this doctrine. She knows, as the great Reformer knew, that the very
foundations are at stake; that if she gives up on this point, and
changes the Scriptures to suit human reason, she will soon have to
give up other doctrines, and by and by the rock on which the Church is
built will be removed, and the gates of hell will prevail.

And further, if there is any risk of being mistaken--which she,
however, does not admit--she would rather run that risk, by taking her
Master at His word, than by changing His word. In childlike confidence
and trust, she would rather believe too much than not enough. She
would rather trust her dear Master too far than not far enough. And
therefore here she stands; she cannot do otherwise. May God help her!
Amen.

Others may still say, "This is a hard saying, who can bear it?
The idea of eating and drinking the body and blood of our Lord offends
us."

Well, it also offended the late Henry Ward Beecher, that his
salvation should depend on the literal shedding of the literal blood
of Jesus. This idea was repulsive to the great Brooklyn divine. But it
does not offend us. On the contrary, this same doctrine is to us the
very heart of the whole Gospel, and is therefore more precious than
life itself.

Neither does it offend us that the mother, whose pure and tender
love to her infant child is an emblem of the divine love to us poor
sinners, while she presses to her bosom that little one, soothes away
its frettings and sings away its sobbings, at the same time feeds and
nourishes that feeble life with her own physical life, giving it