Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/405

 and blood of our Lord Jesus, and most sincerely unite with the very fountain of life (Psalm xxxvi. 9).” (pp. 366 and 367.)

This sacrament, in which we most sincerely unite with God, surpasses all the others:

“(1) By its superabundance of mysteriousness and incomprehensibility. In all the other sacraments the incomprehensibility consists in this, that under a certain visible form divine grace is invisibly operating upon man, but the substance of the sacraments itself, for example, in baptism, the water, in unction with chrism, the chrism, remain unchangeable. Here, on the contrary, the substance itself changes: the bread and the wine, which keep their form, are miraculously changed into the true body and blood of our Lord, and only then, when they have been received by the believers, do they invisibly produce in them their actions of grace. (2) By the superabundance of the Lord’s love for us, and by the extraordinary grandeur of the gift, which is communicated to us in this sacrament. In the other sacraments the Lord Jesus communicates to those who believe in him such or such particular gifts of saving grace, in conformity with the substance of each sacrament,—gifts which he acquired for men by his death on the cross. But here he offers as food for his believers his own self, his own body and blood, and the believers, directly uniting with their Lord and Saviour, are in this manner united with the very fountain of saving grace. (3) Finally, by this, that all the other sacraments are only sacraments which act savingly upon man, but the eucharist is not only the most incomprehensible and the most saving of the sacraments, but at the same time is a sacrifice to God, a sacrifice which is brought to him for all the living and all the dead, and gains his favour.” (pp. 367 and 368.)

The doctrine about this sacrament indeed differs from all the others. It differs first of all in that it completely