lical language,' it is said. That
depends on what we take as the standard of reality in the sacrificing
priesthood. If Christ is the standard of priesthood, and His method of
making sacrifice the standard method, then St. Paul's account of his
priestliness is not appreciably metaphorical, except so far as metaphor
belongs to all earthly expressions of heavenly realities; it is rather
true to say that the Jewish or heathen priest, with his material
victims, was but the dim shadow of a true priest.

The point is that the true Christian idea of sacrifice makes the
substance of it to be always persons returning to God the life He gave
them. If we must offer sacrifices of money and fruits of the earth,
that is because we cannot offer ourselves without our bodies[11], or
our bodies {178} without the material supplies on which they depend.
'All things come of God, and of His own do we give Him.' And all our
labour and prayer for others must be an offering of them, or a
preparation to offer them[12], to God; which again is only our
assisting them to offer themselves. And all this offering in sacrifice
of ourselves and others is rendered possible by the one effectual
sacrifice, through which alone we and all men have access to the
Father. It takes place 'in Christ Jesus,' who, 'through eternal Spirit
offered _himself_ without spot to God.' There, at the head of all, is
the sacrifice of the person, and that person the Son of Man, who can
take up into His very life and sacrifice even all mankind. Throughout
it is a sacrifice of persons, or of things only as appertaining to
persons. This is the fundamental Christian idea, and this at the
bottom necessarily forbids us to separate the thing offered from the
person offering, the victim from the priest. The priest is the victim,
for what he offers is himself.

It is this idea of sacrifice which is realized in the eucharist. The
eucharist is the central sacrifice of the Christian body. It is to
start {179} with a presentation of material things, bread and wine of
the fruits of the earth, with alms and other offerings it may be: and
these oblations are accompanied with prayers and symbolic rites. But
all is done that both by word and act the One Sacrifice may be
commemorated and pleaded. The outward rite but finds its meaning and
justification in that--the sacrifice of the Person. Again we can only
take part in it with any spiritual reality by becoming ourselves
sharers