Hon. It is a pity his family should fall and be extinct.

be; but

Gaius. Fall it cannot, diminished it may let Christiana take my advice, and that is the way to uphold it.

And, Christiana, said this inn-keeeper, I am glad to see thee and thy friend Mercy together here, a lovely couple. And, may I advise, take Mercy into a near relation to thee: if she will, let her be giver to Matthew, thy eldest son: it is the way to pre. serve a posterity in the earth. So this match was concluded, and in process of time they were married: but more of that hereafter.

Gaius also proceeded, and said, I will now speak on the behalf of women, to take away their reproach. For as death and the curse came into the world by a woman,* so also did life and health: "God sent forth his Son, made of a woman,"+ Yea, to show how much those that came after, did abhor the act of the mother, this sex in the Old Testament coveted children, if happily this or that woman might be the mother of the Saviour of the world. I will say again, that when the Saviour was come, woman rejoiced in him, before either man or angel. ‡ I read not, that man ever did give unto Christ so much as a groat; but women followed him, and ministered to him of their substance. It was a woman that washed his feet with tears, and a woman that anointed his body to the burial. They were women who wept, when he was going to the cross, and women that followed him from the cross, and that sat by his sepulchre when he was buried,-They

* Gen. iii. + Gal. iv. 1.

Luke ii; viii. 2, 3; vii. 37, 50.

were women that were first with him at the resurrection morn;-and women that brought tidings first to his disciples, that he was risen from the dead. Women therefore are highly favoured, and show by these things, that they are sharers with us in the grace of life.

Now the cook sent up to signify that supper was almost ready, and sent one to lay the cloth, and the trenchers, and to set the salt and bread in order.

Then said Matthew, The sight of this cloth, and of this forerunner of the supper, begetteth in me a greater appetite for my food than I had before.

Gaius. So let all ministering doctrines to thee, in this life, beget in thee a greater desire to sit at the supper of the great King in his kingdom; for all preaching, books, and ordinances here, are but as the laying of the trenchers, and as setting of salt upon the board, when compared with the feast that our Lord will make for us when we come to his house.

So supper came up; and first, a heave-shoulder, and a wave-breast, were set on the table before them; to show that they must begin the meal with prayer and praise to God. The heave-shoulder David lifted his heart up to God with; and with the wave-breast, where his heart lay, with that he used to lean upon his harp when he played. These two dishes were very fresh and good, and they all ate heartily thereof.

The next they brought up was a bottle of wine, as red as blood.

So Gaius said to them, Drink freely, this is the true juice of the vine, that makes glad the heart of God and man. So they drank and were merry.

The next was a dish of milk well crumbled; sc Gaius said, Let the boys have that, that they may grow thereby.

Then they brought up, in course, a dish of butter and honey.

Then said Gaius, Eat freely of this, for this is good to cheer up and strengthen your judgments and understandings. This was our Lord's dish when he was a child: " Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know how to refuse the evil, and choose the good."

Then they brought up a dish of apples, and the were very good tasted fruit.

Then said Matthew, May we eat apples, since they were such, by and with which the serpent beguiled our first mother?

Then said Garus,

"Apples were they with which we were beguil'd,

Yet sin, not apples, hath our souls defil'd;

Apples forbid, if ate, corrupt the blood;

To eat such, when commanded, does us good.

Drink of his flagons, then, thou church, his dove,
And eat his apples, who are sick of love."

Then said Matthew, I made the scruple, because a while since, I was sick with eating fruit.

Gaius. Forbidden fruit will make you sick; but not what our Lord has tolerated.

While they were thus talking, they were presented with another dish, and it was a dish of nuts.

Then said some at the table, nuts spoil tender teeth, especially the teeth of the children; whico, when Gaius heard he said:

1 Pet. ii. 1, 2