ts of this ordinance, as the embodiment of all essential
Christian truth, and as the embodiment of all deep Christian
experience, covering the past, the present, and the future, that I
wish to turn now. I do not deal so much with the mere words of my
text as with this threefold significance of the rite which it
appoints.

I. So then, first, we have to think of it as a memorial of the past.

'Do this,' is the true meaning of the words, not 'in remembrance of
Me,' but something far more sweet and pathetic--'do this for the
_remembering_ of Me.' The former expression is equal to 'Do this
because you remember.' The real meaning of the words is, 'Do this in
case you forget'; do this in order that you may recall to memory what
the slippery memory is so apt to lose--the impression of even the
sweetest sweetness, of the most loving love, and the most
self-abnegating sacrifice, which He offered for us.

There is something to me infinitely pathetic and beautiful in looking
at the words not only as the commandment of the Lord, but as the
appeal of the Friend, who wished, as we all do, not to be utterly
forgotten by those whom He cared for and loved; and who, not only
because their remembrance was their salvation, but because their
forgetfulness pained His human heart, brings to their hearts the
plaintive appeal: 'Do not forget Me when I am gone away from you; and
even if you have no better way of remembering Me, take these poor
symbols, to which I am not too proud to entrust the care of My
memory, and do this, lest you forget Me.'

But, dear brethren, there are deeper thoughts than this, on which I
must dwell briefly. 'In remembrance of Me'--Jesus Christ, then, takes
up an altogether unique and solitary position here, and into the
sacredest hours of devotion and the loftiest moments of communion
with God, intrudes His personality, and says, 'When you are most
religious, remember Me; and let the highest act of your devout life
be a thought turned to Myself.'

Now, I want you to ask, is that thought diverted from God? And if it
is not, how comes it not to be? I want you honestly to ask yourselves
this question--what did _He_ think about Himself who, at that
moment, when all illusions were vanishing, and life was almost at its
last ebb, took the most solemn rite of His nation and laid it
solemnly aside and said: 'A greater than Moses is here; a greater
deliverance is being wrought': 'Remember Me.' Is that insisting on
His own