“I heard the voice of Jesus say,
    Behold, I freely give
  The Living Water:  thirsty one,
    Stoop down and drink, and live.

  “I came to Jesus, and I drank
    Of that life-giving stream: 
  My thirst was quenched; my soul revived: 
    And now I live in Him.”

But I will show you bread also.  It is wonderful bread.  The Israelites, many centuries ago, kept a representation of this bread upon the table connected with their altar of worship; and they called it “showbread,” because it showed something to come.  A kind of bread also fell upon the face of the ground all around them, when they were encamped in the wilderness; and they called it “MANNA.”  They gathered this in the morning, and the supply never failed.  But it did not keep them from dying.  They died all the same as if they had lived on wheat bread, as we do.  It is of this that Jesus says:  “Your fathers did eat of the manna in the wilderness, and they died.”  But our Lord, in speaking of the Bread of Life, which is none other than the great love of God in Christ Jesus, says:  “This is the bread which cometh down out of heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.  I am the living bread which came down out of heaven:  if any man eat of this bread he shall LIVE FOREVER.”

Live forever! Does not that sound pleasant in your ears?  Does it not have the note of solid comfort?  If you believe it, it does.  It is on this account that our Lord says so much about FAITH.  Faith makes a man thirsty for the water of eternal life, and faith makes a man hungry for the bread of eternal life.  Millions in heaven to-day, each one out of his own heart, can sing: 

  “I heard the voice of Jesus say: 
    I am the Bread of Life: 
  Eat of this Bread, O hungry one,
    And have eternal life.

  “I took the Bread he gave me then: 
    My hungry soul it fed;
  For this, he said, I gave my life,
    And on the cross I bled.”

When our Lord was on earth he spoke to the people and to his disciples mostly in parables.  In fact we are told that “without a parable spake he not unto them.”  It is from this that so many similitudes, and metaphors, and figures of speech are found in the New Testament.  Thus, water and wine, in many places, mean divine truth; and bread means divine love.  And now I will venture to make a statement for the consideration of every thinking mind in this house—­a statement which, if it be true, is of infinite and eternal importance—­and it is this:  Love and truth support and keep life in man’s spirit, just as bread and water support and keep life in man’s body.