ye My Face." It is only as a 
 faint response to Thy own word, that we can say, 
 "Thy Face, LORD, do I seek." We love Thee only 
 because Thou dost first love us. Be Thou the Creator 
 in us of a love that can meet Thy love, and then may 
 Thy Presence bless our enkindled hearts with a fervour 
 of affection glowing ever more and more in the fire that 
 consumes all that is not of Thee, till we shine as Thou 
 shinest in the Glory that fadeth not away for ever.
 
 XV, 
 
 THE INCARNATION ILLUSTRATED. 
 
 WE have dwelt on the mystery of GOD vouchsafing to 
 give Himself through the forms of earthly elements, in 
 order to unite Himself with us. We have dwelt also on 
 the consequences of this union of our own sinful selves 
 with the Sinless, the Perfect, the Divine. We have 
 dwelt, moreover, on the blessing, the grace and power, 
 flowing forth from His Presence beyond Himself, 
 beyond His immediate contact which even those in 
 some degree may share who only worship Him, plead- 
 ing the great atoning Sacrifice. 
 
 These distinct views of the Eucharistic Mystery have 
 passed before our eyes, and disclosed some visions of 
 the vast, exhaustless powers of this Great Sacrament. 
 But further, independently of these its proper effects 
 and objects, the Mystery has a most important use in 
 quickening our understanding, and deepening our faith 
 in the central doctrine of the Incarnation. And this 
 is a matter of the utmost moment. For the Incarna- 
 tion is the one only real ground of hope of rising above 
 ourselves into GOD, of the union of the heavenly with 
 the earthly, and thus of a higher life being formed in 
 us, through the communication of the Divine Nature 
 the Source of those secret Mysteries by which we are 
 transformed beyond ourselves into Itself. A quickened
 
 The Incarnation Illustrated. 157 
 
 faith in this great truth is the result of meditation on 
 the Holy Eucharist, because of the important resem- 
 blances between It and the Incarnation, proving the 
 sameness of the Mind Which planned both mysteries. 
 Because of the resemblances the one truth assists the 
 other. The apprehension of the one quickens that of 
 the other, each becoming more true to us, by observing 
 a sameness extending to both alike; for the mind is 
 greatly moved by analogies. 
 
 (1.) Firstly, note in both mysteries the intimate 
 union of the Infinite and the finite. In the Incarna- 
 tion the first cause of wonder is that He Who compre- 
 hendeth all things and is not comprehended of any 
 Who encompasseth, filleth, and yet passes beyond all, 
 to Whose attribute of Infiniteness, we can give no real 
 name, for the mind of man is unable to take in the very 
 idea, should tabernacle in a human body, should en- 
 shrine Himself in a contracted form which we could 
 see with our eyes and embrace in our arms. That all 
 the attributes which characterise the Infinite should be 
 thus embodied within the Man, One like unto our- 
 selves, growing in stature, and dependent on the aid 
 of His creatures, is the difficulty to faith. But observe 
 how precisely this same wonderful characteristic marks 
 our LORD'S sacramental Presence. He accommodates 
 Himself to the poorest and least of outward material 
 forms, contracts Himself so as to be intimately iden- 
 tified with elements which we hold in our hands and 
 take into our lips, for there He is Himself in all the 
 Majesty and Power of His mature State. The two 
 extremes of being meet in One : in the one case, the 
 Infiniteness of Godhead coalescing with the limited 
 form of a fleshy nature, His Sacred Humanity ; in the
 
 158 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 other, the Goo-Man, in the perfection of both natures, 
 with the species of bread and wine. 
 
 (2.) Another marvel attaching to the Incarnation is the 
 union, without confusion, of two substances so diverse 
 as those of the Creator and the creature, substances 
 which can never assimilate, or lose their separate 
 essential distinctness ; for GOD cannot change. It is an 
 inalienable attribute of Deity to be unchangeable. The 
 Humanity of CHRIST changes. It increased in wisdom 
 as in stature. It became spiritual, glorified, deified; yet 
 It still remains only Itself. Its organs, Its desires, Its 
 capacities, are still and ever must be simply human, 
 creaturely what we can, at least as to their kind, un- 
 derstand in some measure, because we are of the same 
 nature. Equally the Godhead retains Its separateness, 
 and will ever preserve Its Infinite distance, Its perfect 
 simplicity of Being. And yet in CHRIST the Two Na- 
 tures are so entirely One that They cannot be divided ; 
 they are truly spoken of as One, and act as One. The 
 One Name, JESUS, implies the Godhead equally as the 
 Manhood ; for they unite in One Personality. It is as 
 true to say that GOD died on the Cross, though death 
 could only affect His Humanity, as it is to say that the 
 Man, CHRIST JESUS, is from everlasting, though His 
 eternal generation is confined to His Godhead. 
 
 The same mysterious identity of divers and unequal 
 substances meets us in the Blessed Sacrament, the 
 Elements being taken out of their natural order, and 
 being Divinely possessed, become the channels and 
 instruments of His Presence, yet retaining their own 
 substance and attributes. For there are the two sub- 
 stances, the one heavenly, the other earthly ; the one 
 Divine- Human, the other inanimate. And these sub-
 
 The Incarnation Illustrated. 159 
 
 stances retain their divers qualities and attributes per- 
 fectly distinct one from the other. But yet, through 
 the grace of consecration by the operation of the HOLY 
 GHOST, they are most truly one according to sacra- 
 mental grace. They are present before us as one 
 object, are spoken of as one, enter into us as one. It 
 is equally true to say of the Bread, when consecrated, 
 " It is our LORD'S Body," as it is to say of our LORD, 
 " He is the true Bread." In receiving the Bread we 
 receive His Body. Through the assimilation to us of 
 the one is the assimilation of the other. And yet the 
 one remains natural, the other supernatural, the one 
 earthly, the other heavenly. 
 
 In both cases alike this wonderful characteristic of 
 the union of such divers substances and natures meets us, 
 brought into such amazing proximity, nay, more than 
 this, into such an entire co-existence of life. There is, 
 indeed, this momentous difference in the case of the 
 Hypostatic Union between GOD and man, the Incarna- 
 tion of GOD, that the union is indissoluble, while in 
 His Presence in the Blessed Sacrament the union is 
 assumed only for a time, that He may through the 
 means of the elements unite Himself with us; when 
 this is accomplished, His union with them ceases. 
 There is the further difference, that in the Incarnation 
 the union is of a personal character, the Humanity 
 being an integral part of our LORD'S twofold Being; 
 in the Sacrament the union is purely accidental, for a 
 purpose, as a passing shadow might invest a substance, 
 or as the clothing of a living person. The union is 
 temporary, not enduring, sacramental, not personal ; 
 though allowing for such differences it is equally real 
 and true.
 
 160 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 (3.) Again, how great is the mystery of the Incarna- 
 tion in regard to its infantine commencement, and its 
 progressive growth from the earliest form within the 
 womb to its perfected glory at the Right Hand of the 
 FATHER! In the Holy Conception "the seed of the 
 woman" was as truly, as perfectly united with the 
 Eternal Godhead of the SON, as now in His perfect 
 Manhood. The full stature of CHRIST is not more truly 
 one with the Divine Essence and Power than it was 
 with the secret " substance yet being imperfect," which 
 lay silently, being "fashioned beneath in the earth." 
 How impossible for us to comprehend the inward growth 
 to maturity, the gradual development of the organs, of 
 the bodily and mental powers, which were becoming 
 thus eternally the attributes of GOD ! 
 
 A similar mystery meets us in the Blessed Sacrament. 
 For there is the overshadowing of the Same HOLY 
 GHOST, the same power of the Highest, in a mar- 
 vellous operation. And the result is but as a seed, 
 a germ of life formed in secret. But it is the Same 
 Person of CHRIST adapting Himself to our littleness, 
 the Same Divine Nature in both cases alike uniting 
 Itself with forms of being wholly dissimilar to Itself, 
 the amazing Fulness of the Life of CHRIST contracted 
 within the outward forms of the Sacrament. And thus 
 this same Presence communicates Itself in germs of 
 everlasting life to each separate member of the Com- 
 munion of His saints, to grow up a fructifying power 
 developing Itself in each to become the perfect man, 
 the mystical reproduction of the Same CHRIST, become 
 the Fulness of GOD in His own true Elect, yet each 
 one in that blessed company preserving his own separate 
 gift distinguishable from all others. The parallel is
 
 The Incarnation Illustrated. 161 
 
 complete. The SON of GOD, Who became " the seed 
 of the woman," to grow even as we grow, by slow 
 stages from weakness to strength, from least to greatest 
 of created Being, even the Same Redeemer, the Same 
 Life of man, becomes continually in countless multi- 
 tudes the infant germ of a new creation, to grow more 
 and more into a very sameness of life, to be manifested 
 at last in a like glory within the Light that enshrines 
 the perfect Godhead, and be thus made one with It for 
 ever, all developed from that one Sacramental Seed of 
 Life into the full stature of the perfect CHRIST. 
 
 (4.) Once more, we trace a striking resemblance be- 
 tween the two cases, in regard to the hiddenness 
 which marks them both alike. In the Incarnation the 
 stumbling-block to faith is, how GOD should be on 
 earth, speaking with human voice, acting with human, 
 hands and limbs, touching and being touched, face to 
 face with all who came to Him, and come on purpose to 
 reveal Himself, and yet to be neither seen, nor known, 
 nor understood, even by " His own," or discerned, if at 
 all, most dimly and slowly, and then but by a very few 
 supernaturally illuminated. Most mysterious, too, is it 
 that having been thus in the world, tarrying so long, 
 He should have left so little visible, sensible track of 
 His Glory, such a faint impression of His Presence, the 
 outward still so overshadowing the inward, the world 
 so overpowering GOD within it. It seemed as if Almighty 
 Power had to give way because of the incapacity, the 
 blindness, the pride of the creature because of the vast 
 immeasurable incongruities between the Divine and the 
 human because His thoughts and ways are not our 
 thoughts and ways. And yet all the while He sought 
 even as it were to force Himself on the consciousness of 
 
 M
 
 162 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 those who discerned Him not, leaving everywhere before 
 the eyes of all marks of His Presence, only withdrawing 
 Himself, and age after age preserving the same amazing 
 hiddenness, lest the manifestation should be for a 
 greater condemnation. 
 
 The very same law is perpetuated in the Blessed 
 Sacrament. So hidden is our LORD not only His 
 Divinity but His Humanity also inscrutably veiled and 
 shrouded from every sense, except the hearing of the 
 words that announce the fact, so neglected and passed 
 by, alas ! often so profaned and insulted, that men 
 more and more, stumbling at this stumbling-block, dis- 
 believe the possibility of any Presence at all under such 
 utter abnegation of all outward appearance. 
 
 Yet what is this but a very repetition of His man- 
 ner of intercourse with His creatures during the thirty- 
 three years of sorrow in His first coming ? What but 
 the Same JESUS loving the same hiddenness? 
 
 And yet, beneath this secret hiding of His Presence 
 as in the days of His ministry, though despised and 
 humiliated, at times He revealed His Power, even to 
 alarm and confound His adversaries, as when the 
 soldiers who came to seize Him fell helplessly to the 
 ground before Him, even so in the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment, though neglected and profaned, His Power is so 
 instinctively felt, that the wicked are terrified at His 
 approach, the most careless shrink with conscious awe 
 from receiving Him. 
 
 Nor is it less true both of the Incarnation and the 
 Blessed Sacrament, that while the Presence of GOD is 
 thus acknowledged and felt, Its hiddenness is preserved 
 with the utmost jealousy, so that to seek to approach 
 too near is to run the risk of losing what we have em-
 
 The Incarnation Illustrated. 163 
 
 braced, if not to suffer from the too daring attempt. 
 Its law is hiddenness and mystery, only making Itself 
 known to the inward senses, not to the outward, reveal- 
 ing Itself only to the souls of those who can " discern" 
 Him. The creature must reverence the concealment of 
 Him " Whose Name is secret." If we attempt to define 
 too accurately, to examine too curiously, the mind be- 
 comes confused. The cloud is drawn around the mount. 
 The very vision which faith had apprehended floats be- 
 fore the sight, vanishing from the grasp. It is an equal 
 mystery in either case. GOD avenges His Secrecy, the 
 sanctity of His veiled abode, while He penetrates the 
 inmost sense with an indefinable awe. 
 
 JESUS is " the Same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." 
 How marvellous that this great truth should be thus 
 constantly manifested, as link upon link of a long chain, 
 beginning with the wonderful manifestation which broke 
 upon the eyes of the Apostles, which in that Upper 
 Chamber was the Consolation of their fears, the Soothing 
 of their bereavement, the Pledge of an after meeting, 
 when they were about to lose Him for the remainder of 
 their earthly pilgrimage, that even while He is with the 
 FATHER, fulfilling at an immeasurable distance the last 
 great office of His Priesthood, He should still perpetuate 
 on earth His Presence after the same laws; that His 
 love continues to extend His Incarnation through a 
 Sacrament characterized by precisely the same condi- 
 tions that uniformly marked His life, thus giving the 
 surest palpable testimony to the truth of the greatest 
 work of His love ; that He Who once appeared visibly 
 to mortal eyes is with us still, after a like manner, though 
 unseen, to unite us to Himself; that He who now feeds 
 us with the food of immortality is the same that lay con- 
 
 M 2
 
 164 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 cealed in the womb, and hung upon the Cross the 
 Same GOD once humiliated, now glorified, yet ever con- 
 cealed till the purged eyes of the perfected soul can 
 dare to look on His unveiled Glory, and live. If angels 
 and saints in bliss have a joy beyond our joy, as they 
 gaze upon His Face in His visible Majesty, yet we on 
 earth have the assurance that we are looking on the 
 Same Form, to faith revealed; for the signs of His 
 Presence are the same, the marks by which He is known 
 are one and unchanging, revealing Himself to us as to 
 them, though under a different form. Amazing love ! 
 that must part, and yet would not be parted ; that must 
 be gone, and yet would remain with Thy earthly ones ; 
 that must go and put forth the Fulness of Thy Life in 
 that world in which alone Its Fulness can be developed, 
 yet would abide with us under this contracted Form, 
 that we might not lose Thee. 
 
 Most wonderful love and power meeting together in 
 ever perpetuated Mystery ! When Thou shalt come as 
 Thou hast promised the long expected, long waited 
 for, in Thy unclouded, undimmed Countenance, how 
 will the long line of Eucharists which age after age 
 have told of Thy Presence, yet concealed Thy Beauty, 
 rise up to memory's gaze as they pass into the full re- 
 velation of Thyself of Whom they have been the assured, 
 the faithful witnesses ! What shall be the wonder of that 
 Day, when the eyes of those who all their life long fed 
 upon Thy Presence here on earth, shall see Thy Form 
 unfold Itself, the Communion, which had so long been 
 their rest, their joy, losing itself in the fulness of the 
 beatific Vision of the SON of GOD and Son of Man, in 
 His accomplished Fulness. 
 
 O LORD GOD, we pray Thee, so draw us to Thyself,
 
 The Incarnation Illustrated. 165 
 
 so attract us by Thy grace constraining us, so rivet our 
 heart to know Thee here by faith, that as we grow 
 upward in the constant reception and adoration of this 
 great Mystery, we may be fitted for that Vision, when 
 the veil shall be taken away, and Thou shalt be seen 
 even as Thou art, and we become transformed even as 
 Thyself.
 
 XVI. 
 
 THE MINISTRY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 
 HITHERTO in considering the Blessed Sacrament our 
 attention has been confined mainly to our LORD, and 
 indeed to Him necessarily our view must always be 
 principally directed, because it was instituted by Him 
 specially for this purpose, that He should be ever pre- 
 sent to us, projected, as it were, out of eternity into 
 His earthly kingdom, that He may reign within it, and 
 in the midst of His own Elect take up His secret abode. 
 But it would be an imperfect view of the Love of this 
 great Mystery, and Its stupendous grace, if we were not 
 to embrace in our thoughts the constant and merciful 
 co-operation of the Third Person of the Ever-Blessed 
 Trinity in the same Mystery. 
 
 It has been observed, how all the acts of the SON of 
 GOD, whether in His Incarnation or in His Sacramental 
 Presence, are the consequences of His Mission, i.e., the 
 outflowing of the Godhead into creation beyond that 
 Presence in power and essence, which is in all things 
 that exist by the Will of GOD. As there is a Mission of 
 the SON of GOD in the world, so there is a Mission of 
 the HOLY SPIRIT co-extensive with the Mission of the 
 SON; the separate Missions of the two Blessed Persons 
 being alike in some respects, though unlike in others. 
 They are alike in their extent of operation, in their
 
 The Ministry of the Holy Spirit. 167 
 
 oneness of aim, in the perfect concordant energy with 
 which the ends They will to work out are accomplished. 
 But They are unlike in their manifestations and modes 
 of operation. These differences and these resemblances 
 alike, extending to the whole sphere of the Life of the 
 Incarnation and the kingdom of grace, may be clearly 
 traced in the Blessed Sacrament. 
 
 Our faith would therefore be imperfect, and fail to 
 apprehend the Divine Love in its fulness, if we do not 
 carefully consider the Presence and acting of the Blessed 
 SPIRIT, and seek to " discern" Him, even as we " dis- 
 cern" our LORD. True, the HOLY GHOST is hidden, 
 even as our LORD is hidden, and even more secret still is 
 the hiding of the SPIRIT'S Presence. For what we feel, 
 the sensations which follow the participation of the 
 Divine Communion, is a consequence of our LORD'S im- 
 parting Himself to us, the effects of the virtues of His 
 precious Body and Blood, and so of Himself, shed 
 abroad in us. We specially receive our LORD as the 
 " unspeakable Gift" of the Blessed Sacrament. A com- 
 paratively open and perceptible Presence is His Who is 
 one with us in our very substance. But this " Gift" is 
 due to the SPIRIT'S power. The HOLY GHOST is the 
 Worker of the Mystery, the Maker of the Sacrament. 
 It is He Who unites the earthly and the heavenly to 
 constitute the Sacrament. He rejoices in this union. 
 It is He also Who, by His operations of grace within 
 us, enables us to partake to our soul's health. He is 
 therefore present throughout the whole Mystery, ever 
 ministering. It is our LORD Who is given to us, but 
 He is given only as the HOLY GHOST ministers Him to 
 us, and ministers in us towards Him. 
 
 There is something peculiarly and most touchingly
 
 168 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 beautiful in the hidden character of the HOLY SPIRIT'S 
 Presence in the Sacrament, hidden from the faintest 
 possible consciousness, because our LORD is the One 
 prominently brought out to view, to be sought, to be 
 adored, to be offered, to be received. On this account 
 all the deeper love, all the more thrilling tenderness, all 
 the more tender reverence, are due; because He the 
 Almighty, co-equal with the SON, condescends to exer- 
 cise so entirely a ministerial part in the fulfilment of 
 the Mystery. 
 
 But this is one special characteristic quality in the 
 whole series of the operations of the Blessed SPIRIT, 
 to be an aid and means to the Great End, which is 
 CHRIST. It is His wont to withdraw Himself while 
 ministering to another's glory, thus manifesting a low- 
 liness of the profoundest self-renunciation. His minis- 
 tering in the Blessed Sacrament is but the completion, 
 in the same secresy of love, of a long order of Di- 
 vine operations intended to have the effect of uniting 
 the Elect both in soul and body with JESUS. This 
 mystery of His love and power may be traced from the 
 very beginning. It began in the natural order of the 
 world, when the HOLY GHOST moved on the face of the 
 waters, bringing the new world out of chaos. He was 
 then preparing the new mystical creation in its initiatory 
 stage, laying its foundations in the material world, 
 which He would gradually raise in the scale of being, 
 until it culminated at its highest point of dignity in 
 Humanity, in a form of being which might hereafter 
 be made capable of union with GOD. The constant 
 striving with the spirit of man, the illumination of the 
 conscience through the earlier dispensations, the re- 
 buking the power of sin in ceaseless judgments and
 
 The Ministry of the Holy Spirit. 169 
 
 warnings, thus raising the inner life to become capable 
 of responding to a higher manifestation, and the creating 
 within man ever-deepening longings and searchings of 
 heart afterwards, as time advanced, the inspiration of 
 the prophets, ever enlarging the field of truth, and 
 keeping up the constant growing expectation of the In- 
 carnation of GOD such was the preparatory work of 
 the HOLY GHOST. When the fulness of time had come, 
 Mary's birth and the grace which grew in her to such 
 perfection, that she was fitted to become the shrine 
 wherein Almighty GOD might take our nature unto 
 Himself, was still His work, His overshadowing of Mary 
 the crowning act of creative energy in raising Humanity 
 into union with GOD. 
 
 After the Birth of the SON of GOD, now also the Son 
 of Mary, the same SPIRIT still further developed His 
 special work in perfecting the creation, as the Divine 
 Humanity acquired ever fresh, ever more exalted powers. 
 As " JESUS increased in wisdom and in stature," the 
 HOLY SPIRIT was the secret Agent. In His Baptism 
 openly the HOLY GHOST appeared in the form of the 
 Dove, and thus in a manifested glory endued the Man- 
 hood of JESUS with preternatural gifts, which advanced 
 His human nature to a higher stage of being. It was 
 the Same SPIRIT " Who raised JESUS from the dead," 
 shedding the glory of the Resurrection Life upon His 
 sacred Body. Nor did His work cease so at least we 
 may believe judging from so many preceding instances 
 of this great law of the mutual accordant operations of 
 the Two adorable Persons of the Blessed Trinity until, 
 advancing upwards through the circles of ever- deepening 
 light and glory, JESUS sat down, the perfected Man, at 
 the Eight Hand of GOD the FATHER. We may believe
 
 170 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 also that during those ten days which preceded the 
 Descent of JESUS in the great sacramental mystery, the 
 HOLY GHOST had His share in enduing His Humanity 
 with those powers of self-extension, and all but ubiquity 
 of Presence, which enables Him, without leaving His 
 FATHER'S Side, to be present, as GOD is present, accord- 
 ing to His own Will, wherever the creative words which 
 He ordained to be the crisis of the miracle of Love per- 
 petuating His union with His mystical Body on earth, 
 are spoken. 
 
 This long progressive series of Almighty operations, 
 thus at last brought home to us, in infinite condescen- 
 sion and richest gifts of love, was the continuous going 
 forth of the HOLY GHOST, His mission for the redemp- 
 tion and reconciliation to GOD of fallen man. While 
 He was thus magnifying the SON of GOD, the SON of 
 GOD glorified Him by announcing that this was His 
 work, that He Himself was dependent in His Humanity 
 on the co-working of the HOLY GHOST. JESUS often 
 spoke of the results of the HOLY SPIRIT'S work, as one 
 with His own. Thus He said, speaking of His own 
 Body, " It is the SPIRIT that quickeneth, the Flesh 
 profiteth nothing." 1 He meant that His own Flesh, 
 which was to become the life of the world, depended for 
 its powers and influences on the SPIRIT'S ceaseless 
 energies ; and His Humanity was, so to speak, nothing 
 of Itself, could fulfil no purpose in forming the new 
 creation, except only as acted upon by His SPIRIT co- 
 equally, co-extensively co-operating with Himself; that 
 as our LORD gave His Flesh to be the life and power of 
 the New Creation, so the unseen SPIRIT had also His 
 necessary part in quickening It, in investing It with 
 1 S. John vi.
 
 The Ministry of the Holy Spirit. 171 
 
 Deified attributes, making It the Centre and the Ful- 
 ness of the perfected Communion of the Saints, even of 
 all whom the FATHER, crowning the united work of the 
 SON and the SPIRIT, first drew to Himself through 
 Them, and hereafter will unite with Himself, so that 
 GOD may become All in all. 
 
 This great truth of the operation of the SPIRIT in the 
 Holy Eucharist is implied in words that occur at the 
 close of the prayer which speaks of the great Oblation, 
 the " sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving," when it is 
 said that all is done " in the Unity of the HOLY GHOST." 
 These words reflect back over the whole action, and are 
 intended to awaken faith in His stupendous operation, 
 the fulness of His co-operation, lest our souls should be 
 exclusively absorbed and lost in love to Him Who 
 comes to us more closely, more intimately still as He 
 gives Himself to us, while yet His thus coming, thus 
 communicating Himself, is only through the SPIRIT'S 
 agency. 
 
 As in regard to our LORD'S Presence and the virtues 
 of His Sacrifice, the HOLY GHOST is thus actively en- 
 gaged, even so likewise in our preparation for receiving 
 our LORD we owe our fitness to the same SPIRIT. He 
 it is Who in our Baptism bestows on us the new nature 
 which alone is capable of corresponding with GOD, and 
 entering into spiritual relations with Him. He it is 
 Who endues the regenerate with His sevenfold gifts in 
 Confirmation, thus completing our capacity for union 
 with CHRIST. Then, and not till then, are we capable 
 of receiving CHRIST in the Blessed Sacrament. And why 
 is this? Why is Confirmation necessary, but because 
 we need to be raised above ourselves into a new sphere 
 of being, and to be supernaturally endowed with living
 
 172 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 powers as the means of becoming substantially incor- 
 porated into CHRIST and CHRIST in us, in a new unity, 
 resembling the union of the SON and the SPIRIT, from 
 Whose conjoint action the sacramental mystery pro- 
 ceeds. It is not merely that the Life of CHRIST enters 
 into us, but the SPIRIT of Life in us meets the SPIRIT 
 of Life in Him. They are separate manifestations of 
 the same Life, and the result of their union in us is the 
 very formation and growth of CHRIST within our nature 
 in His Image. It is the correspondence of our nature 
 with the Nature of CHRIST through the Same SPIRIT 
 Who abiding in us perfects the mysterious transforma- 
 tion, our being stretching itself forward to meet His 
 perfect life-giving Presence, the Source of all perfection, 
 oneself spiritualized meeting our LORD from Heaven 
 in His living Glory. 
 
 We may take up our LORD'S words, and say as truly 
 in reference to ourselves " It is the SPIRIT that 
 quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing." The SPIRIT 
 in us enables us to receive what the flesh is incapable of 
 receiving. He endues the very flesh with spiritual ca- 
 pacities, and abiding in us becomes the living bond of 
 communion with our LORD. He is the Love of the 
 FATHER, and of the SON, according to the eternal law 
 of love binding the Two in One. He is the union of 
 the Divine and the Human in our LORD. By a won- 
 derful condescension through an extension of a similar 
 law He unites with Him in One Body His own Elect, 
 reconciling the creature's unworthiness with the infinite 
 perfections of the Incarnate GOD, revealing to him who 
 worships, Him Who is worshipped, to him who draweth 
 near from below, Him Who draweth near from above. 
 
 Hence arises the need of careful preparation for the
 
 The Ministry of the Holy Spirit. 173 
 
 reception of the Blessed Sacrament. In the old Sarum 
 Liturgies it was directed that the Priest, while vesting 
 himself before he approached the altar, should say the 
 Veni Creator. A still more solemn rite occurs in the 
 Eastern Liturgies, which also, derived from them, is in- 
 troduced into the Scotch and American Liturgies. In 
 connection with the Consecration Prayer there is, as an 
 integral part of the mystical service, an Invocation of 
 the HOLY GHOST, a direct petition for His descent 
 upon the elements, to "make them the Body and Blood 
 of CHRIST." 
 
 These directions were manifestly grounded on the 
 principle above explained. There must be a -coming of 
 the HOLY GHOST first, and then through the HOLY 
 GHOST the coming of the SON of GOD, an advent of the 
 SPIRIT Who quickeneth, and then a Presence of the 
 Divine Humanity seeking an abode in hearts prepared 
 by the SPIRIT to receive Him. 
 
 If there be any sin defiling us we cannot approach 
 till that sin, through the grace of the SPIRIT, is cleansed 
 away. We cannot of ourselves receive the Precious 
 Body and Blood into ourselves there must be a puri- 
 fication in order to receive them ; there must be the 
 SPIRIT'S cleansing before there can be the power of 
 reception. Nay, even when there is no such sin as 
 hinders a peaceful approach to the Blessed Sacrament, 
 there must still be a preparation to raise the soul's 
 powers of apprehension, to expand its capacities and 
 refine its senses, to quicken its longings, and reanimate 
 its fervours, there must be an increase of the SPIRIT, 
 stirring up each one who approaches, to place the soul 
 in accord with the glorified Humanity of the SON of 
 GOD.
 
 174 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 And surely the more frequently we receive there 
 needs an ever increasing fitness; for the oftener our 
 LORD comes to us to bless us, to assimilate His Life to 
 our own, He expects to find an increasingly perfect 
 welcome. As again and again He enters in, He looks 
 to see more and more the effects of His coming. He 
 cannot but take increasing delight in those to whom 
 He is thus constantly drawing near, and He expects to 
 find increasing desires and a purer love prepared to em- 
 brace Him. The bride is more beautiful, more lovely 
 in the eyes of the Bridegroom, if she seek His Iove 3 and, 
 longing for His approach, deck herself in attire which 
 His taste approves. So must our LORD rejoice the more 
 in one whom He sees growing more and more like unto 
 Himself, in whom He finds the increasing reflection of 
 His own attributes, the gratification of His own desires. 
 His longing is for a closer union with His own Elect, 
 and this growing union depends on the ever increasing 
 likeness to Himself. But how can this likeness grow, 
 except as the SPIRIT of CHRIST gives us more of His 
 own Purity, His own Sanctity, His own preternatural 
 gifts as the SPIRIT which is One with CHRIST, of the 
 same Mind with CHRIST, endows us with like gifts of 
 grace, with like features of character, an unity of 
 thought, a constant going on to perfection, even as He 
 was " made perfect." Where mutual desires thus meet, 
 and face to face the likeness of the features grows, 
 each Communion is as though the one hastened to the 
 arms of the other by the anxious drawings of a common 
 love, which the Same SPIRIT of Love breathes alike in 
 the Heart of the Bridegroom and the heart of the 
 Bride, and breathes with fonder longings, as the time 
 of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb draws nigh. The
 
 The Ministry of the Holy Spirit. 175 
 
 Same Spirit that filled the Sacred Humanity of JESUS 
 to he to us the Fulness of GOD, fits us to be capable of 
 receiving that Fulness, even Himself Who is GOD and 
 Man in One Divine Person. 
 
 O Blessed SPIRIT, shed abroad in Thine own Elect 
 more and more of Thy wondrous Gifts. Stir their 
 souls, kindling such preternatural fires that in their 
 heat all remaining imperfections may be consumed. O 
 hasten this fulness of our predestined sanctity. Raise 
 our thoughts, our imaginations, to a higher strain, that 
 faith fail not to embrace the amazing mystery; that 
 CHRIST may be glorified in us, His own Elect, His 
 love shed abroad in our hearts by the HOLY GHOST 
 Which is given to us, that we may become a home of 
 rest for our LORD'S Presence to abide, never to leave, 
 never to forsake us. May the wondrous Mission of the 
 SON and the SPIRIT thus meet in us, thus accomplish in 
 us that for which They ever and ever come forth from 
 the depths of their own Eternity ; to return into It with 
 the gathered fruits of their ceaseless, boundless love.
 
 XVII. 
 
 THE FULNESS OF THE SACRAMENTAL LIFE. 
 
 SOME closing remarks only need to be added as to the 
 view of our life taken as a whole, which the subject we 
 have been considering suggests. 
 
 One main distinction runs throughout the kingdom 
 of grace, separating more or less markedly those who 
 are yet one in the possession of a common faith, the 
 votaries of the natural and the supernatural life. By 
 the natural life is meant that, while believing and 
 resting on the Atonement of JESUS CHRIST as the only 
 hope, practically the life is regulated in moral harmony 
 with the circumstances of the social state in which the 
 lot is cast. The supernatural life is that in which there 
 is an apprehension of the highest truth as a moving 
 principle underlying all outward circumstances, and 
 raising them, the soul itself developing its spiritual 
 capacities through such an apprehension to the highest 
 possible standard. A sacramental life is the com- 
 pletest and highest form of this higher life, it is the 
 Divine Presence of our LORD impressing Himself on 
 earthly things, and is carried out by His own working 
 in us, Himself overshadowing, pervading, informing, 
 directing us, and ourselves lovingly accepting, intelli- 
 gently apprehending, sweetly yielding the will, the 
 affections, to endure and fulfil what is impressed upon
 
 The Fulness of the Sacramental Life. 177 
 
 the soul by the inner Divine Presence. There may be 
 a like belief in the atonement, in the Presence and 
 operations of our Incarnate LORD through the SPIRIT, 
 in the grace imparted through sacraments creating and 
 sustaining that life. There may be also more or less 
 of a common belief in the objective Presence of our 
 LORD under the external forms of the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment. And yet the results of such faith greatly vary 
 in the two cases. 
 
 The difference appears in the practical hold which 
 the mind gains of the reality and personal influence of 
 the Divine Presence. A sacramental life is the proper 
 result of a true belief in the sacramental Presence of 
 GOD. But there may be a want of apprehending the 
 Divine Presence as a living, life-giving reality; or it 
 may be regarded as a communication of grace without 
 the consciousness of personal union ; or as an object of 
 adoration without the approximating and assimilating 
 faculty which connects the Gift with the Giver, or the 
 soul's active life with the Indwelling Presence. There 
 may be the want either of that vivid clearness of faith 
 which is " the substance of things hoped for, and the 
 evidence (the practical realization) of things not seen," 
 or there may lack a true appreciation of the proper 
 effects of the Divine Communion. 
 
 We are in truth ourselves parts of a great sacramental 
 system ; for our whole present life and our own present 
 state are but outward forms of a mysterious Indwelling 
 of GOD, working out the ultimate reconciliation of all 
 things to Himself by an accommodation of His secret 
 Life through the SPIRIT, under temporary conditions of 
 outward nature, until the perfect redemption is accom- 
 plished. What is fulfilled in forming the Blessed Sa-
 
 178 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 era-merit Itself is an expressive representation of what 
 through It is to be fulfilled in us. Hereafter we shall 
 be wholly spiritual ; the soul and body alike will be so 
 assimilated to the Divine Nature, that the outward 
 form will comparatively pass away, or rather the out- 
 ward will be transfigured wholly into the inward, even 
 as the Holy Eucharist will pass into the beatific Vision. 
 But for the present, under the outward forms of a 
 nature not as yet reconciled to GOD, the true life of the 
 spirit is hidden, and works only as an inward spiritual 
 grace. But to work according to the purpose of GOD 
 the inward Presence must become a pervading, ever- 
 animating life; and to judge of the intended effects, 
 we must ponder the law which determines the nature 
 of the sacrament through which He works. The result 
 of His Presence in the one case exemplifies the in- 
 tended result in the other. 
 
 We have seen how the sacred Presence of our LORD 
 impresses itself on the mere earthly elements, identify- 
 ing Himself with them, thus giving them a new cha- 
 racter and a new name, and powers of a wholly different 
 kind, making them simply His instruments for the ful- 
 filment of His own purpose, organs of His infinite Life, 
 and therefore, most sacred, to be consumed in the 
 sanctuary guarded from all risk of profanation, kept for 
 the one end of revealing and conveying CHRIST, and 
 then, their work done, passing away. 
 
 A sacramental life is the transformation of our frail 
 human nature after a similar law of subordination to 
 grace, of yielding oneself to the full possession of GOD. 
 It is the recollection of the presence of our LORD Who 
 has entered into us, and of what He claims of us, and 
 the thought of oneself as the intended embodiment of
 
 The Fulness of the Sacramental Life. 179 
 
 His living operations, and the use of all our faculties 
 and powers as instruments of His informing mind; and 
 as the result, a sanctity which involves earnest discipline 
 of the senses and inward powers, not for one's own 
 sake only, but for the sake of our Indwelling LORD, Who 
 would be dishonoured by their abuse, our life being pre- 
 served only that He may be glorified, all that is earthly 
 in us to die and pass away as His Life in us is per- 
 fected. It is not that He is incarnate in us, but the 
 result of His mission, if it were perfectly carried out, 
 would be as though Himself had become to us what 
 His Godhead is to His own Humanity ; our state would 
 be the reflection of the Hypostatic Union. His influence 
 upon our thoughts, our words, our actions, would be 
 like to His FATHER'S influence on Himself during His 
 earthly course. As He was " the express Image of the 
 FATHER" to the world, even so our state would become 
 the image of Himself, to be in the world as He was in 
 the world. 
 
 Yet a notable difference is to be marked between the 
 sacramental life of JESUS in the sacred Elements and in 
 ourselves. His influence upon their outward forms is 
 purely of His own will, as though a mechanical trans- 
 formation of their inanimate substances took place. 
 But in us there is the wonderful power of a willing cor- 
 respondence with GOD ; the inestimable privilege of an 
 intelligent choice, a loving surrender of self, a cease- 
 less co-operation with Him. And this high dignity of 
 voluntary self-renunciation is never to cease, so that every 
 act is to be a continual offering to GOD, through the 
 power of His grace, an ever ready response to His Will, 
 the glory of a self-chosen captivity of love, while yet He 
 Himself gives all the power of thus yielding to Him. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 Nor does it detract from the reality because the service 
 is imperfect. It may be defective, and yet it will be 
 most real, if the whole bent and effort of the soul be 
 true. Nor need the operations of this inward life be 
 always consciously perceived. By the law of nature, 
 whatever grows to be a habit, becomes from that very 
 circumstance no longer an object of consciousness, as it 
 was before ; the several acts of which the habit is com- 
 posed become undiscerned, unfelt. Nor even though 
 we fail continually, and fall from a truthful co-operation 
 with this great grace, does it follow that the reality of 
 our union with GOD in this sacramental life is lost, 
 however seriously it may be impaired. There will 
 necessarily be involuntary weaknesses, failings from 
 unavoidable helplessness or defect, temporary sinkings 
 under the power of temptation, and even graver falls, 
 over which the soul deeply mourns. Yet the very truth 
 of a sacramental Presence of GOD implies an infinite 
 condescension, a merciful accommodation of Himself to 
 circumstances of infirmity and humiliations of our 
 fallen state. It is a pledge of His bearing with us in 
 our imperfections, of His forbearance towards our 
 lingering faultiness, of His not leaving us even if we 
 sin against Him, so long as we ever return to Him 
 and repent. 
 
 Our LORD was Himself subject to the infirmities of 
 our fallen state. He tasted the struggle with tempta- 
 tion. He was even oppressed by the loss of the con- 
 sciousness of His true Life in the FATHER, under the 
 desolation of the powers of 'darkness. But it was only 
 a passing trial, a hiding of the Light of His Godhead, 
 not a loss of Its Presence, nor any breach of the perfect- 
 ness of union which enfolded His Manhood in His
 
 The Fulness of the Sacramental Life. 181 
 
 Divine Personality. Sin He could not know. But all 
 of human weakness, of man's close contact with sin, 
 all of the loathsome spirit's horror, of defilement, of 
 dismay, of rebellion, He for us learned by obedience to 
 the sufferings of our fallen state. But all the while 
 the inward Fulness of GODHEAD, even when the con- 
 sciousness was clouded, was as complete in Him, as 
 when It shone forth in the Transfiguration, or revealed 
 Itself more actively in the Resurrection. And even so, 
 though actual sin affects us as it could not affect Him, 
 yet His " mercy rejoices against judgment/' and sin is 
 not imputed where the precious Blood is ever sought 
 and ever applied, according to our need, and death is 
 ever swallowed up of life. Beneath the clouds that 
 pass across the Heaven of our life the same Light ever 
 steadily shines, advancing to its meridian glory. The 
 same love that reconciled us to Himself, "when we 
 were yet sinners," will not forsake us if we stumble 
 even to falling, while to Love we still cling ; or if He 
 forsake us it will be but in seeming, it will be to our 
 consciousness only, to test our faith in the darkness, 
 or to reprove us in the fear of the judgment, or to 
 make the "silver lining" of the cloud shine out all the 
 more brightly and more blessedly because of the tran- 
 sient eclipse. 
 
 There are chiefly three modes in which our LORD'S 
 Presence works upon us ; His restraining, His directing, 
 and His transforming power. 
 
 (1.) How little can we guess the amount of that con- 
 stant action of restraint which the inward Presence of 
 GOD is exercising upon our inward state. Think of all 
 the evil that lies dormant in us, the lurking tendencies 
 
 N 3
 
 182 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 to all forms of sin, the excitable passions, the horrible 
 fearful thoughts which might start up in us, the sus- 
 ceptibilities to the seductions of the world, or the flesh, 
 the inclinations ever ready to array themselves against 
 GOD and our better choice. What if any one of such 
 powers were unloosed but for a moment ? What desola- 
 tion in the spiritual life, what profanation of the most 
 Holy Place, the Sanctuary of GOD ! What wasting of 
 the strength of the spiritual life! What an account 
 hereafter to be given ! And yet against such fearful 
 risk the Divine Presence must be ever silently acting ; 
 checking the evil tendencies, anticipating the incipient 
 risings of passion, overmastering the enemy in his first 
 essays. And to Him thus ever near we can appeal to 
 put forth His power, more ready to hear than we to 
 pray, a source of strength at hand, ever within us, to 
 which we can turn for assured deliverance to put the 
 evil away, or hold it down, while we trust and abide 
 steadfast, enduring in this confidence to the end. Even 
 in sleep, or in times of sudden pressure, or of distracting 
 cares, when it is so difficult to preserve the discipline of 
 thought, we may believe that He who guards us as His 
 own abode, is still watching to keep us pure, to sustain 
 our peace. 
 
 (2.) The directing informing influence of CHRIST, 
 through His SPIRIT, is that which gradually raises the 
 standard, and expands the faculties of the renewed 
 nature, impressing His own Mind on the mind of His 
 servant, and so forming the character of the revelation 
 of Himself. It is a twofold consciousness of the con- 
 tinual working of our LORD Himself and of His Spirit 
 in us. He said of the HOLY GHOST, " He shall take of 
 Mine, and shall show it unto you." This high spiritual
 
 The Fulness of the Sacramental Life. 183 
 
 revelation is perpetually unfolding itself in one who is 
 living a sacramental life, the SPIRIT enabling the soul 
 to see more and more of its LORD ; his inner character 
 opening itself out more and more under the light of the 
 SPIRIT'S illumination, and enabling the soul to take in 
 the hidden depths of the Blessed Nature of the Body 
 of CHRIST into which we are being formed. And this 
 embraces the inner world of truth equally as it does 
 the world of saintly beauty, even the deep things of 
 GOD coming out to view through the SPIRIT, " Who 
 searcheth all things." Every single Divine Light of 
 which the soul is conscious, every revelation of the 
 Mind of CHRIST, is an instance of what is perpetually 
 going on in us to form a sacramental life. Nor is there 
 any limit to the development of the revelations of GOD 
 within the soul where Himself abides, Who is given 
 that He may "lead" CHRIST'S own Elect "into all 
 truth," showing even " things to come." For where, 
 if not in the shrine of His own indwelling, to one who 
 faithfully listens for His voice, may the fulfilment of 
 His promise be counted sure ? To this operation of 
 grace is due all the growing wisdom and knowledge of 
 GOD, and of heavenly things, which is at once the 
 counteraction of the earthly tendencies of the soul, and 
 the elevation of the inner powers of thought, as the new 
 world, which in CHRIST has become our own proper 
 home, opens to the gaze of faith. 
 
 (3.) There is yet a greater power at work within us 
 in the actual transformation of our nature which tells 
 on our whole being. For our LORD is present as a 
 creative energy, or rather as one reconstituting our 
 natural being after His own Likeness. His SPIRIT not 
 merely reveals to the eye of faith the living truth.
 
 184 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 The vision is given that it may form for itself a reflec- 
 tion of its own beauty in the very substance of the 
 soul's life. He is as the potter moulding the clay, im- 
 pressing the shape, the features of His own Image, and 
 so forming a newness of life. He first reveals to the soul 
 what His will is, what the grace which He Himself has 
 embodied in Humanity. He then attracts the soul, 
 awakening its desires, and quickening its energies for 
 the attainment of the same perfection. But beyond 
 this revelation of Himself follows the crowning grace 
 of the communication of His own Nature, pervading 
 the very texture of our being, changing its substance, 
 and newly forming all its features to be as He is, to be 
 like Him, to be one with Himself in the perfect accord 
 of the same mind. 
 
 It is the very characteristic of this perfecting work of 
 grace that, like Himself after Whose Image and by 
 "Whose mercy it is fulfilled, it is secret. As the inner 
 powers of life throughout all nature grow imperceptibly, 
 manifesting themselves only by their effects, so very 
 specially is this the case in the profoundest sphere of 
 nature's highest form of life, the heart of man. Undis- 
 cerned even by its own consciousness in its keenest 
 sensibilities at all times is the operation of our LORD'S 
 Presence, even when most active and most effective. So 
 secret is its working, that when we perceive within our- 
 selves influences and movements beyond ourselves, yet 
 we cannot distinguish them from the actings of our 
 own nature. Even though our old nature dies, and 
 forms of a higher mind take its place, "the life of 
 JESUS becoming manifest in our mortal body/' yet this 
 higher spirituality will still assume the shape of our 
 natural faculties and powers ; it will be what is human
 
 The Fulness of the Sacramental Life. 185 
 
 still, though instinct with what is Divine. So truly the 
 " inward spiritual grace" still wears the aspect of the 
 " outward visible form." The law of the sacramental 
 Presence of our LORD is still preserved throughout the 
 economy of our present state, to pass away only when 
 " death is swallowed up in victory/' when " the day 
 breaks, and the shadows flee away." 
 
 Nor could it be otherwise. For how could we bear 
 our part, or fulfil our probation in this world, if we were 
 conscious of the transcendental mystery ceaselessly at 
 work within us ? How could we mix in the unavoidable 
 details of ordinary life ; how take interest in any of its 
 many claims and duties, still less in any of its lighter 
 pursuits, which yet are evidently suitable to our state, 
 if the awfulness of such a Presence were continually re- 
 vealing Itself within our very bodily form? Still more, 
 how impossible would it be that we should learn to live 
 by faith in the light of such a preternatural conscious- 
 ness ; and yet " to live by faith and not by sight" is 
 the essential condition of the trial, on which our future 
 hope of blessedness in GOD wholly depends ? 
 
 We must ever bear in mind that it is not enough to 
 catch glimpses only of such a life as here, however im- 
 perfectly, is described. We can indeed have but transient 
 revelations in its earlier stages. But as the " light of the 
 just shineth more and more unto the perfect day," even 
 so a sacramental life has its dawning, and its progress, 
 and though but by slow degrees advances as the grace 
 of perseverance is vouchsafed, the reward of " patient 
 continuance in well-doing ;" and as the steadfast faith 
 deepens into an abiding vision, it becomes a second 
 sight to the soul evermore fixed on its Indwelling 
 LOED.
 
 186 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 We may here remark two great means by which to 
 cherish this life. One is an introspection, a looking to 
 the Higher Presence in oneself. This is distinct from 
 self-consciousness, and is in fact the corrective of self- 
 consciousness. Surely if we believe that we have received 
 into ourselves all the Fulness of CHRIST, all that is 
 gathered up in His own Person, His Infancy, His Early 
 Life, His Ministry, His Passion; all the Glory into 
 which He has passed, in which He abides ; if we feel 
 that He in all this Fulness is thus abiding in us, we are 
 not looking into ourselves, we are looking at that Higher 
 Being Who is within ourselves, looking unto CHRIST 
 where He is continually revealing Himself in our life. 
 We can thus look, and speak to Him within ourselves. 
 " Thou art in me, Blessed LORD ! I will see Thee 
 within my own being as Thou art in Thy own Being, 
 and as I gaze the Vision opens before me, and I see the 
 possibility of a new life for me, as I look on what that 
 Vision reveals." This is one element of inward thought 
 cherishing the power of a sacramental life. 
 
 Secondly, with this introspection, which is rather of 
 simple faith in the Great Truth, there must be an in- 
 ward communing in secret prayer, the seeking the in- 
 fluence of Grace flowing from the Divine Presence 
 within us. " Oh that Thou wert more impressed upon 
 me ! Oh that I were more conformed to what I believe 
 to be within me ! Oh that there was in me more and 
 more desire and earnest longing to be united with It \" 
 As such desires become more and more the secret com- 
 muning of the heart, the consciousness of the inward 
 Divine Presence will grow, and the grace will flow forth 
 in the soul.
 
 The Fulness of the Sacramental Life. 187 
 
 Most Merciful ! on Thy tender pity the believing 
 soul casts its hope. *To Thy love, more deeply comfort- 
 ing, more unfailingly sure, than ever was a mother's for 
 her only child, the feebleness of the fallen spirit must 
 ever cling, as its only stay. And Thou art our GOD, and 
 all that we are or have is of Thee. And as Thou hast 
 promised even this further grace to complete and crown 
 all Thy former gifts, and hast inspired in us the desire, 
 we trust that all shall yet be ours ; for Thy Word has 
 said, " all things are yours, whether the world, or life, 
 or death, or things present, or things to come, all are 
 yours, and ye are CHRIST'S, and CHRIST is Goo's." 1 Nor 
 need we fear while we are ever receiving the very In- 
 carnate GOD into the depths of our soul ; for " He 
 giveth power to the faint ; and to them that have no 
 might He increaseth strength. Even the youths shall 
 faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly 
 fall; but they that wait upon the LORD shall renew 
 their strength; they shall mount up with wings as 
 eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk 
 and not faint." 2 For not to those only who saw the LORD 
 in the Flesh, is this grace given, to live in the cease- 
 less consciousness of His Presence. For they who saw 
 Him face to face, themselves " bear witness," and " show 
 unto us that eternal life which was with the FA- 
 THER, and was manifested unto us," they still speak 
 to us in the power of the Apostolic grace, saying to 
 us of every place and every age ; " That which we 
 have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also 
 may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellow- 
 
 1 I Cor. iii. 22, 23. 2 Isaiah xl. 29-31.
 
 188 The Holy Eucharist. 
 
 ship is with the FATHER, and with His SON JESUS 
 
 CHRIST." 1 
 
 To Him who has thus loved us, and in Himself 
 given to us more than we can ask or think; to the 
 everlasting Trinity, FATHER, SON, and HOLY GHOST, 
 be all praise and thanksgiving for ever and ever. 
 Amen. 
 
 1 1 S. John i. 2, 3. 
 
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