Forty-sixth Sunday.

GOING UP TO JERUSALEM.

FIRST READING.

"Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou son of David."—Matt. 20:30.

FOR three years our blessed Lord went about doing good and teaching, generally in Galilee, in the towns or on the hills, where the people came out to hear Him; and at the feasts, when people ought to worship at Jerusalem, He used to go up and speak to them in the outer court of the Temple.

But there was a wicked high priest named Caiaphas, who had been set up by the Romans, and he and the Pharisees and Sadducees all hatedJesus, because He found fault with their evil ways, and they would not believe He was the Christ, but wanted to put Him to death.

So whenever He came to Jerusalem it was more dangerous; and then they stirred up the chief men of Galilee, so that He could not be in the town, but had to wander on the hills. Once, when a man wanted to follow Him, He said, "Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head."

And at last, when His time was come, He set His face to go to Jerusalem to keep the Passover, though He knew that Hewould be taken and put to death there, and so be the real Passover. As He was going, two blind men, who sat by the roadside begging, called out, "Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou son of David!" And He stood still and cured them both.

MARY ANOINTS THE HEAD OF JESUS.—Mark 14:1-11.

QUESTIONS.

1. How long did our blessed Lord teach? 2. Where did He teach? 3. When did He go to Jerusalem? 4. What did He go to Jerusalem for? 5. Where did He teach? 6. Who hated him? 7. Who was Caiaphas? 8. Why did they hate Him? 9. Where did they drive Him? 10. What did He say about having no home? 11. When did He set His face to go to Jerusalem? 12. What feast was He going to keep? 13. What did He know would happen to Him? 14. Whom did He cure as He was going? 15. What did the blind men cry out?

SECOND READING.

"Hosanna to the son of David."—Matt. 21:9.

IT was only the great rich wicked men that hated our Lord. The common people heard Him gladly, and only wanted Him to begin to be king. And they really thought the time was come when He came up to Jerusalem. Just before He came in, He sent two of His disciples to fetch a young ass on which no one had ever sat, and on it He rode down Mount Olivet.

Now, there was an old prophecy which said to Jerusalem, "Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass." People remembered this, and began to receive Him like a king; they spread their mantles on the ground before Him, and others cut down branches from the trees and strewed them in the way; and the people before and behind, especially the children, cried out with all their might, "Hosanna to the son of David:Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna means, "save now."

CHRIST ENTERING JERUSALEM.—Matt. 21:8, 9.

The Pharisees were very angry, and bade Him stop them; but He answered with the verse of a Psalm, "Yea, have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast Thou ordained strength?"

But as He looked at beautiful Jerusalem, He wept over the city, for He knew that sad and dreadful punishments were coming on it; and yet the people would not listen to Him, and be sorry, and so be saved.

QUESTIONS.

1. Who loved our Lord? 2. What did they want Him to do? 3. What made them think His reign was coming? 4. How did He come into Jerusalem? 5. What was the old prophecy? 6. What did the people do in His honor? 7. What did they cry? 8. What does "Hosanna" mean? 9. Who were angry? 10. What did He say? 11. But why was He grieving? 12. What made Him sorry for the city? 13. How were the people bringing sad punishment on themselves?

THIRD READING.

"My house shall be called the house of prayer."—Matt. 21:13.

THE first thing our blessed Lord did at Jerusalem was to go into the Temple; and there, in the courts, He found people keeping shop, selling the lambs that were wanted for the Passover, and doves for other services, and changing the coin that strangers brought for Jewish money.

This was very disrespectful to God, and He was angry. He had driven them all out once, and they had come back, and now they were doing it again. So He drove them all out, and told them His Father's house was a house of prayer, but they had made it a den of thieves.

No one dared to answer Him, and all that day and the next He stood in the Temple, teaching the people, and showing thewickedness of the chief priests and Pharisees. It seemed as if all the people of Jerusalem were ready to follow Him, and as if He might begin His reign directly; but this was not what He came for, and, as He well knew, the Pharisees were planning against Him.

JESUS DRIVES OUT THE MONEY-CHANGERS.—Matt. 21:13.

They wanted to get Him to say something that they could say was against the Law, so they asked Him many hard questions, but His great wisdom put them all to silence, and made them ashamed; but they were so hard and wicked that they only hated Him the more.

QUESTIONS.

1. Where did our Lord go? 2. What were the Jews doing there? 3. Why was this wrong? 4. What did He do to them? 5. Had He done this before? 6. What did He tell them? 7. Who was his Father? 8. What was His Father's house? 9. What are our houses of prayer? 10. How must we behave in them? 11. Who were planning against Him? 12. But who followed Him gladly? 13. What did they want Him to be?

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