The New Gospel

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">When we speak of corn as Ceres and wine as Liber [Bacchus], we employ a familiar figure of speech, but do you suppose that anybody can be so insane as to believe that the food he eats is a god?&nbsp;</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">Baptism does not take the sores from the leper, or scabs and boils … So shall it then do away with adultery, theft, and all of the sins of the soul?&nbsp;</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">Since it is most revolting to human nature to eat human flesh or drink human blood, therefore God in His infinite wisdom has established the administration of the body and blood of Christ under the forms of bread and wine, which are the ordinary and agreeable food of man.</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">One day, a priest, it is said, gave inadvertently, instead of the sacrament, a counter, which had by accident fallen among the holy wafers.&nbsp; The communicant waited patiently for some time, expecting it would dissolve on his tongue; but finding that it still remained entire, he took it off.&nbsp; “I wish,” cried he to the priest, “you have not committed some mistake.&nbsp; I wish you have not given me God the Father: He is so hard and tough there is no swallowing him.”</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">Out, damned spot! out, I say … who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him … Here’s the smell of blood still.&nbsp; All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.&nbsp; Oh, oh, oh!&nbsp; … Wash your hands …&nbsp;</em></p>