Page:Medicine and the church.djvu/270

 the most mysterious aspect of all. Christ died and rose again for us that we might live by Him. In this holiest fellowship He fulfils His promise to be with us; in this highest worship we are made partakers of His very self. How the blessing is bestowed we are unable to explain. The explanations that have been attempted are not really explanations, for they are not themselves intelligible. But we can do better than explain. We can accept the fact, and look to prove it in experience. That is the way of our English Church teaching. 'The benefit is great,' we are assured, 'if with a true penitent heart and lively faith we receive this Holy Sacrament, for then we spiritually eat the Flesh of Christ and drink His Blood.' 'The Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed'—not merely metaphorically and symbolically—'taken and received by the faithful.' So it has been believed since the foundation of the Church. 'The doctrine of the reality of the gift bestowed in the Holy Communion is universal in the writings of the early Christians.' And so it will be to the end, when the holy feast is to be royally 'fulfilled in the kingdom of God.'

It is in connexion with this third aspect