Judas received the sop, without knowing anything of what his Master had told the beloved disciple.

The disciples continued to ask him who was the person that should be guilty of so base a crime? Willing, at last, to satisfy their importunity, Jesus declared that the person who dipped his hand with him in the dish should betray him. This to the eleven was a joyful declaration, but confounding in the highest degree to Judas. Jesus declared that his death should be brought about according to the decrees of Heaven, though that would not in the least mitigate the crime of the person who betrayed him; adding, "it had been good for that man if he had not been born." Judas asserted his innocence by a question which implied a denial of the charge. But his Master soon silenced him, by positively affirming that he was really the person.

The Evangelist St. John tells us, that he was of so covetous a disposition as to steal money out of our Lord's bag; and hence there is sufficient reason to believe that he first followed Jesus with a view of obtaining riches, and other temporal advantages, which he expected the Messiah's friends would enjoy. Perhaps, as he had hitherto reaped none of these advantages, he

might grow impatient under the delay. His impatience, therefore, becoming excessive, suggested to him the thought of delivering his Master into the hands of the council, firinly persuaded that he would then be obliged to assume the dignity of the Messiah, and consequently be able to reward his followers. At length, thinking himself affronted by the rebuke of Jesus, at the time when the woman anointed the head of his Master, he was provoked to execute the resolution he had formed of obliging him to alter his measures. Rising, therefore, directly from the table, he went immediately into the city, to the palace of the high-priest, where he found the council assembled, and to them he made known his intention of delivering his Master into their hands; and undertook, for a small sum of money, to conduct a band of armed men to the place where the Saviour of the world usually spent the night with his disciples, where they might apprehend him without danger of a tumult.

"What will ye give me," said he, "and I will deliver him unto you?" He did not mean that he would deliver him up to be put to death; for though the priests had consulted among themselves, how they might destroy Jesus, they had not dared to declare their intention publicly;

they only proposed to bring him to trial for assuming the character of the Messiah, and to treat him as it should appear he deserved.

Judas knew that the rulers could not take away the life of any person whatsoever, the Romans having deprived them of that power; and therefore some think he could have no design of this kind in delivering him up; not to mention that it was a common opinion among the Jews, that the Messiah could never die.

He knew Jesus to be thoroughly innocent, and expected that he would have wrought such miracles before the council as should have constrained them to believe. When he found that nothing of this kind was done, and that the priests had passed the sentence of condemnation upon him, and were carrying him to the governor, to get it executed, he repented of his project, came to the chief priests and elders, the persons to whom he had betrayed him, offered them their money again, and solemnly declared the deepest conviction of his Master's innocence, hoping that they would have desisted from the prosecution. But they were obstinate, and would not relent; upon which his remorse rose to such a pitch, that, unable to support the torments of his own conscience, he went and hanged himself.

CHAPTER XXVI.

JESUS INSTITUTES THE SACRAMENT, IN COMMEMORATION OF HIS DEATH AND SUFFERINGS-PREDICTS PETER'S COWARDICE IN DENYING HIS MASTERFORTIFIES HIS DISCIPLES AGAINST THE APPROACHING SHOCK-PREACHES TO, AND PRAYS WITH HIS DISCIPLES FOR THE LAST TIME-PASSIONATE ADDRESS OF Our Lord TO HIS FATHER, IN THE garden.

THE great Redeemer, knowing that he must become a sacrifice for sin, instituted the sacrament of his supper, to perpetuate the memory of it throughout all ages. Accordingly, as they were eating the paschal supper, "Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body."

Having given the bread to his disciples, he also took the cup, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."

The important, the awful scene, now approached, when the great work was to be finished. The traitor, Judas, was gone to the chief priests and elders for a band of soldiers to apprehend him; but this did not discompose the

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Redeemer of mankind; he took occasion to meditate on the glory that would accrue both to himself and to his Almighty Father from those sufferings, and spake of it to his disciples. Now," said he, "is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him." But his disciples imagining that he spake of the glory of a temporal kingdom, their ambition was revived, and they began to dispute, with as much keenness as ever, which of them should be greatest in that kingdom. This contention Jesus suppressed by the arguments he had formerly used for the same purpose. At the same time, to check their ambition, and lead them to form a just notion of his kingdom, he told them, that he was soon to leave them; and that whither he was going, they could not at that time follow him; for which reason, instead of contending with one another which of them should be the greatest, they would do well to be united among themselves in the happy bond of love. For by loving one another sincerely and fervently, they would prove themselves his disciples, to the conviction of mankind.

Jesus also called this a new commandment, because they were to exercise it under a new relation, according to a new measure, and from new motives. They were to love one another,