You swept it and garnished its walls and its floors as much as in you lay. He, whose the supper really was, told you that He would bring with Him what was to be eaten and drunken to-day, while you were to prepare the place. And, next to the very actual feast itself, and, sometimes, not next to it but equal to it, and even before it and better than it, were those busy household hours you spent, like the man with the pitcher, ****** the room ready. In plain English, you had a communion before the Communion as you prepared your hearts for the Communion. I shall not intrude into your secret places and secret seasons with Christ before His open reception of you to-day. But it is sure and certain that, just as you in secret entertained Him in your mother's house and in the chambers of her that bare you, just in that measure did He say to you openly before all the watchmen that go about the city and before all the daughters of Jerusalem, Eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved. Yes; do you not think that the man with the pitcher had his reward? He had his own thoughts as he furnished, till it was quite ready, his best upper room and carried in those pitchers of water, and handed down to his children in after days the perquisite-skin of the paschal lamb that had been supped on by our Lord and His disciples in his honoured house that night. Yes; was it not amazing to behold that in that very place where sometimes Diabolus had his abode, and had entertained his Diabolonians, the Prince of princes should sit eating and drinking with His friends? Was it not truly amazing?
3. Now, upon the feasting-day He feasted them with all manner of outlandish food--food that grew not in all the fields of Mansoul;
it was food that came down with His Father's court. The fields of Mansoul yielded their own proper fruits, and fruits that were not to be despised. But they were not the proper fruits for that day, neither could they be placed upon that table. They are good enough fruits for their purpose, and as far as they go, and for so long as they last and are in their season. But our souls are such that they outlive their own best fruits; their hunger and their thirst outlast all that can be harvested in from their own fields. And thus it is that He who made Mansoul at first, and who has since redeemed her, has out of His own great goodness provided food convenient for her. He knows with what an outlandish life He has quickened Mansoul, and it is only the part of a faithful Creator to provide for His creature her proper nourishment. What is it? asked the children of Israel at one another when they saw a small round thing, as small as hoarfrost, upon the ground. For they wist not what it was. And Moses said, Gather of it every man according to his eating, an omer for every man, according to the number of your persons. And the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. He gave them of the corn of heaven to eat, and man did eat in the wilderness angels' food. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead; but this is the bread of which if any man eat he shall not die. And the bread that I will give is My Flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. And so outlandish, so supernatural, and so full of heavenly wonder and heavenly mystery was that bread, that the Jews strove among themselves over it, and could not understand it. But, by His goodness and His truth to us this day, we have again, to our spiritual nourishment and growth in grace, eaten the Flesh and drunk the Blood of the Son of God; a meat that, as He who Himself is that meat has said of it, is meat indeed and drink indeed--as, indeed, we have the witness in ourselves this day that it is. They drank also of the water that was made wine, and were very merry with Him all that day at His table. And all their mirth was the high mirth of heaven; it was a mirth and a gladness without sin, without satiety, and without remorse.
4. There was music also all the while at the table, and the musicians were not those of the country of Mansoul, but they were the masters of song come down from the court of the King. 'I love the Lord,' they sang in the supper room over the paschal lamb--'I
love the Lord because He hath heard my voice and my supplication.
Because He hath inclined His ear unto me, therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live. What shall I render to the Lord,' they challenged one another, 'for all His benefits towards me? I will take the cup of salvation, and will call upon the name of the Lord.' 'Sometimes imagine,' says a great devotional writer with a great imagination--'Sometimes imagine that you had been one of those that joined with our blessed Saviour as He sang an hymn.
