so lasting? Whilst the massive monuments built, in His day, of the most enduring materials, have passed away, this endures. After sixty generations it is fresh and quickening as ever, awakening and intensifying love. These simple elements, the bread and the fruit of the vine, form the material for everlasting remembrance. They remain, when stone and metal crumble into dust and perish. This ever-present memorial lifts the worshipper high above the ignominy of the death, to the glorious atoning sacrifice, to the blood shed for the salvation of men. So it can never perish. For as long as men dwell upon the earth they will eat of the bread and drink of the cup which symbolised the death of Jesus as the atoning Saviour and their only hope for salvation. Keeping the feast with loving hearts, each generation will hand it down to the one that follows, until the grand consummation, when all will be gathered to one communion, and drink of the fruit of the vine new and personally with the Mediatorial King in His glory in His Father's kingdom. CHAPTER VII. GETHSEMANE. HIS was a garden situated between the brook Kidron and the foot of Mount Olivet, about half a mile from the city wall. The probability is that, in the time of our Lord, it was an olive plantation, as the name Gethsemane signifies an oil press." In this garden, to which Christ frequently resorted, occurred one of the most wonderful, soul-stirring, and benevolent scenes in the whole life of the Redeemer. When the supper, the memorial of His coming death, was ended, they sang a hymn, knowing that the hour of His suffering was at hand. Jesus came with His disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and saith to them, "Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee," (John and James), the three witnesses of His transfiguration," and began to be sorrowful, and very heavy,” “sore amazed." Leaving the three "He went a little farther," "about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, saying, Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me: nevertheless, not My will, but Thine, be done."1 What was this cup, thus referred to? In the Scriptures the term is often used figuratively, signifying great affliction, signal judgments; as "Upon the wicked He shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest this shall be the portion of their cup." 2 "Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of His fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out."3"In the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is full of mixture; and He poureth out of the same but the dregs thereof, all the 1 Matt. xxvi. 36; Mark xiv. 33; Luke xxii. 41. 2 Psa. xi. 6. |