Dear brethren, there is something more wanted than yourselves to break
this chain. You have tried, I have no doubt, in the course of your
lives, more and more resolutely, to cure yourselves of some more or
less unworthy habits. They may be but mere slight tricks of attitude or
intonation, or movement. Has your success been such as to encourage you
to think that you can revolutionise your lives, and dethrone the
despots that have ruled over you in the past? I leave the question to
yourselves. To me it seems that the world of men is certain to go on
ignoring God, and seeking its delight only in the world of creatures,
unless there comes in an outside power into the heart of the world and
revolutionises all things.
It is that power that I have to preach, the Christ who is the 'Bread of
God that came down from Heaven,' who can lift up any soul from the most
obstinate and long-continued grovelling amongst the transitory things
of this limited world, and the superficial delights of sense and a
gratified bodily life; who can bring the forgiveness which is
essential, the deliverance from the power of evil which is not less
essential, and who can fill our hearts with Himself the food of the
world. He comes to each of us; He comes to you, with the old
unanswerable question upon His lips, 'Why do you spend your money for
that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth
not?' It is unanswerable, for you can give no reason sufficient for
such madness. All that you could say, and you durst not say it to Him,
is, 'a deceived heart hath turned me aside.' He comes with the old
gracious word upon His lips, 'Take! eat! this is My body which is
broken for you.' He offers us Himself. He can stay all the hungers of
all mankind. He can feed your heart with love, your mind with truth
which is Himself, your will with His sweet commands.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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