We have no difficulty now in understanding what passed at the table of the Pharisee. When the water for purification was presented to him, Jesus would either refuse it, or if, as seems more likely at a morning meal, each guest repaired by himself for the prescribed purification, he would omit to do so, and sit down to meat without this formality. No one who knows the stress which Pharisaism laid on this rite would argue that Jesus might have conformed to the practice. Indeed, the controversy was long and bitter between the Schools of Shammai and Hillel, on such a point as whether the hands were to be washed _before_ the cup was filled with wine, or _after_ that, and where the towel was to be deposited. With such things the most serious ritual inferences were connected on both sides. A religion which spent its energy on such trivialities must have lowered the moral tone. All the more that Jesus insisted so earnestly, as the substance of his teaching, on that corruption of our nature which Judaism ignored and on that spiritual purification which was needful for the reception of his doctrine,--would he publicly and openly set aside ordinances of man which diverted thoughts of purity into questions of the most childish character. On the other hand, we can also understand what bitter thoughts must have filled the mind of the Pharisee whose guest Jesus was, when he observed his neglect of the cherished rite. It was an insult to himself, a defiance of Jewish law, a revolt against the most cherished traditions of the synagogue. Remembering that a Pharisee ought not to sit down to a meal with such, he might feel that he should not have asked Jesus to his table. MARIA EDGEWORTH (1767-1849) [Illustration: MARIA EDGEWORTH]