charge.

the meek face of the prophet from Galilee and saw his hands bound, and the spittle of the slaves on his beard, An absurd and his general friendlessness, and how thor oughly he was in the hands of his enemies, it must have seemed the most absurd thing to him that Caiaphas should bring such a man, under such circumstances, and charge him with the loftiest political ambition and the most immense political enterprise. And then a suspicion must have come to him that there was something behind all this; that if Jesus really had entertained ideas of revolt, these priests were the very first men to foster any opposition and trouble to Rome, and the very last men to oppose or even embarrass the movements of any real rebel.

But as the allegation had been made, the investigation must be had. Pilate went into the prætorium, so as to take his official position. The Roman trial was public. Any could enter. Jesus had no scruples, and when he was called went in at once. There were the representatives of the scrupulous churchmen present. If they could not go in, they could send in those who should watch and in some measure influence proceedings. Friends of Jesus might also enter and report to those outside.

In the prætorium.

Pilate said to Jesus," Are you the King of the Jews?" Whether Pilate intended it or not, there was a trap in the question. It could not have a categorical answer. If Jesus said "Yes," to Pilate's manner of thought it might seem an acknowledgment of the charge of sedition they were making against him. If he said "No," it would seem an abandonment of the Messianic claims he had already advanced. His reply to Pilate was a question, "Do you say this of yourself, or did others tell it you of me?" To a man of the world like Pilate it should have showed that the person before him was not a crazy adventurer from the rural districts, whose claim to be Tiberius himself, if he had made it, would have been as harmless as any other utterance of wild insanity. It meant, "Do you put that question to me in the Roman or the Jewish, in the political or the ecclesiastical sense?"-"Am I a Jew?" Pilate replied rather petulantly. "Your own nation and the high-priest have delivered you to me! What have you done?" Jesus had done nothing. His abstinence from all politics was remarkable. His enemies could bring nothing against him. The

charge of scdition was an unfounded calumny, and they had not been able to find a solitary man in the crowded city to bear witness thereto.

Jesus replies to Pilate.

But now he can approach an answer to Pilate which shall be consistent at once with his innocence and his claims. He said: “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews. My kingdom is not from hence." Here was a statement which implied that there was a kingdom whose defenders were not the Roman eagles. To an imperial official there seemed no kingdom that was not Roman. Or, if any other kingdom, it would draw sword but in vain, for it should soon succumb to Roman power. But the kingdom of Jesus was totally disengaged from secular governments, reigning under and over and through them, and would survive them, and did not need the defence of the sword. But a kingdom implied a king, and yet such a kingdom as Jesus had been describing seemed a mere vague idea; so Pilate asked, "Are you not a king then?"

A second reply.

Now Jesus had placed his judge in such a posture that the answer about to be given should not be deceptive: "Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this purpose came I into the world, that I should bear witness concerning the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice." It was the kingdom of truth, and not of physical power, in which he claimed to be supreme. Such a claim threatened no danger to the Emperor: why, then, should Pilate care for it? He had heard such things before. There were Greek and Roman philosophers who taught that those who lived by the truth were kings among men. And it seemed to Pilate that it was the same proposition he had heard often, now pronounced by a Jew. He did not believe that men could reach the ultimate and absolute truth. It was a pretty fancy for poetic dreamers, a fine theory for recluses and philosophers, but there was nothing practical in it, nor useful to a man of affairs. It may have been with some bitterness of regret that such a search should be, as he believed, fruitless, that Pilate exclaimed with a sigh, "What is truth?" as he passed out to the portico to announce the acquittal of Jesus to the priests, which he did by saying, "I find no fault in him.”

Then the vehement Sanhedrim repeated their accusations. Jesus said not a word. The contrast between the raging churchmen and the meek heretic struck Pilate so forcibly

A contrast. that he appealed to him: "Do you answer nothing? See how many things they witness against you." Jesus kept his silence. In the ecclesiastical and in the civil courts Jesus paid no attention to anything that did not touch his claims to Messiahship. When that was involved he was perfectly explicit, giving his persecutors and his judges ample ground. On all else he was silent. He seemed determined, when put to death, to perish in his claim to be the Son of God in a sense signifying that he was God's equal. This self-control seemed marvellous to Pilate, who reiterated his judgment, saying, "I find no fault in this man." But the crowd about the portico was fierce. However innocent Jesus might be, he had manifestly rendered himself odious to the ecclesiastical rulers. It placed Pilate in a trying position. For all that appeared, he should have set Jesus free: but to do so peremptorily, before he had allayed the passionate excitement of the church party, would be to peril all parties. His parley with the priests was in the interests of Jesus and justice.

But the rabid mob shouted, "He stirs up the multitude throughout all Judæa, even beginning from Galilee to this place." Here was a distinct charge of sedition: but the naming of Galilee was an outlet for the perplexed Pilate. They mentioned it as a sinister circumstance that this man's ministry had begun among the turbulent Galilæans, in a country belonging to his political adversary. The shrewd Pilate saw in it a solution of his difficulty.

Herod and Jesus.

Section 6.-IIerod.

The part which Herod Antipas had taken in the murder of John the Baptist has been narrated. This king, Roman in office, Hebrew in faith, licentious in life, had been haunted by superstitious terror ever since the assassination of John in prison. When he heard that another prophet was travelling through the country, preaching with a skill the effects of which surpassed those of the vehement eloquence of John, and to such preaching adding the wonder of miracles, until the whole land was full of his fame, and when it was whispered

that this new preacher was Elias, or one of the old prophets, or perhaps John the Baptist, the guilty soul of IIerod adopted the last of these suppositions and said, "It is John." At first he en deavored to induce Jesus to leave the country by conveying to him the warning that if he remained in the territory of IIerod that prince would kill him. But as time wore away, and his conscience hardened, and his feelings of terror were allayed, he conceived a curiosity to see the great things which Jesus did.

There had come a cloud between IIerod and Pilate. Some of the turbulent subjects of the former had visited Jerusalem on a festival occasion, and created an insurrection which

Herod and Pi

Pilate had suppressed by indiscriminate slaughter, late. not stopping to send them for trial to the courts in the dominion of Herod. This had made an estrangement between the rulers. Now the Galilæan king had come up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. It would be a graceful recognition of Herod's jurisdiction, and a compliment, to send this distinguished prisoner to him for trial, and it would free Pilate from further proceedings. Therefore he sent him to IIerod. It did heal the quarrel; but it did not relieve Pilate of the case.

Jesus sent to Herod.

When the frivolous Herod saw Jesus he was glad. There was not manliness enough in him to see that this was a most perplexing affair, in which the empire, his own tetrarchy, the weal of the Jewish people, and the interests of his ancestral religion, as well as the fate of a great and good man might be involved. It was an opportunity to have an exhibition of legerdemain or necromancy, and this incestuous assassin had no such weight on his seared conscience that he could not enjoy any species of entertainment. He catechised Jesus in many ways, endeavoring to draw him at least into conversation. Jesus looked at him with that broad look which innocent manliness gives to crime. He could have spoken what would have riven Herod, but he was silent. The church party stood near, and were vehement and violent in their accusations; but not a word could be extorted from Jesus. He had never before met any man or woman or child to whom he would not speak. There never was so great a sinner that, with any expression of contrition, could not have a word from Jesus. But Herod lived and died, probably the only man who, having seen Jesus, never heard the tones of his voice nor a syllable from his lips.

There was no point of contact between Jesus and Herod. If he had addressed Jesus with any proper desire to know any proper thing, Herod would doubtless have had a

Jesus speechless. word from the great Teacher. Pilate was a timeserving coward, and Caiaphas a hypocritical bigot, but Jesus talked with them. Herod's frivolous licentiousness had eaten his whole manhood out. Fretted by the profound, the majestic, the awful silence of Jesus, Herod and his military guard set him at naught, and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him back to Pilate. If we were writing a poem instead of a history, we might indulge in descriptions of the probable reflections of Herod after the speechless prophet of Galilee had gone out of his presence. Although Herod was so mean that he could allow an uncondemned man, who had been tortured all night, to remain bound and be insulted in his presence, even that bad prince did not have the heart to say that there was in him anything worthy of death.

Section 7.-Back to Pilate.

Back to Pilate is Jesus now sent. We do not know whether Pilate was in the tower of Antonia, and Herod occupying the palace of his father, which is said to have exceeded the Temple in splendor, but in any case the distance was not great. The troubled procurator discovered that he had appeased Herod, but had not shifted the responsibility of this most perplexing case. When he saw Jesus brought back, wearing a robe of mockery, it plainly confirmed his suspicion that the accused was innocent. The greater part of his public life had been passed in the territory of Herod, who must have known the fact if Jesus had been a sedi tious person. His treatment of the prisoner plainly said that Herod regarded his kingly pretension as a harmless vagary, not fit to be treated seriously by any ruler.

Then Pilate called the Sanhedrim to him and addressed thea thus: "You have brought this man to me as one who perverts the

Sanhedrim.

people, a revolutionary demagogue. And see, 1 Pilate and the have examined him in your presence, and have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof you accuse him. Neither did Herod, for he sent him to us; and see, nothing deserving of death has been done by him. I will