1790: A Sermon Delivered on the Ninth Sunday After Epiphany
John Mallard, Bishop of Ducks‑on‑Pond
My beloved and impressionable flock—good souls, varnished sinners, and the odd philosopher in borrowed breeches—
I rise today under the benevolent turquoise of Heaven (a colour, I assure you, unbecoming to envy but delightful to reason) to address a matter that has lately acquired a certain taste in the parish.
Now—taste is a perilous word in Christian England, for it has been made literal in our western neighbour’s altar games. Yes, I speak of that venerable mystery—or shall we call it an appetite—named Transubstantiation: that Roman doctrine by which bread becomes flesh, wine becomes blood, and the priest becomes—by all culinary allegory—the butcher of Bethlehem.
You shiver. You should.
To declare that one eats one’s God is, to my mind, a confusion between supper and salvation. As the Reverend Dr. Plinket observed (before he fell into the sin of card tables), “When dinner and devotion exchange their cutlery, none digest.” His is a vulgar phrasing, but it shall serve.
Consider, if you please, the chain of logic—oh, logic, that temperate angel we Anglicans keep chained politely under the tea table! If one believes that holy bread is flesh indeed, one must confess to an act of consumption. And what is such consumption, stripped of its vestments and Latin perfume? Why, it is cannibalism, that primitive supper of the savage, forbidden in every moral diet since Noah’s Ark ran aground upon the civility of law.
Cannibalism, I maintain, is a sin; sin is the root of evil; and evil, I am confidently informed, corrupts whatever tongue it touches. Hence, by transitive sanctimony, transubstantiation is but a well‑dressed poison—its chalice the toxin glass, its wafer a subtle venom disguised as virtue.
Now, am I harsh? Perhaps. But the Devil is polite, and polite devils require blunt rhetoric. The Roman priest, chanting Latin as though God were deaf to English, extends the cup. Inside—oh, not the blood of Christ, but the sly persuasion that you need him to mediate your salvation. And dependence, my darlings, is a slower poison than arsenic but leaves the corpse more obedient. One dies of servility before one dies of faith.
Here in Ducks‑on‑Pond, we have our dangers: the goose plague of ’86, which slew more cooks than geese; the scandal of Miss Prattle and the curate behind the pulpit door; the curious case of Mr. Hobby’s almanac predicting the Second Coming in the year ’89 (now conveniently postponed). These were brief contaminations of the local whiteness. But spiritual poison? That, once sipped, circulates through generations. It stains the mind’s linen.
Remember the warning of Bishop Argent—whom I met once, glittering and gaunt, at a dinner I would rather forget—“Every false miracle has a kitchen in it.” I’ve turned the phrase over many times and find its flavour sound. The notion that holiness must be chewed and swallowed debases the divine into digestion. God, if He exists—and if He does not, as I rather suspect, the metaphor remains splendid—is not a meal but a meaning.
Yet I hear you murmur: “But Bishop Mallard, are we not instructed to take and eat?” Indeed, the Scripture says so, but Scripture speaks in poetry, and poetry, like perfume, is not meant to be gulped. The words of our Lord—if I may quote the authorised Ducks‑on‑Pond edition—“This is my body”—were metaphor! A tender figure of unity, reduced by Rome into theology’s taxidermy. To make logos into sausage, my friends, is linguistic butchery.
Permit me a small demonstration.
If I take this common slice of bread (Mrs. Vane’s bakery, you may recognise the crust)—and I say unto you, “This is my sermon”—would you bite it? No. You would listen, because you possess both brain and manners. Yet the Roman, with straight face and bowed head, devours divinity like a schoolboy in Lent.
I sometimes fear their stomachs are more orthodox than their souls.
And, oh, the splendour they attach to it! Gold cups, smoky altars, the perfume of decay disguised as sanctity. It is the theatre of digestion—a gastronomic piety for those who find reason tasteless. But beware, my flock, for the show that dazzles often conceals the drain beneath the stage. The poisoners of Rome are artists in credulity; they lace their doctrine not in the cup, but in the habit of obedience. You drink because you are told to; you believe because you have forgotten to be hungry for truth.
A poor labourer once asked me—he was named Jonas Feet, a man of remarkable toes—“My Lord Bishop, is it true they drink blood in Rome?” I said, “They think they do, Jonas, and that is both worse and better. The thought corrodes the wine faster than any acid.” He nodded as though he understood, which he did not, but sincerity is the laity’s only theological furniture, and we must cherish it.
Now, before I am accused—again—of aesthetic hyperbole (I see you smirking, Mrs. Decanter)—I assure you I speak not against all appetite. The Maker, should such a craftsman exist, endowed us with tongues both for tasting and talking. Both can be holy if used in measure. But what the Roman performs is gluttony of the sacred: they eat what should be adored, they drink what should be discerned. Theirs is a piety of the stomach.
And cannibals, as we know, are never satisfied. A missionary once wrote to the Gazette of Gentlemen Travellers (Vol. II, June ’88): “Among the tribes of the Upper Limpet, one man eats another to preserve his courage; the second eats a third to recover his first.” The consequence is obvious: courage becomes indigestion. So too with Rome—faith consumes faith until only dogma remains: heavy, undigested, but insistently alive like a bad oyster in the belly of Christendom.
Now, what shall we do? We must guard our children, my friends, guard them from the spice of superstition. Teach them that holiness is not a meal but a melody. Let them drink water, clear as conscience, and break bread for friendship, not magic. If there is a sacramental flame, let it burn in wit and compassion. For the kingdom of Heaven, if it exists—and even if it doesn’t, it might—will not admit the intoxicated.
Let Ducks‑on‑Pond be known not for wafers and wonders, but for reason in good tailoring. Our creed shall be sanity, our ritual, laughter, our faith, an elegant abstinence from nonsense. And if, by some perverse hospitality, we must call upon Rome, let us at least toast them with metaphorical wine and a spoonful of arsenic for candour.
I conclude with the words of that noble heretic, Lady Prudence Veal, expelled from seminary for saying she saw no difference between the Mass and the masquerade: “When priests make dinner of their deity, the devil brings dessert.”
Take the warning. Beware those who serve salvation by the slice. The poison of evil ever arrives with a blessing upon its lips and a napkin round its neck.
Amen—or, as I prefer, Bon appétit.
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