Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 2.djvu/520

2 house shall ye eat it, saith the Lord: ye shall not send its flesh abroad from the house." The flesh of Christ, the Lord's Sacrament, cannot be sent out of doors: and believers have no other home, but the Church only. This home, this hostelry of love, the Holy Spirit designates and expresses in the Psalms, saying, "God who maketh men to dwell with one mind in an house." In the house of God, in the Church of Christ, men live together with one mind, in concord and simplicity continuing.

Therefore, likewise the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove: a simple and joyous animal, not mischievous in its nature nor dangerous from the use either of its beak or talons; recognising in its affections one single home; each pair nurturing together their common offspring; consorting in their flight when they wander abroad, passing their lives in mutual intercourse; indicating by the gesture of their bills the peacefulness of their union, and every way fulfilling the law of love. The same singleness of mind ought to be seen in the Church, and the same intercourse of affection be maintained; our love of the brotherhood ought to have its pattern in the doves; our mildness and gentleness to be copied from lambs and sheep. Has the spirit of a Christian aught to do with the fierceness of the wolf, or the rage of the dog, the deadly poison of serpents, and the untamed ferocity of wild beasts? We should rejoice that such foes are shut out from the Church, lest they waste the doves and the sheep of Christ, by their cruel and poisonous contagion. There can be no amalgamation, no co-union of bitter with sweet, of darkness with light, of fair weather with foul, of war with peace, of plenty with dearth, of drought with fountains, of calm with storm.

Let it not be thought, that those are good men who withdraw from the Church. The wind never carries away the wheat, nor do storms overthrow the tree which has a solid root to rest on. It is the empty straw that the tempest tosses, it is the sapless