"God forbid that we should do any of these things, sir!" exclaimed honest Garth. "I'm no better than others, I know, but I'd never touch a penny as was not my own, and I don't bear malice, I hope, towards any living creature." "No, I'm sure he don't!" cried the goodwife. "Depend upon it, my friends," said Harry, "there is nothing which unfits a believer for appearing at the Table of his Lord, but that which would unfit him for Heaven—self-righteousness and wilful sin. If a man be really unprepared to partake of the bread and the wine, he has cause to fear every hour of the day—he has cause to fear when he lies down at night, lest death should suddenly overtake him—because he is unprepared to die." "But though we mayn't be living in wilful sin, yet we're far from being what we should be," said Michael Garth, thoughtfully shaking his head. "And so were those whom our Lord Himself chose to appear at the very first Communion service that ever was held upon earth," cried Harry. "Why, sir, they were the holy Apostles who took the bread and wine from our Lord's own hands," said Michael. "And what were those Apostles but weak, erring men, whose spirit was willing, but whose flesh was weak?" asked young Maude. "Did not our Lord, when He called them around Him, know that some of them had just been disputing which should be the greatest? Did He not know that, in the course of a few hours, all would forsake Him and flee? Did He not know that one, the foremost amongst them, would deny Him with curses and oaths? The Lord knew all this, and yet He invited His Apostles to share His Holy supper. Would He have praised for humility, or rebuked for disobedience, any one of them who should have refused to come, saying, 'Lord, I feel that I am not worthy?'" "There was no fear that they should refuse," murmured Martha, "they would not have dared to keep away when the Lord bade them come." "But it seems that disciples in the present day dare to do that which Apostles would not have ventured to do, refuse their Lord's invitation," said Harry. "But ye see, sir," observed Garth, after a pause, "it was all such a new thing with the Twelve; there had never been anything like the Communion before."