An officer of the temple smote him on the face, saying "Answerest thou the High Priest so?"

Annas commanded the priestly guard to bind him with cords; and when it was day, being Friday, they went in a body, Annas and the Great Council, to the palace of Caiaphas, nearer to the Prætorium on Mount Zion, the Sanhedrin having a legal right to meet in their President's house. Here the Lord was questioned again, in a formal manner, and answering before Caiaphas that he was the Christ, the official high priest rent his clothes, in sign that these words were blasphemous and worthy of death by the cruellest punishment that of the cross. The Sanhedrin pronounced him guilty, and the officers seizing his person, bound him again with cords, and carrying him to the Prætorium gates, delivered him a prisoner into the hands of Pilate's guards.

Unable to pass those gates, since to enter into a Gentile dwelling might have rendered them unclean, the elders waited and clamoured before the court until Pilate awoke and came out to see them. What did they want? They had brought him a prisoner. What was this person? An evil-doer; or they would not have brought him to the Judgment hall. Then why not have tried him by their law? They could not; the case was grave; and they had no power to put a man to death.

Death! That word was a surprise. Pilate might go far to be friends with the high priests and with

the people; but offences worthy of death could only be judged by the Roman law.

Going away from the elders, he sent for JESUS into his court, and put the plain question to him “Art thou the king of the Jews?"

"My kingdom is not of this world," said the Lord. That answer seemed enough for the Roman soldier. Careless about empires in the clouds, indifferent to crimes of thought, Pilate went out to the elders, saying he could find no fault in this man

no fault against the Roman law. They cried, that he was a leader of sedition; one who had stirred up tumults in the land from Galilee to Jerusalem. Galilee? Pilate caught at this word; for if JESUS were a native of Galilee, his own prince, Antipas Herod, then staying in Bezetha for the feast, had the right to judge him.

Pleased by this deference of the Roman governor to his wishes, Antipas received the elders and their prisoner in the midst of his guard; listened to the accusation, and then began to question JESUS. But the Lord stood dumb. He had refused to appear in the Golden house; and being brought to the Bezetha palace, bound and by force, he refused to answer one word to the husband of Herodias, to the murderer of John. Vexed, uneasy for his conscience pricked him, his people murmured, and his very soldiers canvassed his offences Antipas would do nothing with the Silent Teacher; neither free him from the accusation nor condemn him upon it. He merely sent him back to Pilate, to be dealt with according to the Roman law; a return of courtesy

which had the happy effect of making the Jewish prince and the Roman procurator friends.

court.

Unwilling to offend the high priests and Sanhedrin that is to say, all the chiefs of parties through whom he ruled the people Pilate went down once more to the palace gate, and sitting in his chair on the Gabbatha, proposed to the Jews that as nothing appeared against JESUS worthy of death, his offences should be treated like other synagogue transgressions; that is to say, that he should be scourged and expelled from the Temple The elders would not hear him. One of his wife's pages now came out from the palace, saying that Claudia had been warned by a dream, and that she begged him not to assist in shedding a good man's blood. Then Pilate suggested to the people, that if they considered his crime of treason penal, he, as Cæsar's officer, should pardon and release him, giving his life to them, as their custom was at every celebration of the Passover. Still, they would not hear him: crying about his chair of state "Release to us Bar-Abbas, release to us Bar-Abbas!" This man had been condemned for murder and sedition, and was therefore a political criminal genuine offender against Cæsar's power.

a

The Procurator held out long; his practical Roman genius making him but a mild judge of such treasons as Annas and Caiaphas found in JESUS. Quick to see the offence of tearing down his brazen shields, of refusing to pay his poll-tax, of hustling and stabbing his guards he was slow at comprehending such crimes as talking with a Samaritan,

doing good deeds on the seventh day, breaking bread with unsprinkled hands, announcing the kingdom of heaven. Again and again he cried What evil has he done? To which the elders answered with a loud shout "Away with him! Crucify him!"

Pilate still doubting what he should do, and being loth to shed blood for an offence which he could not understand, the elders turned upon him also, raising the cry of treason: "If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend! He who makes himself a king speaks against Cæsar!" A dangerous cry; and one which might imperil both Pilate's fortunes and the public peace. Political considerations weigh heavily with a politician. Pilate had made a friend of Antipas by sending Jesus to Bezetha; now he had a chance of conciliating the whole Sanhedrin by sending him to Golgotha. So, calling for water, he yielded him to the Jews; saving himself, as he thought, by saying that he washed his hands of innocent blood; of innocent blood according to the Roman law.

Jesus was now led away from the palace, by way of David's tower and the Almond pool to Genath, through which gate of Jerusalem the procession of soldiers and people marched into the nest of gardens and tombs below the city wall.

At the cross, dying between two thieves, on a charge of blaspheming God, the human part of His story closed.

What followed is a tale for other pens to tell. His parting words to His Church His sudden appearance to the Magdalene and the holy women

His conversation with the two disciples going into Emmaus His revelation to the eyes of Peter, who took him for a spirit— His coming into the upper room His promise of a further Gift His rebuke of Thomas the Twin his walk by the lake of Galilee, early in the morning - His ascent from Olivet to heaven: these details of a second portion of the Sacred Story seek no illustration from scenery and books.

They form a divine episode in the history of man, and must be left to the writers who could not err.