who givest us the fruits of the earth.”  He used to take the cup, which contained the wine, and bless it also:  “Blessed be thou, O Lord, who givest us the fruit of the vine.”  The bread was twice blessed upon this occasion, and given once to every individual at the feast.  But the cup was handed round three times to the guests.  During the intervals between the blessing and the taking of the bread and of the wine, the company acknowledged the deliverance of their ancestors from the Egyptian bondage; they lamented their present state; they confessed their sense of the justice of God in their punishment; and they expressed their hope of his mercy from his former kind dealings and gracious promises.

In process of time, when the Jews were fixed at Jerusalem, they revived the celebration of the passover, and as the feast of unleavened bread was connected with it, they added the customs of the latter, and blended the eating of the lamb and the use of the bread and wine, and several accompaniments of consecration, into one ceremony.  The bread therefore and the wine had been long in use as constituent parts of the passover-supper, and indeed of all the solemn feasts of the Jews, when Jesus Christ took upon himself, as master of his own family of disciples, to celebrate it.  When he celebrated it, he did as the master of every Jewish family did at that time.  He took bread, and blessed, and broke, and gave to his disciples.  He took the cup of wine, and gave it to them also.  But he conducted himself differently from others in one respect, for he compared the bread of the passover to his own body, and the wine to his own blood, and led the attention of his disciples from the old object of the passover, or deliverance from Egyptian bondage, to a new one, or deliverance from sin.

Since the time of our Saviour, we find that the Jews, who have been dispersed in various parts of the world, have made alterations in this supper:  but all of them have concurred in retaining the bread and wine as component parts of it.  This will be seen by describing the manner in which it is celebrated at the present day.

On the fourteenth day of the month Nissan, the first-born son of every family fasts, because the first-born in Egypt were smitten on that night.  A table is then set out, and covered with a cloth.  On the middle of it is placed a large dish, which is covered with a napkin.  A large passover cake of unleavened bread, distinguished by marks, and denominated “Israelite,” is then laid upon this napkin.  Another, with different marks, but denominated “Levite,” is laid upon the first:  and a third, differently marked, and denominated “Priest,” is laid upon the second.  Upon this again a large dish is placed, and in this dish is a shank bone of a shoulder of lamb, with a small matter of meat on it, which is burnt quite brown on the fire.  This is instead of the lamb roasted with fire.  Near this is an egg, roasted hard in hot ashes, that it