by the fruits of the earth, and which should emphasise the fact that animate and inanimate Nature is pervaded by the same Spirit of Life which works through a recurring cycle of birth and death for a perpetual manifestation of God, who is Life, the vital principle of being? What could better illustrate this Spirit of Life dwelling in men's bodies and making them temples of God than a rite which drew attention to the fact that nourishment of the body is necessary for the continuance of the manifestation of the Spirit? Bread, the staff of life, is in some form or other the daily food of all peoples. The tilling of the fields, the garnering of the grain, the grinding of the corn, bring men[104] into intimate relation with Nature, and fittingly demonstrate that connection between natural laws and the lives of men fundamental to their existence and necessary for the maintenance of life. The vine served as the subject of some of Christ's most beautiful parables; it was an object of familiar interest to the people of Judæa; its cultivation was associated with the habits of their daily lives. Its fruit was thus another suitable symbol of intercommunion between the products of the earth and the bodies of men. The accounts of the inauguration of the rite of communion given by St Matthew, St Mark, and St Luke agree in the statement that it occurred when Christ and His disciples met together to celebrate the Feast of the Passover, immediately before the betrayal by Judas. The occasion was clearly chosen by Christ as suitable in all respects for the institution of the ceremony He had conceived as adequately embodying a symbolic epitome of His doctrine. Throughout His mission He[105] had rigorously observed the letter of the Jewish law, it being in accord with His office as a reformer of a distorted religious symbolism to utilise existing ritual in order to expatiate on its neglected spiritual significance. The keeping of the Passover with His twelve disciples could be made to signify very much. It would be the last Passover He would keep with them. Nay, more, it would be the last meal. When the Feast next occurred this present celebration would be remembered as the last occasion when He had broken bread with them. All that He had then said and done would be graven on their memories as the last words and deeds of their beloved Master before He was taken from them to undergo His trial and death. He would appeal, therefore, to their affectionate memory of Him in order to induce a faithful performance of the rite He was inaugurating. Though they might fail to grasp its full spiritual significance, their attachment to Him would ensure the carrying out[106] of His command to fulfil it in memory of Him. If the faithful celebration of the rite were secured, there was made possible a fuller understanding of its meaning by future and more enlightened generations, who would subject His doctrine to the test of the Spirit of Truth, proceeding from the supreme Spirit