20 MARCH 1869, Page 15

" THIS IS MY BODY."

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR."]

SIR,-It may not be uninteresting to read what Whately says concerning the subject which has occupied several letters in your valuable paper. If we could actually receive into our mouths the very flesh and blood of Christ, this could not, of itself, be productive of any benefit to the soul : it might, if God willed it, be the appointed token and means of our receiving such benefit, even as the water of the Pool of Siloam was, of restored sight ; but it could not itself confer any spiritual advantage, any more than water could cure blindness. lt mu.st, therefore, after all, be in a spiritual and figurative sense that Christ says, " My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indced ;" if they were literally eaten and drunk, they must still be the sign of something else, repre sented and conveyed by them.—I am, Sir, &c., A. CHAPLIN.