"But do I believe this in the heavenly import of this blessed doctrine, in its full, rich clustering of spiritual affections? The communion of saints! What is it? Not the acceptance of that faith which the saints in common profess. Not the communion of my own parish, or of any church or party. All these may be found where the communion of saints is not. "The illustration introduced above, is a faint emblem of the communion of saints, but scarce a resemblance. We are fellow-pilgrims in the rough and difficult path to the Celestial City. Polluted alike with sin, and harassed with infirmities; differing in a thousand minor things, but with one strong common purpose to tread the same road, to follow the same Leader, and to reach the same goal. The road is conflict, the leader is Christ, and the goal is Heaven. Churches are important only as they advance our onward progress, and our oneness with Him who purchased us with His own blood. The fact, then, that we are Christians in the deep spiritual meaning of the term, forms a bond too strong, too pure, too enduring to be appreciated by any but those who can say, with the conviction and fervor of Thomas, 'My Lord and my God.' Differing, as we may, in many things, we are one in Christ, our righteousness and our trust. One in our daily experience and our spiritual aspirations. One in our fears and weakness, one in our strength and ultimate triumph. One in our final song, 'WORTHY THE LAMB.' Oh, let this communion, this sharing of the dearest interests, the sharpest conflicts, and the noblest of all victories, be to us a foretaste of that unbroken communion in Heaven, where sin, infirmity, and conflicting interests can never enter. And when we come to the Lord's table to renew our visible covenant with Him, and to seal our union with each other by eating together, let us go forth into the world with this communion so manifest in our affectionate intercourse and charitable forbearance, that men shall say once again, 'See how these Christians love one another.'— Would not Satan tremble then? His followers love not one another."* It is with great pleasure, and with more than willingness, I adopt these Catholic sentiments from the Parrish Visitor, the able organ of the Evangelical Knowledge Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church. CHAPTER XIII. CONCLUSION. Here then, dear reader, I leave you. I have not intended, nor endeavored to provide for you a systematic or didactic treatise on the church and the Lord's Supper. I have rather designed to enter into personal conversation with you, and talk with you as a friend talketh with his friend, face to face. There are yet many things of which, were we together, I might still speak, touching the King and His beauty, for if all were told, the world could not contain the books that should be written. You see, however, how large a letter I have written unto you, with mine own hand, out of my heart of hearts, and with earnest prayers, that you may be united by a true and loving faith to Christ and His church on earth, and that having served Him long, faithfully, and successfully here on earth, "and well earned a grave," and a grave's hallowed rest, you may come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in Heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." May it be so with you, dear reader. Fare thee well. Adieu. I will still commend you to God, and to the power of His grace, and to the ever-present, all-sustaining, all-sufficient Comforter; and my last wish for you is, that your last communion and your dying consolation may be as blessed as those of the young female disciple with whose testimony I will conclude. She had been an invalid for several months, and her last illness was attended by much physical suffering, which she endured patiently, and with submission to the Divine will. A short time previous to her death, on being interrogated in regard to the state of her mind and her future prospects, she exclaimed,"Bright-all bright and glorious-Jesus is precious-He will keep that which I have committed to his hand." On another occasion, she remarked, “I have now been confined to my room three months, and although wasted by disease, amid all my suffering, I have found Christ precious. I am ready and willing to go to my heavenly Father -yea, I long to be gone to that happy land where all God's people will have done with sin and sorrow. I have had to-day bright views of my Saviour. I have longed to break from this tenement of clay, and soar to my Saviour's loving arms. Each day I see more and more of my unworthiness. Satan is near with his devices; but Christ is also near to guard and guide me home to the heavenly Canaan." A week previous to her decease, she thus wrote: "To-day I was permitted to commemorate the love of Christ at his table; and although suffering acutely, yet in meditating on His last sufferings, and why He suffered, my pains seemed lighter. Thanks to my precious Saviour, for his presence, and for patience to bear up under my afflictions. Precious Saviourfew more hours-" Here her pen ceased, and in one week her sanctified spirit, we trust, was |