hunger has been thereby abundantly appeased, its bounty is still as exhaustless as that of the loaves and fishes which Christ blessed and brake and gave to the multitude. In the richness of its delicacies it infinitely surpasses all other banquets, for it is He Himself who is the living Bread that came down from heaven, having in Himself all sweetness.
Brethren, how any one at all conversant with the New Testament can in good faith deny Christ's real presence in the Eucharist is wholly unintelligible. In their account of the Last Supper, the evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, record Christ's words when He handed the bread to His Apostles: "Take ye; this is My body." These are plain words, and to understand or explain them in a metaphorical sense is to do violence to all the known rules of interpretation. For the wording of a law or decree should not be ambiguous, but so simple and direct that all may easily understand and obey. Now, Our Lord, when He instituted the Blessed Eucharist, decreed also that His disciples should perpetuate that miracle. " Do this," He says, " in commemoration of Me." Either, therefore, we must conclude that Christ the Lord God was the most inexpert of lawgivers, or else that His words must be taken in their absolutely literal sense. Why, see at what pains lawyers are, when drawing up a will, to express beyond the shadow of a doubt the testator's wishes, and thus to avert possible contention among the legatees. And was Christ, in making His last will and testament, less solicitous for His
