St. CYPRIAN, L. C. Speaking of those who, in time of persecution, had, through weakness, denied their faith, he relates instances of signal judgments that had fallen on many, who, after that, dared to profane the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. The facts may, perhaps, by some, be disputed, but the belief of the narrator, on the point of the real presence in the elements, cannot be questioned. “A woman having brought home with her-which then was usual-part of the consecrated bread, when she attempted to open the box which contained the Holy Thing of the Lord, was alarmed by a rising flame. And a man, in similar circumstances, opening his hand, discovered nothing but ashes.” De Lapsis, p. 189.-Of the same weak Christians he had before said: “ Returning from the altar of the devil, they approach, with filthy and sordid hands, to the holy of the Lord. In this state of contamination, they invade his body. Regardless of the menaces of God, they dare to offer violence to the body and blood of the Lord; thus sinning more against him, than when they denied him.” Ibid, p. 186.—“ Christ is the bread of life, and this is not the bread of all, but it is ours : and as we say, Our Father, because he is the Father of the intelligent and the believing; so we say our bread, because Christ is the bread of those who approach his body. This bread we daily pray for, lest, belonging to Christ, and receiving the Eucharist daily for the food of salvation, we be withheld, by some grievous crime, from that heavenly bread, and be separated from the body of Christ. He has said: I am the bread of life who came down from heaven. If any one eat of my bread, he shall live for ever. But the bread, which I shall give, is my flesh for the life of the world. Hence it is manifest, that
