more perfect state, where the risen body shall be no longer a hindrance but a help to the renewed spirit, in that service of the Lord which shall then be perfect freedom, the liberty of the glory of the children of God?

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IV.

CHRISTIAN PRAISE.

'When they had sung a hymn, they went out unto the Mount of Olives.'-ST. MATT. xxvi. 30.

IT had long been the custom in the Jewish Church to connect with the celebration of the Passover the singing of a hymn, especially appointed for the purpose. This part of the service consisted of five consecutive psalms, from the 113th to the 118th. These were generally divided into two parts, of which the first portion was sung or chanted, either before or during the Passover, and the other at its close. We have therefore good reason to believe that it was the second part, which was sung by our Lord and His disciples at the time here referred to by the evangelist.

It was the most sacred period of the Saviour's earthly life and ministry, the night which immediately preceded His last suffering and death. He and His future apostles had just partaken together for the last time. of the Paschal feast. He had then instituted that Holy Sacrament, which was ever after to be associated with His command, 'Do this in remembrance of me.' He had also addressed to the little company, which represented His Church, those parting words of His ministry which are especially directed to remove all the causes of present trouble, and to impart Divine and lasting comfort. Then immediately before the Lord Jesus went forth into the garden of Gethsemane, He united with His disciples in their final act of holy fellowship, which consisted of prayer and thanksgiving. The Saviour thus hallowed. by His own example this special part of our Christian worship, giving to it peculiar sacredness and solemnity. As we look

across the interval of centuries into that upper chamber in Jerusalem, and listen, as it were, to the united praise of our Lord. and His disciples, we may venture to say that it was characterised by three leading features, which make it most instructive to

us.

Thus we cannot doubt that it was marked, first of all, by simplicity and reality. Enough is recorded by the Evangelists to prove that our Lord and Saviour conformed to the sacred ordinances and forms of worship which He found in the Jewish Church at the time. But there is no evidence that He ever sanctioned anything like outward display, far less unmeaning ceremonies, in the public worship of God. The chief instructions, which our Lord has given upon this subject are contained, as we have seen, in those words, which supply the chief warrant and charter of our assembling together in the House of God for united prayer and praise, 'Where two or three are met together in my name,

there am I in the midst of them.' And again, 'The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship him.' Yet these words of our Blessed Lord cannot be rightly pleaded as an excuse for parsimony, or for the absence of due care and reverence and order in our Christian worship. Such defects, as truly as any excesses in the other direction, are opposed not only to our own reason and conscience, but also to the plain teaching of Holy Scripture. We there find that in the directions, which were given by God Himself for the services of the Temple at Jerusalem, it was expressly enjoined that whatever was offered to Him in His House must be the best, and purest, and most precious, which human resources could provide. And the same principle, although in a higher and more. spiritual sense, should also apply to the services of the Christian Church,--to the