gratitude to me will soon cease. We have indeed the poor always with us.

""T is our great Father's plan,

That mutual wants and mutual care
May bind us, man to man."

The poor seem to be a kind of rent-receivers for the great Proprietor of all our possessions. A hundred Scripture blessings rest on his head who is kind to the poor. But there are other great and noble objects besides mere alms-giving; appealing to the charity and generosity of the Christian world. Indeed, the best charity to the poor is to elevate their characters and enable them to help themselves.

12. She did it for my burial. It would be more exact to say, for my embalming. It was usual to anoint the dead, and embalm them with costly spices. The mind of Jesus was so filled with the thought of his approaching fate, that every object and scene took a hue from it. The very odor of the ointment, as it filled the house, seemed like the omen of death to his tender sensibility. He virtually said, that she might be justified in her deed, since he was so soon to die that the perfume was as it were a preparation for his in

terment.

13. For a memorial of her. That is, for an honorable testimonial of her nobleness of character. Beautifully has the declaration been verified. Those who performed the slightest offices for Jesus have a name wide as the world, and lasting throughout all ages. "The odor of that ointment was not con

fined to that lowly Jewish dwelling. It has filled the world."

"Who shall blame the kind oblation,
Perfumes rich, profusely shed?
No! Through each remotest nation

Shall her grateful fame be spread." "Oh! say what deed so lifted thy sweet name, Mary! to that pure, silent place of fame? One lowly offering of exceeding love." 14-20. Mark xiv. 10-17. Luke xxii. 3-14.

14. This verse may be considered as connected with the narrative of the proceedings of the Sanhedrim, vss. 3-5. The intervening passage is apparently introduced to explain the motives which influenced Judas to betray his Master, though his name is not mentioned in the accounts of Matthew and Mark. -Then. About that time, referring to the meeting of the Sanhedrim in vs. 3.-One of the twelve. A circumstance of aggravation. — Iscariot. An epithet probably meaning the man of Carioth, or Kerioth.

15. What will ye give me. Judas was actuated, no doubt, by a variety of considerations. Impatience and curiosity to have Jesus declare himself, and a desire for the honors and rewards of a temporal kingdom, combined with the persuasion that Jesus could at any moment free himself from his enemies by his miraculous power, and some minglings of resentment at his reproof at the time of the anointing, may have entered into the web of his motives. Still the ruling evil passion, the Satan, according to the Gospel account, was covetousness. He bargained in crime. He sold himself and his Master for money. He in

17

quired, in the text, how much they would give him for his wickedness. What a contrast does his sordid treachery present to the generosity of Mary! "For covetousness aims at base and low purchases, whilst holy love is great and comprehensive as the bosom of Heaven, and aims at nothing less than infinite!" -They covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. Or, paid him that amount. The first unjust act of the Sanhedrim was to take counsel to arrest and kill Jesus by subtilty; the second was to enter exultingly, Mark xiv. 11, into positive negotiations with an apostate disciple, for the betrayal of his Master and Friend. The sum of money was the price of a slave, Ex. xxi. 32, and would be about fifteen dollars in our currency, though the value of money was then far greater than now. "With regard to the price of his treachery, a survey of human nature and human passions will not authorize us to say that any sum is too small to tempt habitual and absorbing avarice to any act or degree of wickedness. Earthly, sensual, and contemptible, there is no knowing how low this passion will creep, nor how high it will strike."

16. Sought. Was seeking. He was intent upon the evil object from day to day. Luke says, it was to be accomplished in the absence of the multitude. To betray. Original, to deliver up; without defining the quality of the act.

17. The first day of the feast of unleavened bread. The Jews eat that kind of bread during seven days succeeding the feast of the passover, hence the whole festival is often called the feast of unleavened bread. The day here spoken of was Thursday, in the evening of which the passover was eaten. There is good reason for believing that the occasion on which Jesus instituted the supper was the passover feast, and that all the Jews partook of it on the same evening. The objection from John xviii. 28, that on the next day, Friday, the priests would not go into Pilate's judgment-hall, "lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the passover," may be easily removed. For the passover here referred to was not the paschal lamb, nor the sacrifice at the end of the first day of the passover, called Chagigah, but the feast of herbs and unleavened bread, which lasted seven days longer. The expressions in John xix. 14, 31 are also cited against the above view; but the preparation of the passover was, doubtless, as Campbell renders it, the preparation of the Paschal Sabbath, which was a "high day," as it occurred during the feast of unleavened bread. This is corroborated by Mark xv. 42, and John xix. 31, where the preparation is said expressly to relate to the Sabbath.

18. Into the city. They were then in Bethany.-To such a man. A familiar expression, to point out one

The

whose name is not given. man would be met by them "bearing a pitcher of water.' Mark xiv. 13. It is unnecessary to suppose that there was any miraculous power exerted on this occasion. Jesus was probably acquainted with the man, and he takes the liberty, common during the great festivals, of requesting the use of a furnished room at his house. Accommodations for guests were furnished gratuitously at these times. Such was the hospitality of the inhabitants of the city, notwithstanding the immense multitudes which resorted thither, that, according to the Jewish writers, "a man could never say to his friend, 'I have not found a fire to roast the Passover lamb in Jerusalem,' nor I have not found a bed to sleep on in Jerusalem,' nor, 'the place is too strait for me to lodge in Jerusalem."-My time is at hand. Referring, probably, to the approaching termination of his ministry and life.-I will keep the passover at thy house. This rebuts the view entertained by some, that Jesus did not keep the passover, but only a common supper; for he would not have said this, had he foreseen that on account of his death he should never partake of it. 19. The disciples, i. e. Peter and John. Luke xxii. 8.-They made ready the passover; which consisted in obtaining a guest-chamber, engaging the articles of food, wine and bread, and herbs, and preparing the paschal lamb, by having it killed and dressed by the priests at the

temple, and afterwards roasting it themselves.

20. Now when the even was come. It is natural to infer, from the close connection of this verse with the last, that it was the passover feast at which they now reclined, and for which they had prepared, as related in vs. 19.-He sat down. Original, he reclined. The order of events upon this interesting occasion, according to Carpenter, is as follows: "1. Introductory observations of our Lord. 2. Observations in relation to the contention of the Apostles respecting precedency. 3. Jesus washes their feet, and discourses thereon. 4. He announces the treachery of Judas, after which that Apostle withdraws. 5. Declarations to the Apostles, including two announcements of Peter's denial of him. Then followed the institution of the Lord's supper."

21-25. Mark xiv. 18-21. Luke xxii. 21-23. John xiii. 21-30.

The three first items of the above order are recorded only by Luke and John, but the fourth is contained in the following paragraph.

21. That one of you shall betray me. This appears to have been the first intimation the disciples had that there was treachery in their company. It is not likely that Jesus could know any more of the matter than they, except by Divine power. The object of mentioning it seems to have been to arouse the penitential emotions of Judas and turn him from his bad purpose.

22. Exceeding sorrowful, &c.

"When their Master declared that one of them would betray him, they did not resent the accusation, but, in the spirit of a touching self-distrust, which their experience of his better wisdom had taught them to cherish, the cry broke forth on every side,‘Lord, is it I? Is it I?' When one whom we deeply reverence charges us with an evil design, we suspect ourselves of it, rather than him of a wanton accusation." They were not suspicious, moreover, of one another.-Began every one of them to say, i. e. said.

23. Dippeth his hand with me in the dish. One of the dishes at the passover entertainment consisted of a species of salad, of lettuce or bitter herbs, raisins, and vinegar; emblematical, it was said, of the clay their forefathers used in making brick in Egypt. To this sauce, into which they were accustomed to dip their bread or meat as a sop, John xiii. 26, allusion is here made. Since, in a company of thirteen persons, there would probably be more than one of these dishes, it has been thought that Judas reclined near Jesus, so as to dip into his dish. But he did not particularly point out Judas by this declaration, for otherwise it would not have been necessary to have designated him to John by a private sign; though the present verse may refer to the same transaction more fully related in John xiii. 23-27,

24. Goeth. A softened expression for dieth. As it is written of him. As decreed in the counsels of God and revealed in the Scriptures.

Woe unto that man. Or, alas for that man.-It had been good for that man, &c. Or, according to the Improved Version, "It would have been good for him (the traitor) if that man (the Son of Man) had not been born." Without, however, resting upon this, it is plainly a proverbial and figurative expression, descriptive of a great calamity or punishment. Many phrases of the same purport are found in the Jewish writers. This is one: "He that knoweth the law and doeth it not, it were better for him that he had not come into the

world." The inferences which have sometimes been drawn from a strictly literal interpretation of these words, in regard to the nature and duration of future punishment have, therefore little pertinence or warrant.

25. The conduct of Judas is natural. Bad men are prone to assume a frankness and innocence which they do not possess, in order to avoid suspicion.-Thou hast said. Equivalent to Yes, or, It is. Mat. xxvi. 64, comp. with Mark xiv. 62,

26-29. Parallel to Mark xiv. 22 -25, Luke xxii. 19, 20, 1 Cor. xi, 23-25. The paschal supper, from parts of which the observances of the Lord's supper seem to be de rived, was celebrated, according to Olshausen, as follows: 1. A prayer from the head of the family, and a cup of wine and water distributed among the guests, 2. The lamb, with the bitter herbs, and unleaven ed bread, was served. The younger members of the company were informed of the object of the cere

mony, as commemorative of the departure from Egypt. The cxiii. and cxiv. Psalms were read. 3. The second cup, supposed to be mentioned in Luke xxii. 17. 4. The unleavened bread is again broken and distributed, and eaten in the sauce of herbs; this may answer to the breaking and dividing of the bread by Jesus, when he instituted the supper. 5. A third cup, called the cup of blessing, which, perhaps, corresponds to the cup taken by Jesus after the bread at the institution of the supper. Psalms cxv. to cxviii. were sung. 6. A fourth cup, and sometimes the reading of Psalms cxxvi. to cxxxvii., called the great Hallel. 7. A fifth cup closed the feast.

26. And as they were eating. Judas had probably withdrawn. Jesus proceeds to institute a memorial corresponding in his religion to the paschal supper in the Jewish system. As the one commemorated the great deliverance from Egyptian bondage, so the other was designed to celebrate the spiritual emancipation produced by the Gospel. Our Lord presides at the entertainment, as the head of a family; and, keeping the Jewish ceremony with prayer, and eating of the paschal lamb, and with the other observances of the occasion, he gracefully and spontaneously introduces a new and peculiar rite of his own. -Jesus took bread. This must have been the unleavened bread of the passover, formed of thin cakes, which could be readily broken.→ Blessed it. It is not in the original; rather, he blessed, or gave thanks to God.-Take, eat; this is my body. The formal and solemn character

of these words indicates a fixed design of establishing a new ordinance; yet, as has been said, it was originated not so much "by the understanding, as the affections of Jesus. He saw, in the broken bread and in the flowing wine, the symbols and mementos of his own body and blood. Thus hallowed by the deep sensibility of Jesus, shall they not be everlasting mementos? Shall not our hearts melt with answering tenderness? and can we disown or cancel the vows of gratitude and remembrance which Nature herself prompts?"-The Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, with its mitigated forms prevalent even in Protestant churches, arose, as Selden said, from mistaking rhetoric for logic, or, in other words, from interpreting with a prosaic literalness a bold, vivid, and almost violent metaphor. The verb to be is often used in the Hebrew and Syriac languages, a dialect of which Christ spoke, to convey the sense of to signify. Thus here: This signifies or represents my body. Many other cases of this idiom occur in the Scriptures. Gen. xli. 26, 27. Dan. vii. 24. Mat. xiii. 38. 1 Cor. x. 4.

Rev. i. 20. It is one of the most astonishing facts of human credulity and ignorance, that the afore-mentioned doctrine, that the bread and wine of the communion are literally the body and blood of Jesus Christ, should have, for so many ages, predominated in the church.

27. And he took the cup. The Jews were accustomed to use wine at the passover feast. It has been common to regard this cup as answering to the third cup of the