The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-07-16

De0r0,
Into the chamber where the council sat
Came feebly staggering: scarce should have
Twas Judas, with that haggard, blasted face:
SO had that nights great horror blasted him.
AS one all blindly walking in dream
He to the table came-against it leaned
Glared wildly round while;-then, stretch
ing forth
From his torn robes trembling hand, flung
dowa
AS if a snake had stung him, small purse,
That broke and scattered its white coins
about
And, with a shrill voice, cried, Take back
the purse
Twas not for that foul dross / did the deed
"Twas not for that-oh, horror! not for that!
But that did believe he was the Lord;
And that he is the Lord 1 still believe.
But oh, the sin!-the SIM l have betrayed
The innocent blood, and L am lost!-ara LOST
So crying round his face his robes he threw,
And blindly rushed away and we, aghast,
Looked round-and no one for moment
spoke.
"Seeing that face, could but fear the end;
For death was in it, looking through his eyes.
Nor could follow to arrest the fate
That drove him madly on with scorpion whip.
'At last the duty of the day was done,
And night came on. Forth from the gates L
went,
Anxious and panied by many dubious
thought,
To seek for Judas, and to comfort him.
The sky was dark with heavy lowering
clouds;
A lifeless, sitting air weighed on the world;
dreadful silence like nightmare lay
Crouched on it's bosom, waiting, grim and
grey
In horrible suspense of some dread thing.
A creeping sense of death, a sickening SMELL
Infected the dull breathing of the wind.
A thrill of ghosts went by me now and then,
And made my flesh creep as l wandered on.
At last came to where cedar stretched
It's black arms out beneath dusky rock,
And, passing through its shadow, all at once
l started; for against the dubious light
dark and heavy mass that to and fro
Slung slowly with its weight, before me grew.
A sick dread sense came over me; | stopped
l could not stir. A cold and cammy sweat
Oozed out all over me; and all my limbs,
Bending with tremulous weakness like
child's,
Gave way beneath me. Then sense of
shame
Aroused ME- l advanced, stretched forth my
hand
And pushed the shapeless mass; and at my
touch
1t yielding swung-the branch above it
creaked-
And back returning struck against my face.
A human body! Was it dead or not?
Swiftly my sword drew and cut it down,
And on the sand all heavily it dropped.
plucked the robes away, exposed the face
Twas Judas as feared, cold, stiff, and dead:
That suffering heart of his had ceased to
beat"
Thus Lysias spoke, and ended. confess
This story of poor Judas touched me much.
What horrible revulsions must have passed
Across that spirit in those few last hours!
What storms, that tore up life even to its
roOtS
Say what you will-grant all the guilt-and
still
What pangs of dread remorse-what agonies
OF desperate repentance, all too late,
In that wild interval between the crime
And its last sad atonement!-life, the while,
Laden with horror all too great to bear,
And pressing madly on to deaths abyss;
This was no common mind that thus could
feel
Vas he a villain lost to sense of shame?
Ay, so say John and Peter and the rest;
And yet-and yet this tale that Lysias tells
Weighs with me the more ponder it;
For thus put it: Either Judas was,
AS John affirms, a villain and thief,
A creature lost to shame and base at heart
| Or else, which is the view that Lysias takes
| He was a rash and visionary man
| Whose faith was firm, who had no thought of
| crime,
But whom terrible mistake drove mad.
| Take but Johns view, and all to me is blind.
Call him villain who, with greed of gain,
For thirty pieces sold his Lord.
Does not the bribe seem all too small and
mean?
He held the common purse, and, were he
thief,
Had daily power to steal, and lay aside
A secret and accommodating fund;
So doing, he had nothing risked of fame,
! While here he braved the scorn of all the
| world.
Besides why chose they for their almoner
| A man so lost to shame, SO foul with greedp
| Or why from some five score of trusted men,
! Choose him as one apostle among twelve?
| Or why, if he were known to be so vile
| (And who can hide his baseness at all times p
Keep him in close communion to the last?
Naught in his previous life, or acts, or words,
Shows this consummate villain that, full
grown,
Leaps all at once to such height of crime.
Again, how comes it that this wretch, whose
! heart
Is cased to shame, fings back the paltry
And, when he knows his master is con-
demned,
Rushes in horror out to seek his death?
Whose fingers pointed at him in the crowd?
Did all men flee his presence till he found
Life too intolerable? Nay; not SO!
Death came too close upon the heels of crime.
He had but done what all his tribe deemed
just: