The Village in the Mountains; Conversion of Peter Bayssière; and History of a Bible

by Sampson Vryling Stoddard Wilder

Thus, my children, I discovered that these two primary doctrines of the Romish church, viz. purgatory and the supremacy of St. Peter, had not, at any rate, been inculcated by the writers of the Gospel. I cannot tell you what interest I felt in the new ideas I had acquired. The New Testament, which I was still far from regarding as a divine revelation, appeared to me a collection of precious documents, in whose authority I then began to feel some degree of confidence. Though I found this study novel and difficult to a poor uneducated artisan like myself, it was at the same time so attractive to me, that I was induced to continue my researches.

I have already mentioned to you, my dear children, the invincible repugnance which I had always felt to receiving the sacrament as administered in the Romish church. I have said that nothing in the world could have forced me to this act, by which it is profanely pretended that the creature EATS his Creator!! I could never even think of it without shuddering. This doctrine, which asserts that Jesus Christ is present, in body and in spirit, in the consecrated wafer, and that every communicant is actually nourished by his flesh and blood, is, of all the tenets of popery, that which contributed the most to alienate me from the Christian religion, to which I attached it, and to drive me to infidelity.

This, therefore, now attracted all my attention; and again I began to read the New Testament, entirely occupied, as previously, by the one object which I had in view.

I found nothing in the three Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, or St. Luke, which gave me the least reason to suppose that their author had recognized the real and corporeal presence of Jesus Christ in the sacrament of the holy supper. The words of the institution, as related by the first, Matt. 26:26, 27, 28, by the second, Mark, 14:22, 23, 24, and by the third, Luke, 22:19, 20, reported with slight variations by the three Evangelists, and which I took great pains to collate and compare, conveyed no other idea than that of a commemorative ceremony, designed to preserve and call to remembrance the sufferings, the passion, and the death of Christ. In my then wretched condition of unbelief, the magnitude, the sanctity, and the power of the sacrament did not strike my mind; but, excepting that, I imbibed from the consideration of these passages the views which I still hold. So far, then, I had not discovered the doctrine of the real presence; but I thought I had indeed found it specifically established when I read these words: "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews, therefore, strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, we have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him." John, 6:51-56. These words appeared to me to be undoubtedly the foundation of the Romish faith on this head. I even thought that the writer of them had the establishment of this doctrine especially in view. At that moment I was tempted to stop, and to carry no further my researches on a doctrine which I thought I had found clearly set forth, but the absurdity of which had never appeared to me so palpable. I then felt an utter disgust towards the Gospel; nevertheless, internally spurred on by an invisible power, which was then unknown to me, but which I now recognize to have been the Holy Spirit, the author of all divine revelation; and attracted, as it were, in spite of myself, by the Spirit of God, who graciously purposed to teach me to appreciate, and in time to receive, the truth of his word, I resumed my New Testament, which I had for a moment thrown aside, and recommencing the perusal of the sixth chapter of St. John, I read it to the end, which I had not done before.

When I reached the sixty-third verse, 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 descending from heaven, in this manner, to enter into the bread. Nevertheless, the angels declared that he should descend from heaven in the same manner as he went up into heaven."

I found, in the same book, "that the heavens must receive Jesus Christ till the time of the restitution of all things." Acts, 3:21. "He is then," said I, "no longer corporeally on the earth." I found, in the Epistle to the Colossians, that "Christ sitteth on the right hand of God;" chap. 3:1; from whence I drew the inference that he certainly cannot be actually present on so many altars, or in so great a number of wafers, as the doctrine of the real presence necessarily supposes.

I found, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapters 9 and 10, the strongest declarations, not only against the real presence, but against the whole system of the mass, by which it is pretended daily to renew the passion and sacrifice of our Saviour. When the apostle says that "Christ is entered into heaven itself;" Heb. 9:24; when he says that "unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation;" ver. 28; lastly, when he says it is the will of God to sanctify us "through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once made," chap. 10:10, and that "this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down at the right hand of God," ver. 12, having "by one offering perfected for ever them that are sanctified," ver. 14, it appeared to me to prove, with the most unanswerable evidence, that the doctrine of the real presence, and all connected with it, was as far removed from the creed of the apostle as the east is from the west, or as heaven from hell.

Finally, my dear children, the very words of the institution of the Lord's Supper, related by St. Paul, 1 Cor. 11, and to which I paid particular and repeated attention, did not leave a shadow of doubt on my mind that the doctrine of the Romish church, on the subject of the Eucharist, is utterly devoid of any foundation in the Gospel, and must, consequently, have been derived from some other source. In fact, all that our Saviour says on the occasion of instituting the Lord's Supper, clearly shows that it was a memorial of himself which he established, and which he wished to leave behind him. After having taken, blessed, and broken the bread, he commands that it should be eaten in remembrance of him. Having given them the cup to drink, he adds, "This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me." The words, "this is my body--this cup is the New Testament in my blood," appeared to me only what they really are, figurative expressions, signifying that the bread represented his body, and the wine his blood. These words do in no degree change or modify the principal idea, that of commemoration, which runs throughout this action of our Lord.