Supposition, however, is not evidence. In order to determine the significance of the rite of communion, and thus to arrive at some idea of its importance in Christian doctrine, it is necessary to subject it to that test which Christ Himself declared to be the proper criterion of merit—the Spirit of Truth. In these later days, nearly two thousand years since He utilised the loving obedience of His disciples to institute symbolic evidence of the spiritual unity of life—a rite designed to give light to untold generations to come—how have men obeyed His injunction to test His words and deeds by the Spirit of Truth?
"The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you" (St John xiv. 26).
"When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me" (St John xv. 26).
"I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me; for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you" (St John xvi. 12).
In these sayings, among very many others, we have a declaration that the Spirit of Truth, inherent in knowledge and proceeding from God, the supreme Spirit of Life, accompanies intellectual and spiritual evolution. Christ's doctrine was not intended only for His immediate followers and men of His own race and time. Much that was to them incomprehensible, much that by reason of their intellectual limitations He could only teach by implication, He referred to future generations of men who might discover and appreciate by the clearer light of after-days the intrinsic truth of His doctrine of spiritual unity. How has His appeal to posterity been answered? How has His recommendation to test His words by the Spirit of Truth been obeyed?
It is part of the function of scientific criticism to examine emotional apprehension, and to corroborate or disprove by means of evidential testimony the truth in spiritual suppositions. The modern view of the universe, which recognises for the elements of matter an essential correlation of principle, may thus be regarded as the rational endorsement of Christ's spiritual apprehension of the intercommunion and oneness of all forms of life. That the bodies of men are reared upon and sustained by innumerable other forms of life; that every individual is in reality an aggregate of others; that Nature rests upon the continued intercommunion of all its parts; that no one part has power and meaning save in conjunction with others; that correlation is the perpetuating principle of life; that the very universe depends upon the mutual support of its component parts—are scientific facts that have their psychical counterparts in the spiritual ideals contained in Christ's gospel of love, and are emphasised in the symbolic summary of His teaching—the rite of communion.
Let us now take the actual words supposed to have been used on the occasion of the inauguration of this rite, and examine them by the light of attested scientific facts:—
"Take eat, this is my body which is given for you."
"This cup is the New Testament of my blood which is shed for you."
Christ spoke as an incarnate son of God, as a human manifestation of the Spirit of Life. His form, derived from and nourished by the fruits of the earth, was in its elemental essence one with the vital principle of all forms of life. The bread was His body. His physical life was sustained by His participation in the sacrificial intercommunion of Nature. But the time was come when His body was to suffer death. He had risked His life by preaching reformatory doctrine. Now this work was done. He was aware of His impending death, therefore He would not eat again. But His disciples were not yet to die, for their work was not yet done. Therefore He bid them eat and drink, and thus continue to benefit from the intercommunion of Nature, in which all forms of life obtain mutual sustenance by mutual sacrifice.