“Then come to him the disciples of John, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not? And Jesus said unto them, Can the sons of the bride-chamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then will they fast. And no man putteth a piece of undressed cloth upon an old garment; for that which should fill it up taketh from the garment, and a worse rent is made. Neither do _men_ put new wine into old wine-skins: else the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins perish: but they put new wine into fresh wine-skins, and both are preserved.”(151) The Pharisees practised fasting on the second and fifth days of the week: the same practice was probably followed by the disciples of John; and if we suppose that Matthew made this feast on one of the fasting days, this would bring the contrast between the ways of John and of Jesus more sharply out. Before examining the charge and the reply, a word must be said on the absence of all distinctive religious observances in the practice of our Lord and His disciples. The Baptist, we know, enjoined stated fasts and taught his people to pray, and above all enforced the initiatory rite from which he drew his name. At a later period our Lord’s disciples beg to be taught to pray, “as John also taught his disciples.”(152) In those days people looked to a religion to order the externals of a man’s life; hours of prayer portioned out his day; and so, even the disciples appear to have felt that with them there was something lacking, and that they were at a disadvantage compared with John’s disciples because they were not, through conformity to a special rule, formed into a body and marked with a badge.