6 BERTHA'S VISIT TO HER 



who is called the Lamb of God which taketh 

 away the sins of the world;' between the de- 

 liverance of the Israelites from bondage, and the 

 deliverance of mankind from sin, by a final atone- 

 ment, which for ever closed all other offerings and 

 sacrifices." 



I asked why they were desired to eat unlea- 

 vened bread at this feast ; and my aunt told us 

 that some authors suppose it was to remind them 

 of the privations and hardships they had for- 

 merly endured in Egypt, as it is very heavy and 

 disagreeable. " But," she added, " I have also 

 understood that, in the ancient figurative mode 

 of expression, leaven was the emblem of hypo- 

 crisy and artifice ; and therefore that eating the 

 passover with unleavened bread, implied the per- 

 formance of the ceremony in sincerity and truth. 

 They were commanded to eat it with ' their shoes 

 on their feet, and their staff in their hand,' or, 

 in other words, equipped for a journey. It 

 appears to have been, and indeed is still, the 

 universal custom of the inhabitants of the East 

 to put off their shoes during their meals ; not 

 only because that is a period of enjoyment and 

 repose, but because, to people who sit cross- 

 legged on the floor, shoes would be troublesome, 

 and would soil their clothes and their carpets. 

 This solemn meal, on the contrary, which was 

 intended to commemorate their miraculous and 



