the sanctnary^ and then so consumed by the father of each house
and his family^ with the addition of unleavened bread and bitter
herbs^ as that nothing was left. Whatever happened not to be
eaten was to be burnt, but no part of the sacrifice ever came on
the altar. The blood of the sacrifice was to be sprinkled on the
door*posts of every house. In this case, therefore, it was the
individual families, who, by each partaking of the lamb (which
was not to be divided into pieces), realised communion and
religious fellowship among one another and with Gt)d, to whom
the sacrifice was offered. By all the men in the land being
obliged to repair to the temple to slay their lamb, the conscious-
ness of a national unity, compacted through God and his temple,
was strengthened, and the brotherly feeling nourished of the
hundreds of thousands who all joined in offering the same sacri-
fice, and in partaking of the same sacrament. The festival was
also called that of unleavened bread, because the people ate
bread of that sort for seven days, in memory of their former
bondage, and the hasty flight, which had prevented their fore-
fathers firom leavening the dough.^

On the fiftieth day after Easter Sunday the harvest-feast of
pentecost was solemnised, for the seven weeks between pasch and
pentecost were harvest-time. On that day after the Easter Sab-
bath, the first ears of com had been brought ; now, after fifty
days, the first fruits of the bread itself were offered to God as a
thank-offering, together with two lambs oad several other beasts
of sacrifice. In autumn the feast of tabernacles was held for seven
days, in memory of the Israelites having lived in tents in their
journey through the Arabian desert, and as a thanksgiving festi-
val for the close of the fruit-harvest. At this time they lived in
huts made of green boughs, which were erected on the roofs, in
the streets, squares, and courts, and special victims were slain
daily in the temple. Those who partook in this festival carried
a lemon in one hand, and in the other a palm-branch entwined
with sprigs of myrtle and willow. Every morning water from
the pool of Siloah, mixed with wine, was poured into two per-
forated vessels close by the altar. 