Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898).djvu/357

Rh time cometh, that whosoever killeth you, will think that he doeth God service; and these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father nor me.” In ancient Rome a soldier was required to swear allegiance to his general. The Latin word for this oath

was sacramentum, and our English word sacrament is derived from it. Among the Jews it was an ancient custom for the master of a feast to pass each guest a cup of wine. But the Eucharist does not commemorate a Roman soldier's oath; nor was the wine used on convivial occasions, and in Jewish rites, the cup of our Lord. The cup was to show forth his sufferings, — the cup which he prayed might pass from him, though he bowed in holy submission to the divine decree.

The true sense is spiritually lost, if the sacrament is confined to the use of bread and wine. The disciples

had eaten, yet Jesus prayed, and gave them bread. This would have been foolish, in a literal sense; but, in its spiritual signification, it was natural and beautiful. Jesus prayed. He withdrew from the material senses, to refresh his heart with brighter and spiritual views.

The Passover, which Jesus ate with his disciples in the month Nisan, on the night before his crucifixion, was a