upon coals. Christ Himself
was content to multiply common bread and fish, and even after His
resurrection gave His apostles the fare to which they were accustomed.
Thus they learned that the divine life must be led amid the ordinary
conditions of mortality. Even the incarnation of Deity was wrought in
the likeness of sinful flesh. But yet the incarnation was the bringing
of a new life, a strange and unknown energy, to man.

And here, almost at the beginning of revelation, is typified, not the
homely conditions of the inner life, but its unearthly nature and
essence. Here is no multiplication of their own stores, no gift, like
the quails, of such meat as they were wont to gather. They asked "What
is it?" And this teaches the Christian that his sustenance is not of
this world. They were fed "with manna which they knew not ... to make
them know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God doth man live" (Deut. viii. 3). The
root of worldliness is not in this indulgence or that, in gay clothing
or an active career; but in the soul's endeavour to draw its nourishment
from things below. And spirituality belongs not to an uncouth
vocabulary, nor to the robes of any confraternity, to rigid rules or
austere deportment; it is the blessedness of a life nourished upon the
bread of heaven, and doomed to starve if that bread be not bestowed. Let
not the wealthy find an insuperable bar to spirituality in his
condition, nor the poor suppose that indigence cannot have its treasure
upon earth; but let each man ask whence come his most real and practical
impulses and energies upon life's journey. If these flow from even the
purest earthly source--love of wife or child, anything else than
communion with the Father of spirits, this is not the bread of life, and
can no more nourish a pilgrim towards eternity than the husks which
swine eat.

There is no mistaking the doctrine of the New Testament as to what this
bread may be. By prayer and faith, by ordinances and sacraments rightly
used, the manna may be gathered; but Jesus Himself is the Bread of life,
His Flesh is meat indeed and His Blood is drink indeed, and He gives His
Flesh for the life of the world. Christ is the Vine, and we are the
branches, fruitful only by the sap which flows from Him. As there are
diseases which cannot be overcome by powerful drugs, but by a generous
and wholesome dietary, so is it with the diseases of the sou