The doctrine of transubstantiation is coherent and reasonable if prefaced by recognition of God as the supreme Spirit of Life present in all form. It is absence of this spiritual acknowledgment that has laid the teaching of the Church of Rome open to the charge of idolatry. Both before and after the "consecration," the bread and wine are most truly the body and blood of God if Nature be recognised as the vesture of the Divine Spirit. The repetition of the words spoken by Christ at His institution of the rite serve to emphasise this spiritual truth. The idea of corporal union with Christ, obtained by partaking of the consecrated elements, does not adequately illustrate the fact that all life is one, and that all form is pervaded by the same one Spirit of Life. His body and blood is not the only touch-stone of union among men, since the whole of Nature is one communion of life, wherein all creatures are one by reason of their common spiritual source of life. The same principle by which the fruits of the earth[116] built up and sustained the human body of Christ works to-day throughout Nature. Here, indeed, is the outer sign of the sacrament of union, as illustrated in His rite of communion. But the spiritual significance of this kinship of Nature there made evident, although latent in the Roman interpretation of the rite, suffers neglect in practice, and its symbolism is thus in danger of degeneration towards idolatry. The English version inclines towards the other extreme by unduly neglecting the outer sign of union, thus detracting from the full significance of the rite. It does not emphasise the corporate brotherhood of man, and it does not therefore appear fully in accord with the scientific doctrine of the unity of Nature. In striving to avoid the supposed idolatrous errors of Rome, the rite has been deprived of half its meaning. The Church of England strains towards a spiritual interpretation at the expense of the actual; whereas the Church of Rome accentuates the actual to the neglect[117] of the spiritual. Neither version attains an adequate appreciation of the fact that the rite of communion is primarily a symbol, whose meaning can only be properly gauged by due attention to both its outward sign and its inner meaning. The spiritual is manifested through the actual, as the infinite through the finite. Understanding of essential truth is gained through the senses, not in spite of them. But the word is neither of greater or lesser importance than the thought. Is not the one an expression of the other, as Nature—the vesture of God—is the expression of the Spirit of Life? Thus, in the words of Christ: "I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: I have given them thy word. Thy word is truth" (St John xvii.).