The third and last of the three great festivals was “the _Feast of Tabernacles_,” otherwise called “the feast of ingathering at the end of the year when thou hast gathered in thy labors out of the field” (Ex. 23: 16).――――The speciality of this feast was the dwelling in booths or tabernacles, made of “boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees and the boughs of thick trees and willows of the brook” (Lev. 23: 40). This feast began on the fourteenth day of the seventh month and continued during eight days, the first and the last being days of special solemnity. It had a double purpose, viz. to commemorate the forty years wandering of the fathers in the wilderness, dwelling in tents; and to give thanks to God for the last harvests of the year――the fruits of the olive and the grape――last in order――being now all gathered in. Thus none of these three great feasts omitted the element of thanksgiving for the fruits of the season, the first barley sheaves being brought with grateful thanks before the Lord during the Passover; the first-fruits of the wheat harvest giving a special thanksgiving character to the Feast of Pentecost; and the latest fruits, the olive and the grape, reminding them of God’s crowning blessing upon the labors of the year at the Feast of Tabernacles. What a beautiful training into the service of thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth! This last of the festivals was pre-eminently one of joyful festivity, and of loud and high praises to the Lord, their Great Benefactor. The Jews have a saying――that “whoever has not seen the rejoicing of the last great day of the Feast of Tabernacles has never seen a day of joy in his life.” The principal passages of Moses that treat of it are Ex. 23: 16, and 34: 22, and Lev. 23: 34–43, and Num. 29: 12–40, and Deut. 16: 13–15. The celebration of this feast in the age of Nehemiah (8: 14–18) the reader should not fail to notice. At this time the law was read daily in the hearing of the people. The law of Moses provided for this public reading on each seventh, _i. e._ the Sabbatic year, during the Feast of Tabernacles (Deut. 31: 10–13). The striking allusion (Jn. 7: 37) to the scenes on the last great day of the feast will be readily recalled. A custom unknown to the law of Moses had then come into practice――that of going in vast procession to the fountain of Siloam for water, and bearing it with joyful acclaim to the temple to pour it out there before the Lord. While this procession was passing, Jesus lifted up his voice and cried――“If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.” May we suppose that possibly the words of Isaiah were before him:――“Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters”――to these waters of life which I give for the life of the world!