H
336 PROCLAIMING THE LORD'S DEATH
it occurred to either that these are twin sisters, who cannot live
j apart? When hope dies, memory cries out to be killed; she
M cannot abide alone. When memory goes with her flowers to
1 the grave, hope calls from the shadowy land, " Occupy till 1
/ come." If she did not hear that call, she could not plant her
\ flower. My Lord tells me that when I build to His past I am
] prompted by His future. It is the light of Easter morn that
j leads me to the sepulchre ; it is the gleam of resurrection that
I conducts me to the broken body, " As often as ye eat this bread,
\ ye proclaim the Lord's death till he come." *
(1) The sacrament confirms our faith in the certainty of His coming. He shall come ; the Church is not for ever orphaned of His presence ; the disciples need not mourn over a dead Christ ; the weeping Virgin may dry her tears, for her Son liveth, glorified, exalted, King of kings and Lord of lords.
The first thing that we need in the anticipation of our Lord's second coming is to have the knowledge within us that were He to come to us now we should be found of Him in peace. " Be diligent," says St. Peter, " that ye may be found of him in peace." And the only peace in which we can be found, we who have our sins in the past, and our failures and imperfections in the present, is in the peace of the Divine reconciliation. And in this Sacra- ment, first of all, the consummated passion is preached to us through powerful sacramental action. Christ is evidently set forth as crucified among us. Through the union of the earthly action with our Lord's continued intercession in heaven, we learn that that death thus died is at the present moment being pleaded for us in all its reconciling efficacy before the Father, and then, when we draw nigh to Him in this Sacrament, He comes and gives Himself to us. Doing what ? Assuring us, thereby, of God's goodness towards us, and that we are all members of the mystical Body of His Son, which is the blessed company of all faithful people. The Holy Eucharist is the sacrament of Christian assurance, and they who are hushed into the peace of God by the sacramental kiss of Christ of the Eucharist can anticipate without fear His coming, for they will " be found of him in peace." 2
Tj The Feast has gone on ; for it has been God's, and not man's. It has had a power over Christendom which we cannot measure, but which we shall know one day. For it contains a promise
1 G. Matlieson, Scarchiugs in the Silence, 223. ' 2 Canon Body.
i CORINTHIANS xi. 26 337
which may sustain us when its influence appears to be weakest, when the Church appears to be most rent by the factions against which it is bearing its silent, awful protest. It is written, that as often as we eat this bread and drink this ftup.jgg show forth the Lord's death till He come. ^Tfie Incarnation and UealB) ^ andJResurrection of the Son of God were the fulfilments of all that men in the Old Dispensation were able to long for. The manifestation of Christ nPEhe^ glory of His Father and of the Holy Angels is the highest object which we in this Dispensation are able to long for. It includes every craving for righteous government, for a perfect Society, for the adoption of our spirits, for the perfection of the faculties of our souls, for the full redemption of our bodies. It includes the fulfilment of every relationship, of all loving teTiercourseT which has been most imperfectly realized here, but which has been raised and sancti- fied by a diviner Communion. jLJXLcludes the accomplishment of all earthly discipline and sorrow, fellowship with those whose faces we miss, but whose love must be far warmer than ever it was, because it is in more immediate contact with the perfect Love, ^includes the apprehension of the order and beauty of God's creatures, when the veil of death which covers them has been taken away. It includes the ever-deepening sense of the meaning and force of that death which revealed the whole mind of God, which was the perfect Atonement for Man.1
(2) The second thmg that is needed is this. If we are to be ready for Christ's coming, we must be numbered with those who, in the language of the Book of Eevelation, are "sealed." And what is this sealing ? A seal is that whereby an impress is made upon molten wax. And so it is here. There is a seal in which there is the image of Christ, and this image of Christ is to be imprinted on hearts that are melted in the furnace of contrition until they are all molten wax. There is a seal that bears the image of the King, and by the impress of that seal that image is stamped on those who are sealed. What is that seal if it be not that sacred rite in Christendom in which Christ Himself is present, in which Christ Himself impresses His own image upon the image of His elect ? " As often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord's death till he come"; for the Sacrament is not only the sacrament of assurance ; it is the sacrament of increasing conformity.