This contrast between these two kinds of life has gone with us through this discourse, as well as through all our Lord's previous discourses: we ought by this time to be sufficiently familiar with it. The eternal life we have found is the life of the spirit; the life which is supported by material bread is the life of the flesh. Faith or belief is here, as elsewhere, described to be the proper act and exercise of the spirit, as feeding upon bread is the natural act or exercise of the flesh. That which is presented to the spirit must be as real as that which is presented to the flesh. The spirit cannot provide its own nourishment; faith cannot create its own object. Jesus says, '_He that believeth hath eternal life_.' He adds, '_I am that bread of life_.' 'I am the Word of Life to man at all times, whether he knows it or not--whether he desires a heavenly life, or is content with an earthly life. And as your fathers received manna from God to sustain the life of that body which was to die at its appointed season, I, the Word of Life, have come from God to sustain the life of the spirit--to keep that from perishing, to give it the immortality which He intended for it. I am the living Bread which came down from Heaven; I am that Word, in whom is life, made flesh. If any man acknowledge Me as that Word of Life--if his spirit participates of that life which is in Me--he shall live for ever; and this flesh which I have taken, which I have united to My living and eternal substance, I will give for the life of the world.' I keep closely to the letter of the Evangelist. I dare not depart from it; and I dare not seek the interpretation of it anywhere but in himself. There are a hundred scholastical interpretations of the reason why the Son of God was made Man--why His death was necessary for the deliverance of men. Those who think these explanations better than St. John's may make what use they can of them. I find in St. John all that I want--infinitely more than I can embrace. I will try, with God's help, to learn what the Spirit is saying to us by him before I look elsewhere.