How can this Man give us His flesh to eat? (The disciple)

How can this Man give us His flesh to eat? (The disciple)

(The Saviour of the World, Vol IV, Book I, Poem XXV)

What legacy of discord have ye left
The Church of Christ, ye too contentious Jews!
The Lord doth offer Bread, and ye refuse!
Crabb’d contradiction hath your soul bereft
Of the sweet grace of God which bids man use
All common gifts of meat and light, nor lose
Least portion of His goodness while they ask—
“Nay, how can God fulfil so strange a task?”

His famished, fainting Church crawls on her way;—
“But how then shall He feed us? Is’t in act
Of blessing? breaking? eating? that great fact
Of bread transformed to life He will display?”
An-hungered, we refuse our meat and say
“An knew I ‘How’ ’twere done, I would obey!”