Our limits will not permit us to indulge in a minute account of the Jewish festivals. Still the three great institutions at which all the males of the Hebrew nation were commanded to appear before Jehovah are so frequently mentioned in the history of the Holy Land, that we must take leave to specify their general objects. The feast of the Passover, comprehending that of unleavened bread, commemorated the signal deliverance of this wonderful people from the tyranny of Pharaoh. It was to be kept upon the fifteenth day of the first month, to last seven days, and to begin, as all their festivals began, the evening before at the going down of the sun. The reader will attend to the distinction just stated--the beginning and end of their sacred days. The celebration of the ordinary Sabbath, indeed, commenced on the evening of Friday, and terminated at the going down of the sun on Saturday. "From even unto even shall ye celebrate your Sabbaths." But the Jews, in the concluding period of their government, had innovated so far on the Mosaical institution as to prohibit the passover from being observed on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, and to appoint the celebration of it on the following day. The year in which our Lord suffered death this great annual feast fell on a Friday--beginning, as already stated, at sunset on Thursday evening--and the Redeemer accordingly, who came to fulfil all righteousness, ate the paschal supper with his disciples on the evening of Thursday. Yet the Jews, we find from the evangelical narrative, were not to observe that rite till the following evening; and hence, the early part of Friday being the preparation, they would not go into the judgment hall "lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the passover" after the going down of the sun. For the same reason they besought Pilate that the bodies might be removed; intimating that the day which was to begin at sunset was to them a high day, being in fact not only the Sabbath, but also the paschal feast, both extremely solemn in the estimation of every true Israelite. On the ground now stated is easily explained the apparent discrepancy between the account given by St. John and that of the other Evangelists. They tell us that our Lord celebrated the passover on Thursday evening the first day of the yearly festival; whereas the beloved disciple relates, that the neat morning was still the preparation of that ordinance which was to be observed by the whole nation the ensuing night. Both statements are perfectly correct; only our Saviour adhered to the day fixed by the original institution, while the priests and lawyers followed the rule established by the Sanhedrim, which threw the festival a day after its proper time.