[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Will you kindly permit me to offer a few remarks in your paper upon the subject of our Lord's Supper :— It appears to me, and I make the confession with the most profound respect for all theologians, that the meaning of Christ's words, "This is my body," has been wrapped up in a great deal of unnecessary mystery. Our Saviour merely repeated an expression to which the Jews were accustomed, in the celebration of the Paschal Supper, viz., "This is the bread of poverty and affliction which our fathers did eat in the land of Egypt." Of course the above language was figurative ; they meant that the bread in the plate represented or commemorated the eating of the bread of poverty and affliction in the land of Egypt ; and so the disciples understood our Saviour's expression, "This is my body," in like manner to be figurative. They asked for no explanation of what would otherwise have been an incomprehensible expression. This view of the subject, though stripping the Sacrament of the
miraculous attributes that some suppose it to possess, leaves it, as our Lord intended it should be, a most useful and purifying ordinance, constantly bringing to our minds Christ's sacrifice, our allegiance to Christ, and the necessity of a pure life consistent with the profession of that allegiance.—I am, Sir, Sec., J. J. B.
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