“What is that bread which Christ asked his disciples to eat? what that wine which he asked them to taste? Any man who has simple intelligence in him, would at once come to the conclusion that all this was metaphorical, and highly and eminently spiritual. Now, are you prepared to accept Christ simply as an outward Christ, an outward teacher, an external atonement and propitiation, or will you prove true to Christ by accepting his solemn injunctions in their spiritual importance and weight? He distinctly says, every follower of his must eat his flesh and drink his blood. If we eat, bread is converted into strength and health, and becomes the means of prolonging our life; so, spiritually, if we take truth into our heart, if we put Christ into the soul, we assimilate the spirit of Christ to our spiritual being, and then we find Christ incorporated into our existence and converted into spiritual strength, and health, and joy, and blessedness. Christ wants something that will amount to self-sacrifice, a casting away of the old man, and a new growth in the heart. I thus draw a line of demarcation between the visible and outward Christ, and the invisible and inward Christ, between bodily Christ and spiritual Christ, between the Christ of images and pictures, and the Christ that grows in the heart, between dead Christ and living Christ, between Christ that lived and that was, and Christ that does live and that is. . . . .
“To be a Christian then is to be Christ-like. Christianity means becoming like Christ, not acceptance of Christ as a proposition or as an outward representation, but spiritual conformity with the life and character of Christ. And what is Christ? By Christ I understand one who said, ‘Thy will be done;’ and when I talk of Christ, I talk of that spirit of loyalty to God, that spirit of absolute determinedness and preparedness to say at all times and in all circumstances, ‘Thy will be done, not mine.’ . . . .
“This prayer about forgiving an enemy and loving an enemy, this transcendental doctrine of love of man, is really sweet to me, and when I think of that blessed Man of God, crucified on the cross, and uttering those blessed words, ‘Father, forgive them, they know not what they do;’ oh! I feel that I must love that being, I feel that there is something within me which is touched by these sweet and heavenly utterances, I feel that I must love Christ, let Christians say what they like against me; that Christ I must love, for he preached love for an enemy. . . . .
“When every individual man becomes Christian in spirit—repudiate the name, if you like—when every individual man becomes as prayerful as Christ was, as loving and forgiving towards enemies as Christ was, as self-sacrificing as Christ was, then these little units, these little individualities, will coalesce and combine together by the natural affinity of their hearts; and these new creatures, reformed, regenerated, in the child-like and Christ-like spirit of devotion and faith, will feel drawn towards each other, and they shall constitute a real Christian church, a real Christian nation. Allow me, friends, to say, England is not yet a Christian nation.”
Extracts from a Catechism issued by a member of the Adi Brahmo-Samaj.
Q. Who is the deity of the Brahmos?
A. The One True God, one only without a second, whom all Hindu Śâstras proclaim.
Q. What is the divine worship of the Brahmos?
A. Loving God, and doing the works He loveth.