"He is the very Paschal Lamb which was offered for us, and hath taken away the sins of the world; who by His death hath destroyed death, and by His rising to life again hath restored to us everlasting life."

I.

"When I see the blood I will pass over you."

HAT night was more than three thousand years ago, and nearly fifteen hundred years before Christ. For two hundred and fifteen years the children of Israel had been dwellers in the land of Egypt. They had settled down, willingly at first, in Goshen. Separated from the people of Egypt, and engaged in tending their flocks and herds under the protection of Pharaoh who was Joseph's friend, they were free from hardship and care. But when other kings arose who knew not Joseph, there came a time of unjust bondage and cruel persecution; and the cry of their grief went up into the ears of the God of Hosts.

Then He raised up a deliverer for them, and Moses of the tribe of Levi, came forth and appealed to King Pharaoh in their behalf, saying, "Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews: Let my people go, that they may serve me. But the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he would not let the people go. Then God sent forth terrible

plagues over the land of Egypt,-fire, and hail, and disease, and murrain,-still he would not let the people go. Afterwards, thick darkness rested over all the land for three days; and still he would not let the people go. Then God foretold to Moses the most terrible of all His judgments: "About midnight I will go out into the midst of Egypt: and all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of the maid-servant that is behind the mill; and all the first-born of beasts. And there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any more."

All that day there was a stir and hurry of preparation in Goshen, where the children of Israel dwelt. Moses had brought them a message from God, which, when they heard, they bowed their heads and worshipped.

Each family was to choose out a lamb from the flock, which was to be killed "between the two evenings," or between the hours of three and six in that solemn afternoon of the fourteenth day of the month Abib. Then it was to be roasted with fire, and with it upon the table were to be spread bitter herbs and unleavened bread.

The men and women of Israel had never before prepared so strange a repast; but this was not all.

Before the night came on, there was to be sprinkled with hyssop on the lintel and the door-posts some of the blood of that slain lamb; and no man after that was to go outside his house until the morning.

The children looked on wonderingly all that day, and questioned with themselves what all this should signify. Then they asked their parents, who replied as God had told them: "This is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover." They could not understand the answer then, for it was celebrated differently from any sacrifice which they had seen before, and it seemed strange to them that there should be preparations, too, as for a journey, in all the houses of the land of Goshen. When they asked where they were going, they were told that God had spoken by Moses, saying that the children of Israel should, on the day which would begin at sunset, go forth by their armies out of the land of Egypt on their way to Canaan.

The children had heard the beautiful story of Joseph who had been sold from Canaan into Egypt by his brethren; and they knew how his old father Jacob, with all his house, had followed him down in the famine which came in the days of the good king Pharaoh. They knew, too, how Jacob, when he was dying, had foretold that God would bring his children into the land of their fathersa land flowing with milk and honey, where the vines covered the hill-sides, and the fig-trees with