n the popular histories, those who
were infected by disease were said to be bound by
Satan; madness was a "possession" by his spirit, and
the whole creation from Adam till Christ groaned and
travailed under Satan's power. The nobler nature in
man still made itself felt; but it was a slave when it
ought to command. It might will to obey the higher
law, but the law in the members was over strong for it
and bore it down. This was the body of death which
philosophy detected but could not explain, and from
which Christianity now came forward with its magnificent
promise of deliverance.

The carnal doctrine of the sacraments which they
are compelled to acknowledge to have been taught as
fully in the early Church as it is now taught by the
Roman Catholics, has long been the stumbling-block
to Protestants. It was the very essence of Christianity
itself. Unless the body could be purified, the soul
could not be saved; or, rather, as from the beginning,
soul and flesh were one man and inseparable, without
his flesh, man was lost, or would cease to be. But the
natural organization of the flesh was infected, and unless
organization could begin again from a new original, no
pure material substance could exist at all. He, therefore,
by whom God had first made the world, entered
into the womb of the Virgin in the form (so to speak)
of a new organic cell, and around it, through the virtue
of His creative energy, a material body grew again of
the substance of his mother, pure of taint and clean as
the first body of the first man when it passed out under
His hand in the beginning of all things. In Him thus
wonderfully born was the virtue which was to restore
the lost power of mankind. He came to redeem man;
and, therefore, he took a human body, and he kept it
pure through a human life, till the time came when it
could be applied to its marvellous purpose. He died,
and then appeared what was the nature of a material
human body when freed from the limitations of sin.
The grave could not hold it, neither was it possible
that it should see corruption. It was real, for the
disciples were allowed to feel and handle it. He ate and
drank with them to assure their senses. But space had
no power over it, nor any of the material obstacles
which limit an ordinary power. He willed and his
body obeyed. He was here, He was there. He was
visible, He was invisible. He was in the midst of his
disciples and they saw Him, and then He was gone,
whi