His presence above "they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more," and as he had said in the Sermon on the Mount, "they that hunger and thirst after righteousness are filled." But these who stood around in the very sight of Him did not thus feel satisfied, because they had not taken that first step of faith in Him. Those whom the Father gave to Him for their own salvation would come, and He would never cast them out. For as mankind had ruined themselves by doing their own will, He had come into the world to save mankind by doing His Father's will perfectly, and that will is that all who come to Him should be saved at the last day, and raised up to everlasting life. Manna, or bread coming from heaven, was the support of life to Israel in the wilderness. Christ who came down from heaven, is the support of life to His people in this world, for the "bread of God is He which came down from heaven, and giveth life to the world."

So indeed He is both our Moses and our manna, but in an infinitely deeper sense than these Galilean partizans ever thought of. "What is it?" they said, even as their fathers had done.

LESSON LIII.

THE BREAD OF LIFE.

A.D. 36.--JOHN vi. 41-59.

The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.

And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven? Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves.

No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day.

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It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh

unto me.

Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.

I am that bread of life.

Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.

This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.

I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.

For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.

He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.

As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.

This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.

COMMENT.-The reply to the men who came merely as partizans, because they thought JESUS another Moses, and only wanted a more direct miracle of manna, that He Himself was the true Manna or Bread from heaven, amazed and startled His hearers. How could He come from heaven, they said, when His parentage was, as they chose to assert, well known? It seems to have been a time when He thought fit to put His followers to the test, and He therefore explained and continued His discousee in the synagogue at Capernaum, where the raising of Jairus's daughter had probably restored His popularity, if we may venture to use the term with regard to Him. Never was it more fully shown than now that popularity was not what He sought, but faith.

Were there murmurs at His recent saying? None could come near to Him without the grace of the Father, and those who so came would share His Resurrection. He had made this same promise twice in the discourse on the manna, thus connecting the union with Himself through the manna with the Resurrection. That men should be thus drawn to Him had been foretold by the universal voice of prophecy, perhaps above all by Jeremiah, in his promise of the new covenant. (Jer. xxxi. 31—34) :

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Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah :

Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day

that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord :

But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

This teaching of God was to be by Himself, the only Man who hath seen the Father, because He is Very God of Very God. So faith in Him brings everlasting life, and He is therefore the spiritual Bread of Life. St. John had noted that it was the Passover season, and our Lord, the true Moses, as well as the true Paschal Lamb, goes on from His previous explanation of Himself to be the Manna of the new covenant, to say that the old manna was indeed the bodily sustenance of their forefathers, but did not hinder their death in due season. Indeed, we may remember that it would not last more than a single day, whereas He is the living bread which came down from heaven, living and incorruptible, and conferring eternal life. Then came the further mystery-"This Bread is My Flesh." "How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?" was the question at once asked. To the faithful it would be fully answered a year later, at the next Passover, when He gave the Bread, and said, "Take, eat, This is My Body;" and the Cup, saying, "This is My Blood." Now, He only added to the force of the words by saying that eternal life depends on eating the Flesh and drinking the Blood of the Son of Man, thus becoming wholly one with Christ and Christ with us, and imbibing His Eternal Nature, so as to partake of His Resurrection as surely as when the head rises the limbs follow. Those who abstain from such eating have not come to the source of life, therefore they have no life in them. His Flesh and Blood are the true sustenance of the soul, meat indeed and drink indeed, giving union with Him like His own union with the Father, and sustaining the whole life of the soul. So that Bread and that Wine are not the manna given to the Israelites, which gave no holiness, no life, and grew corrupt in one night, but it is more like the living, enduring manna which Aaron laid up in the sanctuary. That was

never touched or eaten by Israel of old, but the promise to the new Israel of God is-"To him that overcometh I will give to eat of the hidden manna." (Rev. ii. 17.)

Observe that whereas two other evangelists told of the outward institution of Baptism, and St. John of the hidden meaning; so three tell of the institution of the Holy Communion, and St. John gives this discourse and its import after, contrary to his wont, describing a miracle in Galilee, and one that all the others had mentioned, as if he meant to show both how it led to the subject, and how the multiplication of the Bread showed the Almighty power which can extend the paschal Supper of His Flesh and Blood to the whole Church Catholic in all times and places.

LESSON LIV.

THE FALLING AWAY OF THE DISCIPLES.

A.D. 36.-JOHN vi. 60–71; viii. 1.

Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?

When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you?

What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.

From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.

Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?

Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast

the words of eternal life.

And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.

Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?

He spake of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon: for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve.

After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.

COMMENT.-The miracle of the loaves and fishes had drawn together great numbers for the sake of gain, wonder, and ambition.

The discourse upon the Bread of Life was meant to sift out those who came in a wrong spirit; and leave only those who had trustful faith and spiritual discernment. Not only did it answer this purpose then, but it has been the same ever since. Those who call themselves Christ's disciples because it is profitable and respectable, even those who can feel the beauty of His Law of Love and talk of their pious feelings, but whose heart is not right with Him, still turn back from the Bread of Life, or refuse to believe that "this Man can give us His Flesh to eat."

Even the disciples had been offended when they heard He came down from heaven. How would it be when He should return thither again? To some it would be the perfect and manifest proof of His having come from thence; moreover it would be the prelude to His being spiritually present with His whole Church.

It is a greater thing to be joined with Him in the Spirit than to be His companion upon earth. Bodily contact with Him in the flesh might profit nothing any more than it did to the throng who pressed Him in the street a day or two before. His words were full of lifegiving power, and these are with His Church even now after His bodily presence is removed. So there is more profit, more closeness in the union with Him of a faithful partaker of His Flesh and Blood than in the resorting to Him as the multitude did in the days of His manhood upon earth.

Some of these disciples, as He plainly told them, heard all this without believing it, saying no doubt within themselves, "His expounding of the law is beautiful, but this is going too far for us ;" and they did not like to hear that His all-searching eye had seen their unbelief, and that He did not call it caution or good judgment, but a lack of heavenly calling from the Father.

When Gideon of old mustered his men of war against the Midianites, he was bidden to prove them all at the water-side, and accept only the brave few who took their drink with dignity and not selfindulgence. So when our Lord proved His disciples by this hard saying about the Bread of Life being His own flesh, the multitude thought Him a wild dreamer and fell away from Him. It is said by some that the young Levite, John surnamed Mark, was among these.

The twelve were left, and He proved them further, by saying,