erse, I was struck as by a flash of
light, which instantaneously discovered to me the mistake that I had
at first made in the meaning of the six verses transcribed above, and
imparted a new value to the Gospel. When I read "It is the Spirit that
quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing--the words that I speak unto
you, they are Spirit, and they are Life," John, 6:63, I had, as it
were, the key of the chapter, and no longer discerned in it the
doctrine of the real presence. I perceived that it in no way referred
to swallowing and digesting, with our corporeal organs, the body and
blood of Christ: I saw that the expressions of eating and drinking
were used figuratively, and that they really signified nothing
but knowing Christ, coming to him, and believing in him, as it is
explained in the thirty-fifth verse of the same chapter, where Jesus
Christ says, "I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never
hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst."

It was, then, as clear to me as the day, that Jesus Christ used the
terms _eating_ and _drinking_ only in a spiritual manner; and (as I
now understand them) as referring to that faith, which, while it is
living and active in our hearts, unites us to him in an inexplicable
manner, and clothes us in his merits at the same time that it purifies
and sanctifies our views, our sentiments, and our desires. After
having thus discovered my error, I found myself more than ever
inclined to persevere in my reading, and to search and see whether the
doctrine of the real presence would not he better established in
the subsequent parts of the book. The further I advanced, my dear
children, the more reason I had to be convinced that neither Jesus nor
his apostles ever intended to convey such an idea. I should be too
tedious were I to point out to you all the passages which I found
expressly contradictory to this revolting tenet; it will be sufficient
to quote a few.

I found in the Acts, that the apostles saw Jesus Christ ascend on
high, carried upward by a cloud which concealed him from their sight,
and that two angels appeared and said unto them, "Men of Galilee, why
stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus which is taken up from
you into heaven, shall so come in _like manner_ as ye have seen him
go into heaven." Acts, 1:9, 11. "There never was a priest," said I,
"there never was a Roman Catholic, administering or receiving the
sacrament, that ever saw Christ desce