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VIEW FROM THE TOWER

The “lenten season” as observed especially by the Roman Catholic and the Episcopal Churches, is upon us, and despite the extravagant excesses practiced by these ceremonious friends, the season calls before the memory of all thoughtful saints, pictures of the last days of Jesus. One thing is certain, the remembrance of that time and of our Lord’s sufferings and death are not calculated to overthrow faith in the ransom, nor to lead men to deny that the Lord bought them.

It was the custom of the early Church to celebrate the Lord’s Supper and death on the anniversary of the same, every year, and the observance yet of “Good Friday,” by some, is what yet lingers of the original custom of the Church.

We can but recognize the appropriateness of celebrating any event on its anniversary, and for several years past we have enjoyed the privilege of thus commemorating the antitypical Passover Sacrifice—the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.

The appropriateness of the time has always heightened the interest and rendered it more impressively, solemn and real. As we partake of the emblems of his shed blood and broken body, it impresses upon us the words and scenes of the first Supper, and of the sacrifice for sins which it illustrated, and gives us to realize more fully the value of the “precious blood” that cleanseth from all sin.

The Lord’s Supper is a reminder of his death, as the Passover was a type of it. Jesus fulfilled the latter and instituted the former in the same night in which he was betrayed, and told his disciples that hence forth they should DO THIS in remembrance of him—not now in remembrance of the typical Lamb’s death and its results, but in remembrance of ME—the true Lamb of God whose sacrifice procures still a greater passover and deliverence for the Church of the first-born.

We purpose commemorating the Lord’s Supper on its anniversary this year also; and suggest to the saints everywhere observance of the Master’s words—”THIS DO in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:12). We can assure you it will be a blessed season of communion to all the household of faith, and especially to those who are of the “first born” class. Around that hour the memories of the year will cluster while the heart sings:

“Sweet the moments rich in blessing
Which before the cross I spend,
Life and health and peace possessing
From the sinners dying Friend.”

The Jewish “Feast of Passover” commenced on the fifteenth day of their month Nisan (answering this year to our April 9th) and lasted seven days. This we do not commemorate, but the acts of a day preceding it—the killing of the lamb on the 14th of Nisan, which beginning at six o’clock Tuesday evening April 8th, will end with six o’clock Wednesday evening April 9th, 1884.

The church at Pittsburgh will meet at 7:30 P.M. Tuesday evening in the upper room of No. 101 Federal Street, Allegheny City, and break the bread and drink the fruit of the vine in remembrance of our Lord and Redeemer, and go forth remembering Gethsemane, and Pilate’s court, and Herod’s soldiers and Calvary, where the sacrifice was “FINISHED” at three o’clock P.M. following (April 9th) over eighteen hundred years ago.

For a more detailed account of our view of this matter we refer you to the TOWER of April last year. We trust to hear of the enjoyment of this season by the ones and twos and tens scattered everywhere, for “even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us” (1 Cor. 5:7).

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— March, 1884 —