inconvenient in any active exertion which needed the free use of the limbs. Being thus disrobed, he took the position and character of a menial upon him, and girding himself with a towel, he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet in it, wiping them with his towel. He accordingly comes to Simon Peter, in the discharge of his servile office; but Peter, whose ideas of the majesty and ripening honors of his Master were shocked at this extraordinary action, positively refused to be even the passive instrument of such an indignity to one so great and good,――first inquiring “Lord, dost thou wash my feet?” Jesus in answer said to him, “What I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.” That is, “this apparently degrading act has a hidden, useful meaning, at this moment beyond your comprehension, but which you will learn in due time.” Peter, however, notwithstanding this plain and decided expression of Christ’s wise determination to go through this painful ceremony, for the instruction of those who so unwillingly submitted to see him thus degraded,――still led on by the fiery ardor of his own headlong genius,――manfully persisted in his refusal, and expressed himself in the most positive terms possible, saying to Jesus, “Thou shalt never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.” This solemn remonstrance had the effect of checking Peter’s too forward reverence, and in a tone of deeper submission to the wise will of his Master, he yielded, replying however, “Lord, wash not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.” Since so low an office was to be performed by one so venerated, he would not have the favor of his blessed touch confined to the baser limbs, but desired that the nobler parts of the body should share in the holy ablution. But the high purpose of Jesus could not accommodate itself to the whims of his zealous disciple; for his very object was to take the humblest attitude before them, by performing those personal offices which were usually committed to slaves. He therefore told Peter, “He that is washed needs not save to wash his feet, but is clean in every part;”――a very familiar and expressive illustration, alluding to the circumstance that those who have been to a bath and there washed themselves, will on their return find themselves wholly clean, except such dust as may cling to their feet as they have passed through the streets on their return. And any one may feel the force of the beautiful figure, who has ever gone into the water for the purposes of cleanliness and refreshment, on a warm summer’s day in this country, and has found by experience that after all possible ablution, on coming out and dressing himself, his wet feet in contact with the ground have become loaded with dirt which demands new diligence to remove it; and as all who have tried it know, it requires many ingenious efforts to return with feet as clean as