were seeking His life. Peter and John
may never have met this unnamed disciple before. If so, it was doubtless
the beginning of an acquaintance close and tender between them and him
who was "the last host of the Lord, and the first host of His Church."

He showed them "a large upper room." It was probably reached, as in many
oriental houses, by outside stairs. It was the choicest and most retired
room. The goodman led the disciples into it. They found it "furnished"
with a table, and couches around it on which Jesus and His company could
recline. But this probably was not all. The table was "prepared" with
some of the provisions required for the feast. These included the cakes
of unleavened bread, the five kinds of bitter herbs, and the wine mixed
with water for the four cups which it was the custom to use.

But there was something more which Peter and John must do to "make
ready" for the feast. It was the most important thing of all. It was to
prepare the "Paschal Lamb." With such a lamb they had been familiar from
childhood. As their fathers brought it into their homes, and their
mothers roasted it, and parents and children gathered about it in solemn
worship, the Bethsaidan boys had no thought of the day when the Messiah
would bid them prepare for the feast of which He Himself would be the
host, at the only time apparently when He acted as such.

When John was pointed by the Baptist to Jesus, he had no thought that He
would prepare the last Lamb for Him whom He was to see sacrificed as
"the Lamb of God." No wonder that Jesus sent Peter and John to make
ready, instead of Judas the usual provider, who in the same hour "sought
opportunity to betray Him."

We follow them from the house of the goodman toward the Temple. Nearing
it they listen with mournful solemnity to the chanting of the
eighty-first Psalm, with its exhortation to praise,--"Sing aloud unto
God our strength. Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time
appointed, on the solemn feast day." Then they listen for the threefold
blast of the silver trumpets. By this they know that the hour has come
for the slaying of the lambs. Peter and John enter the court of the
priests, and slay their lamb whose blood is caught by a priest in a
golden bowl, and carried to the Great Altar.

Of this they must have been reminded a few hours later when Christ spoke
of His own blood shed for the remission of sins. John must have
remembered it when he saw and wrote of the