had to eat this Passover with His disciples before He suffered, arose from the consciousness, that in that hour and in that act He would for ever put an end to shadows, and bring in the substance of our redemption. Year by year, until that night, the lamb of the Passover had prophesied the atonement in His blood. The whole Church had yearly celebrated a sacrament prefiguring His death; but the shadows were now passed away. The true Light was come; the true Lamb, the true Sacrifice, the only bloodshedding was at hand.

And besides this, we may believe that He desired that hour with the ardent longing of our human infirmity, because it was the winding up of the long years in which He had waited for His bitter passion: "I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" The fear of death is a pure human affection, a natural and sinless shrinking from grappling with the powers of sin, and from the pangs which we must suffer in the struggle. He too foresaw the sharpness of death which He had undertaken to overcome; and this foresight "straitened" Him. It was now near to begin, and the end was not far off. The sooner begun, the sooner ended. We go forth even with impatience to meet sorrows which we cannot turu aside.

But there was, perhaps, another reason. That

last mournful Passover was a solace to the Son of man. It was sad, but sweet. It was to be the last time that He should so converse with the disciples and friends who had long loved and followed Him. We all know what the last day or the last night is before some great parting, before some happy time comes to an end; before some departure, some change which reaches to the foundations of home and heart: the last evening spent in some loved haunt, the last meeting with some fond friends, the last time of doing some familiar work, the last partaking in some act of common devotion. It is soothing, and yet so calm as almost to take away its power to soothe. We look on to it, and long for it, though its coming only brings the end the sooner. Yet in itself it is so blessed, that we shut our eyes, and will not look beyond, leaving the morrow to come, if it must. There are two great seasons of perfect sweetness and sadness, farewells and death-beds. They are times which draw out all tenderness and love: and some such thoughts and feelings were no doubt in the heart of our blessed Master when He looked on to this eventide, and said, "With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer."

These thoughts give a peculiar depth, and, if I may so speak, a divine pathos to His words. Perhaps we have never heard them without a feeling

of their intensity of meaning. How powerful and persuasive is every word and act of His in that hour of unutterable tenderness and sorrow. What a light it casts upon the blessed Sacrament which He then bequeathed to us, and on the law which binds us to it.

1. For first, this shews us that the holy Sacrament is this last Passover continuing still. What was then begun is a perpetual celebration. "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast." The whole life of the Church is a paschal festival. Every year brings Easter back; but Easter is in every week. It ought to be in every day. This is the Passover He so ardently desired; the very substance which He then brought in and ordained for ever. When He sat with His Apostles, He took bread and wine, and offered up Himself both in figure and reality. The sign and the substance were then united in one act, and are inseparable. He now, for ever, offers up Himself in heaven; and His Apostles, through their successors, offer up the same Passover on earth, and they will offer it alway, even unto the end of the world. In heaven and in earth, it is but one act still, one priesthood, and one sacrifice. The Church is the upper chamber spread abroad; a sphere above this visible world, hanging over all the earth. It is in all lands, under all skies, upon

the floods and in the mountains, in the wilderness and on trackless shores, wherever two or three are gathered together, there is the upper chamber, and the paschal table, the disciples, and the Lord of the true Passover, the Sacrifice and the Priest. At every altar He takes bread and wine, blesses, and gives His body and His blood. This whole action and event is a continuous and ever-present reality. We do not repeat or imitate, but perpetuate and continue the act He began that last night before He suffered. And, by continuing it, we unite ourselves to Him in it. We go up into the room furnished and prepared; and are present, not more now than then, not more here than there. The kingdom of our Lord is in spirit and in truth. Our Sacrament is the true paschal sacrifice, indivisible and one.

We look

2. And this may shew us further, that with desire He desires still to eat this sacrament of His love with us. How strangely this inverts our common ways of speaking. We look upon the holy communion as a commandment to be obeyed, or a blessing to be sought. Perhaps we may also regard it on our part as a source of strength and solace; but do we realise that it is He who is desiring to eat it with us? that the chief desire is on His side; that it is He who invites, calls, beseeches us; that He stands at the altar

waiting and longing for our approach; and all this because of His divine love for sinners, because our sanctification is His joy? How full of all wonder is this tenderness and patience of love! That He should suffer such as we are to draw near; that He should endure to receive sinners, and to eat with them; that after our sins, backslidings, betrayals, our wilful infirmities and cold, heartless estrangements, He should at all accept of our advance, this is miraculous: but that He should desire to be touched by the hands of lepers and the lips of the unclean; that He should long for us while we stand aloof from Him; that when we draw near, His desire should be ardent and ours languid; that the joy and solace, if I dare so speak, should be more with Him than with us, and that the blessedness of that divine communion should be deeper in His heart than in ours,—all this is the mystery of love, the length and breadth and depth and height whereof pass all understanding. And yet there is somewhat we may comprehend, for His desire is like His love, divine. The infinite and unextinguishable love which brought Him from His Father's bosom to die upon the the tenderness of the Good Shepherd, in whose eyes the lost are precious as His own blood; these make Him to yearn over us when our swerving, cold, slothful hearts draw near with a scanty

cross;