"Most certainly."
"There is a little incident recorded in Matthew xvi. 21, which embodies one of the laws of the mediatorial government of Jesus Christ. 'From that time forth', that is, after his apostles had made a public avowal of their belief in him as the Son of God, he began to show unto them the coming events of his wonderful history. Yes, my friend, the path of duty is the path of safety, and obedience brings its own reward, as clearer manifestations of the love of Christ usually follow an open profession of devotedness to him."
"I remained a spectator the last time the ordinance of the Lord's Supper was administered at your chapel; I thought it a very solemn service, and I was a good deal impressed by it."
"I hope you have outlived the scrupulous objections of your educational training, and now admit that the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper are of perpetual obligation?"
"I must confess that they have engaged some portion of my thoughts, particularly the Lord's Supper. I recently read Joseph Gurney's remarks on it, but they did not satisfy me. I thought them more ingenious than solid; and they seemed to me very much a piece of special pleading. From his book I turned to 1 Cor. xi., and I recollect saying when I had finished, the apostle Paul and Joseph Gurney don't think and write alike on this subject. As they can't both be right, one must be wrong; which shall I follow?"
"I suppose," said Miss Chester, "you don't find that a difficult question to decide?"
"Why, my dear, it is not a very easy matter to get over long cherished scruples—to obliterate early impressions, and adopt new religious habits and customs. But still, I must confess, that an inspired apostle is a safer guide, than an uninspired partizan writer. However, there is a previous question, which, if I may be permitted to mention it, I should like to have answered. What, in your judgment, are the spiritual advantages which are connected with the regular observance of the ordinance of the Lord's Supper?"
"In the first place," I replied, "it tends, and I think very forcibly, to give fixedness and solidity to our faith in the historic truthfulness of our Lord's sufferings and death. He himself instituted the ordinance, even before his death was accomplished; and he assigns his reason for so doing: 'And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins' (Matt. xxvi. 26-28). Immediately after his death, we find, by consulting the Acts, that his disciples partook of it in obedience to his authority, and for the purpose which he specified. The apostle Paul tells us that he had a special revelation from heaven in relation to it (1 Cor. xi. 23, 26). And this ordinance, instituted by Jesus Christ, and observed by all the primitive disciples, is handed down to us as a standing memorial of the wonderful fact that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures."
"Yes, I see. Then this ordinance stands like a monument erected at the time when the event occurred, to commemorate it, and to perpetuate the remembrance of it?"