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Moses called the ancients of the children of Israel, and said to them: "Go, take a lamb by your families and sacrifice the Pasch: you shall not eat thereof anything

raw, nor boiled with water, but you shall eat the flesh thereof roast with fire, with unleavened bread and wild lettuce; in one house it shall be eaten, neither shall

you

EXPLANATION OF THE TYPE OF THE PASCHAL SUPPER.-The Paschal Lamb is among the most complete of all the Old Testament types of the sacrifice of Jesus

carry forth of the flesh thereof out of the house, neither shall you break a bone thereof; and if there remain anything of it until morning, you shall burn it with fire. Thus shall you eat it: you shall gird your loins, you shall have shoes on your feet and hold staves in your hands, and you shall eat it in haste, for it is the Phase or Passage of the Lord. And you shall dip a bunch of hyssop in the blood that is at the door, and sprinkle the beam of the door therewith, and both the door-posts; and let none of you go out of the door of his house until the morning. For the Lord will pass through striking the Egyptians, and when He shall see the blood on the beam, and on both the posts, He will pass over the door of the house, and not suffer the destroyer to come into your houses to hurt you.

"You shall keep this thing as a law for you and your children for ever, and when you have entered into the land which the Lord your God will give you as He hath promised, you shall observe these ceremonies. And when your children shall say to you, 'What is the meaning of this service?' you shall say, 'It is the

Christ. He is called the "Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world." The death of the Paschal Lamb preserved the people from the judgment that was about to fall upon the Egyptians, and was the sign or mark of the wonderful difference that God placed between Israel and the Egyptians. The blood of the Paschal Lamb sprinkled on the beam and posts of the door prevented the approach of the destroying Angel, as the blood of the Lamb of God sprinkled over the head of the Christian in Baptism and upon his lips in the holy Eucharist, prevents the Devil having any power to come near to do him harm. The Paschal Lamb, after having been first sacrificed, afterwards became a feast to each household, betokening their deliverance from the hand of their powerful enemies. The sacrifice of the Lamb of God is the price of our redemption from the power and tyranny of the Devil, and our Paschal Lamb is now become our feast in the holy Eucharist, where He gives Himself to be eaten in token of our perfect deliverance, through Him, from the power of Satan.

DEATH OF THE FIRST-BORN.

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victim of the Passage of the Lord, when He passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, striking the Egyptians, and saving our houses." "

The people bowed their heads and adored, and did as Moses commanded.

§ 9. The death of the first-born of Egypt.

And it came to pass at midnight, the Lord slew every first-born in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharao who sat on his throne, to the first-born

of the captive woman that was in the prison. And Pharao arose in the night, and all his servants and all Egypt, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house wherein there lay not one dead. And Pharao calling Moses and Aaron in the night, said, "Arise and go forth from among my people, you and the children of Israel: go sacrifice to the Lord as you say; your sheep and herds take along with you as you demanded, and bless me before you go." And the Egyptians pressed the people to go forth out of the land speedily, saying, "We shall all die." The people therefore took dough before it was leavened, and tying it in their cloaks they put it on their shoulders; they did also as the Lord had commanded, and asked of the Egyptians vessels of silver and gold, and raiment, and thus they stripped the Egyptians. The abode which the children of Israel made in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years, on the expiration of which the whole army of the Lord went out on the same day out of Egypt.

§ 10. Pharao and his host are drowned in the Red Sea.

Besides the children of Israel there went up also a mixed multitude with them, and their first halting place was Succoth. Instead of proceeding along the beaten track to Palæstine by which Jacob had come down into Egypt, the Lord led them not by the way of the Philistines which is the direct way, thinking lest perhaps they would repent if they should see wars rise up against them, and would return to Egypt. From Succoth they proceeded to Etham, Moses taking with

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him the bones of Joseph, as he had made the children of Israel promise him on his death-bed. The Lord also went before them to show the way, in a pillar of cloud by day, and by night in a pillar of fire. From Etham they were commanded to turn still more into the wilderness, and to encamp on the sea-side, over against Baalzephon, that Pharao might say, "They are straitened in the land, the desert hath shut them in," and so be tempted to follow after them. And thus

it turned out: Pharao repented that he had let them go, and said, What meant we, that we let Israel go from serving us ?" So he made ready his chariot and horsemen, and followed after them, and came in sight of them in Pihahiroth before Baalzephon. When the children of Israel saw the chariots and horsemen of Pharao, they feared exceedingly, and said to Moses, "Were there no graves in Egypt, that thou hast brought us out to die in the wilderness? Was not this