ou 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, making 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 nourish