Wheathedge grow from a cross-road to a flourishing village; who this
afternoon, perhaps for the last time--I could not help thinking so as
I sat in church--interpreted to us the love of Christ as it is
uttered to our hearts in this most sacred and hallowed of all
services. Very simply, very gently, quite unconsciously, he refuted
the cheerless doctrine of the morning sermon, and pointed us to the
Protestant doctrine of the Real Presence. Do you ask me what he
said? Nothing. It was by his silence that he spoke.

A few tender, loving, reverential words as he broke the bread. Three
minutes of silver speech, the rest of his part of the service a
golden silence. But those few words were radiant with the presence
and the love of a risen, a living Saviour. It was not of the Christ
that died, but of the Christ that now lives, and intercedes, and
guides, and preserves, and saves, he spoke, with voice feeble with
old age, but strong with love. And as he spoke, it seemed to me, I
think it seemed to all of us, that the Christ he loved so much and
served so faithfully was close at hand, near and ready to bless us
all, not with a sacred memory only, but with a Real Presence, the
more real because unseen.

"Yes, Jennie," said I after we had sat for a few minutes in silence
recalling that sacred hour, "Yes, Jennie, there was a Real Presence
in Father Hyatt's breaking and blessing of the bread. But what do
you say of the disquisition of Mr. Work on transubstantiation which
followed it?"

"I didn't hear it, John. Was it really about transubstantiation?
Perhaps I ought to have listened--but I could not, I did not want to.
A higher, holier voice was speaking to me. I was absorbed in that. I