It is the blood, it is the blood,
Which has atonement made;
It is the blood which once for all
Our ransom price has paid.
It was the blood, the mark of blood
The people's houses bore;
And when that mark by God was seen
His angel passed the door.
Not water, then, nor water now,
Has ever saved a soul;
Not Jewish rites, but Jesus' stripes
Can make the wounded whole.
"I see the blood," "I see the blood,"
A voice from Heaven cries,
The soul that owns this token true,
And trusts it, never dies.
For He who suffered once for all,
That we might life obtain,
Will never leave His Father's throne
To shed that blood again.
Brother Quick, in a low voice trembling with passion, prayed that God would make us worthy of this chief experience.
There was a moment of the holiest and most breathless silence I have ever known. I have stood alone at midnight when no birds sang, no leaf stirred, and the autumn stars shone silently through the unwhispering roof of a dark Russian forest. I have stood on the summit of the Great Gable and gazed at the wild soundless mountains all around, in that wild soundless moment before the dawn arrives. But never except in the Romish Mass, at that multitudinous most sacred moment when the heart stops beating, have I tasted so awful a silence as this, when the Spirit of God moved in the hearts of our little company. I did not greet Him in mine—not yet.
Brother Brawn uncorked the two bottles of wine and filled the tankards. The rapture on the faces round me was tenser than after the Bread: especially, I thought, in Pentecost's and my Grandmother's. The longing to share it possessed me more and more every day as I grew up. I hoped that at a very tender age I too might break the bread and drink the wine.
The third and last stage of the Meeting usually began with an utterance from Brother Briggs. If everything before had led up to the communion, Brother Briggs led on from it. He bellowed so loud that at times the roof rang. "Aw, my dear brethering, after the cup us all 'ave tasted, there be only one thing I'ze goin' to zay—Praise the Lawd, O my Sowl! Praise ye the Lawd! I'm only a pore hignorrint zinner, but I knaws this yer: That Jesus zhed 'Is bled vur me, and that 'tis uv 'Is precious bled as I've bin a-privil'ged to drink this mornin'. 'E 'ath 'olpen hus! O 'ow I luv that word hus! O 'ow I luv that word hus! Turn wi' me to the gauspel accordin' to St. Matthew, chapter eight verse zeventeen: 'Imself took our infirmities and bare our zickness. Praise 'Im, zes I, praise 'Im! Let ivry thing that 'ath breath praise the Lawd! Bewtivul! Bewtivul!
"Us shud orwis be praisin' 'Im, brethering, and us shud orwis be 'appy in 'Is love. Orwis 'appy! If us be un'appy, 'tis along of this yer—that us 'ave bin drinkin' of zum voul stream, instead uv they vountains uv 'Is love. And us are 'appy, arn't us, brethering? As I luke round at 'ee, all brothers and zisters, and zee what triumphs and trophies of grace ye all be, I zes to missel', and I cries aloud to 'eaven: Praise ye the Lawd! Bewtivul!