God's help never willingly to do wrong, and to strive against it, and then come to this Sacrament, and this will help us, and will make us better. So that coming to the Sacrament properly is really the way for us to grow more fit to come. Persons often speak, I think, as if they had a very great misunderstanding not only of this Sacrament, but of the whole way to eternal life. They seem to think that they must make themselves good, fit for heaven, and then pray and come to Holy Communion. There could not be a greater or more serious mistake. It is, to use a common proverb, putting the cart before the horse; or, using a comparison which is often made, to get well first and then send for the doctor; to put away your hunger and then eat your dinner; to get rested and then lie down. We cannot make ourselves good. From the beginning to the end

We cannot make ourselves fit. 23

If we feel

the whole work is God's. inclined to do right, it is God Who makes us so inclined; and if we are able to do right, it is God Who makes us able. So that if we wish to be inclined to do right, or to do it when we are inclined, we must look to God to help and enable us. Therefore we should pray to Him, and come to the Sacrament, that we may receive His help, which He will give us then.

If we look at the matter strictly, in one sense not a single person is fit to come to this Sacrament. The very

holiest and best men and women tha ever were, St. John for example, and the Blessed Virgin Mary, are not worthy in themselves to "take and eat" the Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ, "both God and Man." But what is meant by our being fit to come is, that we are earnestly desiring to be holier in our living, and looking to God to

make us holier by His Son Jesus Christ, Whom He gives us in this Sacrament.

Fourthly. Persons not unfrequently go a little further than this, and say they dare not come for fear they shall "eat and drink their own damnation." They have heard St. Paul's words to the Corinthians, "He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself," and they take it for granted that if they come to this Sacrament, they shall do this. Now I should like to ask such persons two questions. Have you any real notion what these words mean? Probably you have not any; you only imagine that they mean something very dreadful, perhaps that you will be all the more likely to go to hell than you would be without this Sacrament. Then I would ask you further, Have you tried to find out what they mean? Have you ever asked your Minister to

explain them to you, and to tell you what you ought to do? If you have not done this, do you not think that you are very much to blame for not doing it? Let me then now, in as few words as I can, explain this difficult passage.

I can hardly doubt that St. Paul meant to say that those persons who do eat and drink the Sacrament unworthily do really get a great deal of harm to themselves by it, and bring themselves nearer to hell, instead of being lifted up towards heaven. All depends then on what he means by "eating and drinking unworthily." You will observe that he does not say "he that is not worthy to eat and drink," but "he that eateth and drinketh unworthily," or, as we should say, improperly, in an unbecoming, improper way. He particularly referred to some very strange and bad practices

which the Corinthians were guilty of. The rich people who came to the Sacrament used to bring meat and drink for the poor, that all the Christians might have a Feast together at the time. Some of the bread and wine which was brought for the Feast was taken and blessed for the Sacrament. Some careless and ungodly people made no difference between that part which had been blessed for the Sacrament and that which had not been blessed; or, in St. Paul's words, they did "not discern the Lord's Body," they did not distinguish the Bread and Wine which had been made "the Lord's Body" and Blood from the rest, which was common bread and wine. So they despised the Sacrament, they counted it as nothing particular, the same thing, I may say, as eating their ordinary dinner. And then they ate and drank too much at the Feast, and turned it into a drunken