LIFE IN CHRIST.

As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.-John vi. 57.

UR Saviour, in many instances, taught the truth.

OUR

of those who gathered around him, but to test their dispositions. Those among his hearers who were in spiritual sympathy with him, whose instincts and desires were truthful, would be incited to penetrate the mystery or the symbolism of his language, and where they did not distinctly see all its meaning, they would feel its general purport; while there were others gathered around him, who, even seeing, would not perceive —who, hearing, would not understand, because they grasped only the literal meaning of the teacher's words, and interpreted them by their pre-conceptions. Such appears to have been the case in the instance connected with the text. Christ had described himself as the bread that came down from heaven, and in the intensity of the illustration suggested by the idea, he had urged upon his hearers the vital necessity of partaking of his flesh and of his blood. Upon this, many of his

disciples exclaimed, "This is a hard saying; who can hear it?" and some of them, turning away, followed him no more. But others, though they may not have comprehended all his meaning, felt that what he said was profoundly true-was fitted to their deepest wants; and when Jesus asked them, "Will ye also go away?" they replied, through the lips of Peter, "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life." Thus, then, those whose minds and hearts were not essentially disposed toward truth, stumbled at language which bade them eat the flesh and drink the blood of him who spoke to them; but to those who sought the substance of the truth involved in that symbolism, the Saviour himself furnished the key, for he told them not to take his words grossly and literally. "It is the spirit that quickeneth," said he; "the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life."

It seems, my friends, that this text, especially the latter clause of it—while I do not wish to say anything that looks like a play upon words-suggests two or three important points for consideration. "He that eateth me, even he shall live by me." In the first place, we live by Jesus Christ. I refer you to the statement that I have just made in interpreting what I am about to say. The material simile of eating Jesus, and living by him, unfolds a vital and spiritual meaning. I need not tell you how strangely this phraseology has been misconstrued. We know that one great

section of the Christian body has built up upon it the stupendous doctrine of transubstantiation; and around this nucleus, the literal interpretation of the words of Jesus, has been constructed a gorgeous and awful ceremonial. We can hardly ever look upon that great church, I think, without respect and admiration for many things, when we see how its cathedrals are dotting a thousand lands, and hear its litanies chanted around the globe. But we think, also, amid the gor geous ceremonies, pealing psalms, and fumes of the censer, there are hundreds and thousands who now believe that the process is now going on of transmuting the literal bread into the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ

so strangely have these words been interpreted, such a vital and cardinal doctrine has been made out of them, and so widely have they been believed in this

sense.

And yet, while we discard this literal interpretation, let me be permitted to observe that the symbolism in the text is an exact symbolism. In other words, it is as true that we need spiritually to assimilate Christ to ourselves, as that we need physically to assimilate material substance to our bodily organism, in order that our animal existence may be maintained. And we shall perceive this truth as soon as we understand what in the profoundest sense life is, or what it is to live.

"He that eateth me, shall live by me." What is it to live? I observe that anything truly lives when it

fills up the capacities of its being; and anything is dead, just in proportion as its faculties or functions are inoperative. When, in the frame of an animal, pulsation ceases, and the breath is gone, we say of it that it is dead, although, as mere matter, that frame is alive with energy. Life in the animal does not consist merely in material force, but in organic vitality; and, therefore, we regard the distinct force of the organic vitality, and if that is gone, although the material forces operate, it is dead. But in man we rise to a still higher grade. We see in him not only material force and organic vitality, but an element of spiritual existence. He has within him that which the brute has not-this element of spiritual existence. Surely, then, man does not really live-is not alive to the full extent of his being, when he exists only as an animal-has only breath and pulsation, sense and appetite. Some may call this living, and think it is living. It may be all they comprehend in their idea of being alive-perhaps it is all they have ever known of living-but no man can be largely self-conscious-no man can look into his own nature and trace the deep lines of his own experience, and then think that all life consists in this mere animal, organic form of living.

And here comes up the old, everlasting fact―old, yet always new, always fresh in its suggestion-that man is not, like the brute, satisfied with meat and drink, but has faculties which overleap all sensual indulgence. When we are appalled by the spectacle of universal

decay; when for a moment we start back at the phenomenon of death, seeing those we live with, and with whom we are associated, dropping around us like autumn leaves; when our vision fails to penetrate beyond the dark boundary that limits the horizon of this life, we always fall back with great confidence and assurance upon the thought, that there are in man faculties that the material objects of this life do not satisfy; there are within him powers that develop beyond the limitations and resources of this life. We look around upon nature, and see all other creatures filling up the full orbit of their being, every faculty employed— every desire satisfied. There is the air, through which the free wings of the bird may beat; there is the sunshine that awakens the joyousness of its song; there is everything adapted to it, to call out the fullness and glory of its being. Man alone is the unsatisfied one; man alone yearns for that which is higher-that which is beyond. But assured that there is harmony in the universe, we say that there must be something more than the animal and material, something more than meat and drink. Almost all men feel this. I say almost all men, because there are spiritual idiots as well as intellectual idiots. There are men, I mean, whose whole spiritual nature seems totally dead; who, perhaps, may have no throbbing instinct of a higher life-no sense of spiritual being; but taking men in their normal condition, I repeat, every man has some sense of this higher life within him demanding some