39). The more intense his suffering, the more earnest grew his prayer of meek submission ! Human as he was, he affectingly asks of his com panions their help and sympathy. But however willing in their loving hearts (Matt. xxvi. 41 ; Mark xiv. 3S), they were unable to rendcr him even this scanty consolation. The most forward of them failed in the hour of need : steepest thou?' More than once did he gently rebuke them—so gently, that his very gentleness, no less than their own consciousness of neglect, deprived them of all excuse, except that which he was pleased so graciously to find for them ; they wist not what to answer him' (Mark xiv. 4o). In their weakness, which stands as a foil in the sacred nar rative, we have a touching contrast to the strong will and calm spirit with which he rose superior to the terrible conflict. The victory of his soul was gained ; his will lost its last natural inclination to shrink front suffering ; but the scene closes upon the still sleeping disciples. Without resentment at even a third disappointment, be says to them at last in words, which Neander has perhaps best in terpreted (Laft of .,esus [Bohn], p. 453) : Sleep on ; / will rouse you no more to watch and pray with me ; but your rest shall be rudely disturbed ; for, behold, the hour of my suffering is at hand. Already my captors are near.' The happy effect of his self-conquest in the fearful struggle of Geth semane appears in all the sequel of his passion. At every step from the garden to the cross what trials await him ! But from none does he for an instant shrink. With the full volition of his soul, he offers himself to meet them all—' the pain, the shame, the scorn, the loss' (Christian Kar, Toth Sunday after Trinity). The traitor, who had gone from the I'aschal chamber straight to the chief priests and Pharisees, conducts a troop of the Temple police, who were aided by a picquet of military from the garrison of Antonia, and furnished with every ap pliance of defence and search —` lanterns and torches,' in case of concealment among the darker recesses of the garden, and weapons,' in case of an attempt at rescue (John xviii. 3). The extent of these precautions gives evidence of the fears of the Sanhedrim lest after all they should miss their victim. But they little knew what had passed in the sufferer's heart, while they had been making all their preparation of arrest ! The discipline of the agony had rendered that preparation completely useless ! Jesus, instead of resisting, went forth to meet the troop on their approach to the garden. Useless too was the miserable formality of the traitor, who must needs give the kiss, the concerted signal of his treachery ! But all was in vain ! Though Jesus offered himself to their grasp, such was his majesty and moral dignity, even in weak ness, that the entire party who had advanced to seize him involuntarily reeled back and fell to the ground. Ile presents himself again to them, after they had come to themselves, and gave an addi tional proof of his voluntary surrender by stipulat ing for the dismissal and safety of his friends who had sworn to defend him to the last : If ye seek me, let these go their way' ( John xviii. 8). But the traitor's kiss incensed his old companions. They asked permission to avenge it with the sword (Luke xxii. 49), and Peter actually dealt what was: within a little of a deadly blow at the foremost of the arresting party. This mistimed zeal drew forth another proof of the Lord's willingness to surrender himself to the appointment of God. His recent agony and self-conquest are uppermost in his mind : The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it ?' (John xviii. II). He puts forth for the last time a sign of his miraculous power, by healing the ear of the maimed Malchus ; meekly submits to the armed troop with an expres sion of surprise at the magnitude of their prepara tion ; and when the arrest is completed, he has an augmentation of his sorrow in the cowardice of his disciples, 'who all forsook him and fled' (Matt. xxvi. 56 ; Mark xiv. 5o). And now he enters once more the holy city,' which is so soon to cover itself with the guilt of his rejection, no longer with the Hosannas of an admiring people, but a prisoner strictly guarded, as if a robber,* unbelped by the sympathy of the multitudes whom his capture had brought together, even at that early hour (Matt. xxvi. 55). We shall not attempt to narrate the series of examinations through which he was dragged by Jew and Gentile—from Annas to Caia phas ; from Caiaphas to Pilate ; from Pilate to IIerod ; from Herod back again to Pilate. The misery, however, and humiliation of these pro cesses of injustice, probably brought less pain to the heart of the sufferer than the base conduct of his foremost friend and follower. After his fit ot unseasonable courage in Gethseinane, Simon Peter joined his brother apostles in their ignominious flight. In company, however, with one of them, and tinder the cover of the night, he found his way to the house of the high-priest, and in the hurry gained admission into the outer court. He was soon recognised ; among others by a kinsman of the man whom he had wounded in the garden. Three times was he charged with a complicity with the prisoner. Three times did lie deny his gracious master, accompanying his tbird denial with curses and oaths. So loud were his protestations as to catch the ear of Jesus, \vhom they were perhaps leading across the quadrangle at the moment : ` The Lord turned and looked upon Peter' (Luke xxii. 61). The pity and loving correction of that reproving glance, added to the crowing at that instant of a cock, which Christ had only the even ing, before associated with his grievous fall, roused the unhappy man to a consciousness of his shame ful imtratitude. He quitted the scene and wept bitterCy. We are not told whether he ventured in openly again during the awful events which fol lowed, but that his penitential tears washed the sin from the Saviour's memory may well be gathered from the merciful signs of reconciliation which he took the earliest opportunity of evincing after his resurrection (among these signs the angel's message is remark-able, Mark xvi. 7).
Friday, 15th of Wisan (April 7). Second por tion, or Fria'ay pmper.—The evening which had begun with the Paschal celebration, and the night with the agony of Gethsemane—were both termi nated. The daybreak of Friday opens (probably at about two o'clock A.m.) on another event, which had grown out of the occurrences of this night of malevolent activity. No sooner was Jesus captured than the Sanhedrim were convened. After some delay (perhaps of an hour), during which Annas tbe ex-high-priest, a man of influence in the coun cil, had the charge of the captive, the members met at the house of this man's son-in-law, Caia phas, wh'o was the high-priest this year, and took a leading part in the Saviour's condemnation. It was before this court of Caiaphas that the most deliberate proceedings against Jesus were taken. Much has been written both by Jewish and by Christian writers in vindication of the San hedrim. The former (like Mon. Salvador, in his Ifistoire des Institutions de Ilfoise, iv. 3, writing on the trial and condemnation of Jesus ') claim for the council the merit of an honourable and con scientious examination of the entire case, and by a regular routine of law. The latter (like Mr. Wil son in his valuable Illustration of Me Method of explainin,7 the T), while repudiating the action of the Jewish tribunal, which is so satisfactory to writers of that nation, admit ` the regularity of the proceedings before Caiaphas, the earnest manner of the high-priest, and the promptitude and unani mity of the whole court, as bearing as strong marks of sincerity as can accompany any public act what ever' (Wilson, p. 79). Sincere they may no doubt have been, and consistent in their hostility to the Saviour : nor do we deny that the seven occasions (John v. IS ; vi. 42 ; viii. 59 ; x. 31 and 39 ; Matt. ix. 3 ; Mark xiv. 64) adduced by Mr. Wil son do furnish an unhappy clue of fatal consistency in the conduct of the Pharisaic party towards the Redeemer. 13ut no admission of this kind can in anywise amount to a justification of the Sanheclrim. Their sincerity was that of malignants ; their con sistency that of men to whom the death of their victim was a foregone conclusion (Matt. xxvi. 4; Mark xiv. 2), an end to be accomplished by any means—by regular process if possible ; hut if not, by violence or assassination rather than not at all. Nothing is more evident to the reader of the Gos pels than the prejudice of the priests and scribes, whose influence among the people was endangered by the works and words of Jesus. This danger gave them an interest in reinoving the great teacher out of the way. It also rendered them incapab/e of judging equitably of his character and claims. The grounds of this incapacity the Lord himself had often pointed out to them ; he perceived their inability to be a moral one, founded on their inte rested malevolence ; and as such it was an immo rality, a guilt worthy of the condemnation lie passed upon it. Such being the disposition of the Lord's judges, who were also his determined foes, it is no wonder if their proceedings against him, when they had him at last in their power, were characterised by a violent and unseemly haste (as if they felt that no time was to be lost, lest their vic tim should somehow escape, if they lingered), and a disregard of law and justice, when injustice pre sented to them a shorter way to the accomplish ment of their fatal purpose. Mon. Salvador's first assumption (which, however, he only reproduces from Maimonides and other doctors of his nation) of the infallible competency of the Sanhedrim to pronounce on the claims of Jesus, is a paradox which the reader may find refuted in Dr. M`Caul's Lectnres on the Prophecies, Lect. ; while his argument in defence of the decency and regularity of the Council at the trial is shewn to be plainly untenable by Mon. Dupin in his tract en titled Yisus de-oant Caiphe et Pilate (in Migne's Dimonstrations Evang., xvi. 727-754), translated in Greenleaf's Test. of the Evangelists, pp. 531 56S. It is enough for us to remark, on the whole transaction of this trial before the high priest, that, if we carefully regard the primary features of it ; such as the unseasonable period of the trial (at night, and during a sacred feast); the lax and undecided way in which they drew up their indictment (first on the lower ground of con structive blasphemy against the Temple, etc., and, when that collapsed through the palpable perjury of their witnesses, shifting tbeir charge to the higher offence against the Divine Being); and their resorting, when all other means failed, to their old method of entangling the Lord in his talk,' by compelling him, under an irresistible adjuration (Matt. xxvi. 63), to give that answer to a dan gerous question,* which they unanimously made the occasion of an immediate condemnation—we cannot but denounce the entire proceedings as most hostile to justice, and alien from the spirit of even the Jewish law. Nor is this verdict at all modified in our minds, when we contemplate some of the secondary facts ; for instance, thc.. barbarous treatment which the Sanhedrim permitted their prisoner to receive, apparently in open court— certainly while under their protection—the blow on the face by one of the officers, before the sen tence (John xviii. 22); and, after the condemna tion, the blindfolding, the spitting in his face, the buffeting and the blows with the palms of the hand (Luke xxii. 64 ; Matt. xxvi. 67). The for mality of Caiaphas too, in rending his gannents, in which some writers have seen an evidence of the man's unfeigned surprise and horror at the Lord's answer (see Wilson, an the N. T, p. 79, and Bp. Ellicott, Lectures, p. 337), is quite as reasonably by others regarded as an indication of indecent violence meant to produce an abhorrence of the accused in the bystanders, especially in the public whose favour the Jewish authorities were using every method of detaching from the Saviour. It is Nvorth while to observe, in reference to the point of law and order in the proceedings of the Coun cil, that Caiaphas' extravagant act of rending his garments seen-is to have been plainly illegal. (See Lev. xxi. 10 compared with the remarkable prohi bition to Aaron and Eleazar in Lev. x. 6 ; also Baronius, Annales Eccles. [on year 34], vol. i. p. 196 ; and I. Q. Hedeni, Scissia Vestium Nebr. [Ugolini, Thes. xxix. ro46]). After the sentence, and the gratification of their shameless brutality, the Sanhedrim hand over their victim, bound, to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, whose official residence was either in the fortress of Antonia (Ewald, Christus. p. 12), or, more probably in Herod's palace (Ellicott, p. 339). This transfer seems to have been the result of a second delibera tion of the Council, which met for the purpose, probably at about five or six o'clock in the morn ing (Matt. xxvii. ; John xviii. 2S—but these notes of time are not very distinct. With Robin son [Harm., p. 1681 we have assumed St. Luke [xxii. 66] to refer to the commencement of the first meeting which terminated in the Lord's condemna tion). At this second meeting they agreed on a report to the governor, on the strength of which they flattered themselves that he would at once order the execution of their sentence. But with the instinct of a Roman, to whom the administra tion of law was at once a congenial procedure arid a mark of sovereignty, Pilate undertook to examine the accused himself. He was the more inclined to take this course, because he doubted the sincerity of the prosecutors, and felt assured that envy' was at the bottom of their proceedings (Matt. xxvii. ; Mark xv. '0). The Sanhedrim well deserved this suspicion of the governor, who had, no doubt, heard of the result of the trial before Caiaphas, and was aware of the real accusation which they had prepared against Jesus. It was not therefore without surptise, and probably dis gust, that he now finds them shifting their ground, and accusing the prisoner of sedition and treason— ' We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cmsar' (Luke xxiii. 2). Pilate had no difficulty in detecting the hollowness of this charge, which was expressly contraiy to a remarkable statement which Christ had very pub licly made so recently as on thc Tuesday of this week, when. in the great Temple discussions, he counselled the Pharisees to render to Cxsar the things which be Cmsar's' (Luke xx. 25). He therefore acquits Jesus of this foul charge, and, to I escape from the importunity of the chief priests, avails himself of the circumstance—which came out in the proceedings—that Jesus belonged to IIerod's jurisdiction' (xxiii. 7), to ask the assist ance of the tetrarch of Galilee, who happened to be in the city, in the decision of the case. Herod had long felt an irreverent curiosity to see the Man whose miracles had produced so great a sensation in the north, and accepts the office. He was not without hope that his prisoner would not refuse to win his release by the performance of some mighty wonder. Vain man ! All his idle inquiries and solicitations the Lord met with the dignified rebuke of an absolute silence. Thwarted and irritated, Herod with his men of war set Jesus at nought, and mocked him, and having arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, sent him again to Pilate' (Luke xxiii. r). The prisoner's return was nothing short of a calamity to the arrogant but irresolute Roman. It plunged him into a fearful contest with the Jewish populace, and into a still more awful one with his own conscience, the result of which has associated his name in an eternal infamy Nvith the murderers of the Just and Holy Jesus. The verdict passed on his share of this crime by the infant church, in their beautiful prayer (Acts iv. 27), has been corroborated by the universal
voice of Christendom and the ineradicable convic tions of every reader of the sacred history. Whether it was because he intensely despised and hated the Jews, or because he saNv in the wonderful Man before him an object whose patent innocence and meek dignity under provocation and suffering en. dued his mind with an unprecedented and in-6 sistible interest and sympathy, Pilate, from first to last, and especially after the examination of Herod, who took his friend's' (Luke xxiii. 12) view of the blamelessness of the accused, strove by every means to release Jesus. But his will refused to do the bidding of his conscience. With a fatal weak ness he parleyed with the Jews. I find this man innocent, and so indeed does Herod ; but as your resentment is keen against him, I will gratify you by chastising him before I let him go !' (vers. 15, 16). And he followed up this concession by another—a proposal to release Jesus, not so much as an innocent man, but in compliance with a cus tom of the feast. This stultification of his own acquittal of the accused they at once meet with a fiendish retort, by demanding the release of a notorious robber and murderer, who was awaiting execution in prison. The embarrassment which he felt at this unexpected and insolent demand was increased a. hundredfold by a strange message from his wife—' Have thou nothing to do with that just man, for I have suffered many things to day in a dream because of him' (Matt. xxvii. 19). The yells of the multitude also alarmed him. Mortified with that disappointment of their worldly hopes, which we have already referred to (see above [Thursday]), the designing priests and elders now stimulate the resentment of the rabble with the report of the blasphemy of their late idol, who had not hesitated to arrogate divine honours to himself, and to talk about the destruction of their glorious national Temple ! When the faltering governor therefore formally submits to them the option : Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you ?' they overpower him with loud and savage clamoms : Not this man, but l3arab• bas.' Pitiful spectacle of an awful crisis ! The issue is—shall the Holy Redeemer die or live? For his death there is a rough and wilful crowd, lashed almost into a riotous fury (Matt, xxvii. 24) as it thirsts for the blood of the Innocent ; while the sole, frail advocate for his life, by a compro mise as weak as it is unjust (Luke xxiii. 22), only pours oil on the fire of their cruel wrath. The issue cannot long be doubtful. The multitude chafes ; Pilate expostulates—` Why crucify him ? What evil bath lie done ?' Their temper will not brook even this slight restraint. They cried out the more exceedingly,' says St. Mark (repio-crorepcor gKp4ap); 'They were instant with -fond voices,' says St. Luke (er4Kewro Ourvais tieydNats); And,' as the latter significantly adds, the voices af them and of the chief priests prevailed' (xxiii. 23). The unhappy magistrate's abused conscience requires a satisfaction. He ostentatiously gives it by taking water and washing his hands before the crowd, vainly protesting his innocence of the blood of the Just Person befote him. The ruthless spectators accept the responsibility with frightful promptitude : His blood be on us and on our children Hav ing lulled his convictions, Pilate plunges more deeply still into those cowardly and infamous con cessions which have given him the ineffaceable character of the unjust judge. Willing to content the people, he released Barabbas unto them' (Mark), 'and delivered Jesus to their will' (Luke). Then followed those merciless indignities— the stripping by the brutal executioners ; the crown of thorns ; the crimson or purple robe ; the knotty sceptre first thrust into his manacled hands in de rision, and then cruelly used to smite his lacerated head ; the spitting and the mockery of pretended homage—which were the Gentile counterpart of the appalling scenes of fiendish derision in which the officials of Caiaphas had indulged but an hour or two before. The Prxtorium now resounded with the Roman thongs (flogging being the pre liminary to capital punishments in the cruel pro cess of Roman executions), and blood followed the stripes, and his tender flash quivered with thc pain. The plowers plowed upon his back, they made long their furrows' (Ps. cxxix. 3); but the patience which he brought from Gethsemane could not be exhausted. Not a word of reproach, re monstrance, or entreaty, escaped those parched lips, so ignominiously soiled and smitten. IIow is it that we can be calm as we contemplate so foul a tragedy ? Is it not strange, the darkest hour That ever dawn'd on sinful earth Should touch the heart with softer power For comfort, than an angers mirth?' (Christian Year, Good Friday.) The great ancient critic, with no impropriety, contemplated in the awful facts of a true and measured tragedy a subliming, and purifying influ ence on the human spirit (see Aristotle, Poetics, chap. vi., sub init.); but the secret of the touching power of our Saviour's most awful passion lies deeper than the depths of our mental nature. He was wounded for our transgressions ; he was bruised for our iniquities ; the chastisement af our peace was upon him, ana' with his stripes we are healed' (Is. liii. 5)—in this assurance of prophecy, which modern scepticism has ungraciously tried to make void (e.g., in Dr. R. Williams' contribution to Essays and Reviews), lies the profound and holy and purifying interest which good men have ever felt in the awful scenes through which our narrative is carrying us. In his supplementary history, St. John adds an affecting narrative, full of characteristic incident (xix. 4-16). Pilate, con vinced of the Saviour's utter innocence, brings him outside the palace, and, in hopes that the piteous state of the sufferer might possibly turn their hearts, he submits him to the gaze of the populace, with a brief appeal to their compassion—` Behold the man' (Ecce bronzo ; tae Ilvine7ros). Some hearts might be relenting ; but the obdurate chief priests and officers roughly interpose with their hackneyed, wretched shouts for crucifixion. Petulantly does the governor try to fling the execution of such a crime on them—` Take ye him, and crucify him ;' adding, as at the first, his acquittal, I find no fault in him.' Emboldened by their evident ad vantage over his irresolution, they now bring up the accusation which they had concealed at the beginning, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he maa'e himself the San of Goa': Strange words to a Roman heathen im merscd in worldliness, but with an untranquil spirit, and a conscience not seared yct, though often wounded. The haughty monarch of Baby lon was astonied' with a thrilling disquietude, when brought face to face with the apparition of the Son of God (Dan. hi, 25). No wonder if a weaker man than he cowered when in the actual presence of the incarnate deity, whom so many portents, both of conscience and external fact, were recommending to his bewildered mind, as infinitely more than the human abject which he seemed to be ! Impelled by his increasing fears (ver. 9), he withdrew his prisoner ; and within the palace asked hitn, in few but ardent words, of his origin. Whether it was that Pilate was unable, or, from his want of integrity, unfit, to receive infor mation on so weighty an inquiry, Jesus gave him no answer.' But when the governor, ignorant of the quality of his captive, began to rebuke him angrily as forgetful of his official power, the Lord, with calm dignity and in brief but solemn words, informed him of a profound truth, which he had little dreamt of. that the power which he was too ostentatiously claiming, of crucifying him (Kwr' enori, in reference to Pilate's 4ovalav o-raupeiVal a-€), was not inherent in his magistracy as derived from Cmsar, but was a special and mysterious commission from on high. Christ then, in evident sympathy with the mental struggle which the piti able man was passing through, gently implies, that in the execution of this awful commission Pilate was no doubt incurring sin,. inasmuch as he Nvas step by step rebelling against the dictates of his own conscience ; but there was another agent in the deed, whose sin was greater still (hic erat Caiaphas. Pilatus qualicunque mentione Filii Dei audita timuit ; Caiaphas, quum Jesum ex ipso audisset Dei Filium, eum blasphemum dixit et mortis reum judicavit.—Bengelii Gnomon). The high-priest, God's own functionary, with the oracles of heaven in his hand, and his attention thereto quickened by a prophetic impulse (John xi. 5r, 52), being led by an intense and selfish hatred (ver. 48), dared to condemn the Son of God as a blasphemer, although Jesus himself had solemnly assured him of his own right and title to that divine relationship ; while the heathen gover nor, with no knowledge of revelation to guide him, could not refrain from fear at the bare mention of the unearthly name (John xix. 8, and 12, in which latter verse bC TO6TOU is probably not a mark of time, but a reference to the Lord's answer in the preceding sentence). Thus did Jesus, humiliated and prostrated though he was beneath the strange conflicting verdicts of his Jewish and Gentile judges, himself anticipate his own sublime function of judgment, by pronouncing his decision on the comparative conduct of the two chief promoters of his sufferings and death. No wonder that the union of unapproachable superiority, rebuke, and kindly interest, which Pilate's conscience detected in the words of Jesus, revived for the fourth time, and in still greater force, his determination to release the captive (ver. 12). The prey was all but delivered, when the enemy made a last despe rate thrust at the tremulous heart of Pilate. The Jews cried out, If thou let this man go, thou art not- Cmsar's friend.' The insolent threat here implied was decisive. The governor instinctively shrank from the risk of a recall to Rome, to answer, it might be, for his life before his gloomy and suspicious master. The protests of his con science no longer restrain him, and his repeated declarations of the innocence of his prisoner are all forgotten under the panic with which the un friendly shouts of the multitude now filled him. He delivered Jesus unto the chief priests to be crucified—no longer with an Ecce Homo, to melt their hearts to pity, but with an angry and sarcastic Ecee Rex, which provoked their last and most deliberate clamour for their victim's death—so deliberate, indeed, that in one and the same sen tence they rejected their Messiah, cut themselves off from the glory and protection of God's theo cratic rule, and bound themselves to the hated dominion of a Gentile and heathen power. . . . Away, away with HIM. . . We have no king but Cmsar' (ver. 15) ! Pilate's formcr interest in the fate of Christ did not induce him to relax the rigours of execution. Cruel mockery of the suf ferer is for the third time resorted to, and two companions in death are awarded him in the per sons of two ruffians, accomplices, probably, of the murderer who had been rescued from the cross to make way for him. It was, it would seem, between eight and nine o'clock when the gover nor's final decision set the officials of the execution about their awful but not unwelcome work. As they were leading the holy Saviour to the spot appointed for his final suffering (outside the city, but yet near it, eryin fp, 6 rbiros ir6News, John xix. 2o), he seems to have sunk from the exhaustion of his recent sufferings beneath tbe cross, which as usual they made him carry. They immediately find a substitute in a man whose name is given as Simon of Cyrene, whom they compel to bear the sad burden. This is one of the only two instances of relief which we read that Jesus accepted in mitigation of his weight of woe ; pro bably nothing but the physical prostration, which this incident so remarkably attests, was the reason of this noticeable exception. It is some consola tion to discover one kindly symptom in this talc of sorrow, for we find that the sight of the drooping sufferer excited the wail and lamentation of some women who were among the attendant multitude. The Lord was not unobservant of their kindness ; in words of mild and self-denying solemnity he bade these daughters of Jerusalem ' to weep not for him—but for the sufferings which that day's crime would too certainly bring upon their children and them (Luke xxiii. 2S). Nine o'clock, the hour of the morning sacrifice, had arrived, when the executioners consummated their terrible task. As they were nailing to the cross those hands and feet which had been through life so active in offices of love and mercy, Jesus, amidst the excruciating pain, which he had refused to deaden by drinking of the assuaging cup (Mark xv. 23), said, .` Father forgive them, for they know not what they do' (Luke xxiii. 34). This was the first of the seven utterances which the holy evangelists welte led to record of the dying Saviour on the cross.* Mani fold, indeed, are the aspects which have been taken of the solemn scenes of Calvary. But to us, none is more interesting than that which is sug gested by these sacred words of the dying Re deemer. They profoundly indicate the current of his precious thoughts throughout that most awful period, and coherently illustrate that wonderful combination of the tenderest humanity with con scious deity, and of the most serene composure amidst agonising torture, which is the glory, and the wonder, and, we must add, the crowning value and interest to man of this transaction of human redemption. The first of these ejaculations, which soon produced fruit in the last moments of the first martyr (Acts vii. 60), and the spirit of which has so often since soothed the bitterness of violent death, was, as we have said, occasioned by the hideous work of the four Roman executioners, who were probably the literal objects of the Saviour's prayer. Having completed their task, they unconsciously fulfilled a prophecy in their mode of appropriating their perquisites—the gar ments of the crucified (John xix. 23, 24). We pass rapidly by the sad sequel of taunts, and gibes, and railing, which the assembled spectators in dulged in. All classes combined in this fiendish malignity. With execrable consistency, the chief priests, with the Scribes and elders, were there encouraging the rabble by their own grossly in human reproaches—` He saved others ; himself he cannot save : if Ile be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him ' (Matt. xxvii. 42). Alas ! the offence of the cross has not ceased I Mon. Salvador com mends the Raea' faith' (!) of these sacerdotal mockers ; and in words which are not more inde cent than demonstrative of a profonnd ignorance of the occasion and its character, asks—` Would not a miracle at this time have been decisive ?' Mon. Salvador thinks, alas, that Jesus lost an oppor tunity of converting these miserable despisers, and attesting his (we will not say supernatural, but, rather, unnatural) power over the cross ! But will Israel never learn the deep purport of its own prophetic Scriptures ? We appeal from its past and present temper of unbelief to the relentings of the future, when they shall look on him whom they have pierced, and sball mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son ' (Zech. xii. ro). In stead of a failure of the Messianic character, we regard this very inhumanity of the high-priestly blasphemers, as one evidence that Jesus, in this aspect of his dreadful sufferings, was in fact fulfill ing one condition of the true Messiahship, as guaranteed by prophecy—` All they that see me laugh me to scorn ; they shoot out the lip ; they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him,' etc. (Ps. xxii. 7, S).