Still he always had as many as his room could well hold; and Dalaber was one of the most regular and eager of his pupils, and one most forward to speak in discussion.
The doctrine of transubstantiation was one of those which was troubling the minds of the seekers after truth.
"How can that wafer of bread and that wine in the cup become actual flesh and blood ?" spoke Anthony once, with eager insistence, when in one of the readings the story of the Lord's passion had been read from end to end.
And he began to quote words from Luther and others bearing on the subject, whilst the students hung upon his words, and listened breathless, with a mingling of admiration and fear.

For was not this, indeed, heresy of a terrible kind?
Clarke listened, too, very quietly and intently, and then took up the word.
"Our blessed Lord cannot lie, nor yet deceive; and He said, 'This is my body this is my blood.' And St.Paul rebuked the early Christians, because in partaking of the holy sacrament they did not discern the Lord's body.

And how could they discern what was not present?
Nay, let us devoutly and thankfully believe and know that we do in very truth partake of the Lord's body, but in a spiritual mystery, higher and holier than any visible miracle would be.

The very essence of a sacrament is that it be spiritual and invisible--the visible symbol of the invisible reality.

Real and corporate flesh and blood is sacrifice, not sacrament; but the true spiritual presence of the Lord's body is never absent in His holy rite.