The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1895-05-17
CONSCIENCE"
Rev. DR.. TaImaRe Discourses on
the Still, Small Voice
That ReIentIessly Pursues Those Who
Commit SIN - Pilates Hypoerit-
cal Addition an Evidence OF
the Power OF Conscience.

on the text:
He took water and washed his hands before
the multitude. saying, 1 am innocent OF the
blo<d Of this just person; see ye TO it-Mat-
thev-xxyii, "a
At about seven o'clock in the morn
ing, mp the marble stairs of palace
and across the floors of richest mosizic,
and under ceilings dyed with all the
splendors of color, and between snow
banks of white and glistening sculp-
ture, passes a poor. pale, sick young
man of thirty-three, already con-
demned to death, on his way TO be con-
denied again. Jesus of Nazareth is
his name.
Coming out to meet him on this tes-
sellated pavement is an INSCRIPTIONS,
compromising, time-serving cowardly
man, with few traces of sympathy
and fair dealing left in his composition
Gov. Pontius Plate. Did ever such
opposites meet? Luxury and pain, self
ishness and generosity, arrogance and
humility, sin and holiness, midnight
and midnoon.
The bloated-lipped governor takes
the cushioned seat, but the prisoner
stands, his wists manacled. In a
semi-eircle around the prisoner are the
Sanhedrists, with flashing eyes and
brandished fists, prosecuting this case
in the name of religion, for the bitter
est prosecutions have been religious
prosecutions; and when Satan takes
hold of a good man he makes
up by intensity for brevity of
occupation. If you have never seen an
ecclesiastical court trying a man, then
you have no idea of the foaIning in
fernalism of these old religious San
hedrists. Gov. Plate crOss-questions
the prisoner, and finds right away he
is innocent. and wants to let him go.
His caution is also increased by some
one who comes to the governor and
whispers in his ear. The governor
puts his hand behind his ear, so as to
catch the words almost inaudible. 1t
is a message from Claudia Procula, his
wife, who has had a dream about the
innocence of this prisoner and about
the danger of executing him, and she
Rwakens from this morning dream in
time to send the message to her hus-
band. then on the judicial bench. And
what with the protest of his wife, and
the voice of his own conscience, and
the entire failure of the Sanhedrists to
make out their case, Gov. Plate re-
solves to discharge the prisoner from
custody.
But the intimation of such thing
brings upon the governor an equinoc'
tial storm of Indignation. They will re-
port him to the emperor at Rome. They
will have him recalled. They will
send him up home, and he will be
hanged for treason, for the emperor at
Rome has already a suspicion in re-
gard to Plate, and that suspicion does
not cease until PLATE is banished and
commits suicide. So Gov. Pontius
PLATE compromises the matter, and
proposes that Christ be whipped in
stead of assassinated. So the pris-
oner is fastened to a low pillar,
and on his bent and barred back
come the thongs of leather, with
pieces of lead and bone intertwined,
so that every stroke shall be the more
awful. Christ lifts himself from the
scourging, with flushed cheeks and
torn and mangled and quivering flesh,
presenting a spectacle of suffering in
which Rubens, the painter, found the
theme for his greatest masterpiece.
But the Sanhedrists are not yet sat
isfied. They have had some of his
nerves lacerated; they want them all
lacerated. They have had some blood
shed; they want all of it, down to the
last corpuscle. SO Gov. Pontius Plate.
after all this merciful hesitation, sur
renders TO the demoniacal cry of
Cruelty himl" But the governor sends
for something. He sends slave out
he
constables are in haste to take
the prisoner to execution and the
mob outside are impatient to glare
upon their victim, a pause is neces-
STATED. Yonder it comes, a wash
basin. Some pure, bright water is
poured into it, and then Gov. Plate
puts his white, delicate hands into the
water and rubs them together, and
then lifts them dripping, for the towel
fastened at the slaves girdle, while he
practically says: Il wash my hands
of the whole homicidal transaction. !
wash my hands of this entries response
bility; You will have to bear it." That
is the meaning of my text when it
says: ale took water and washed his
hands before the multitude, saying,
am innocent of the blood of this just
person; see We to it."
Behold, in this, that ceremony
amounts to nothing if there are not in
it correspondence of heart and life.
1t is a good thing to wash the hands.
God created three-quarters of the
world water, and in that commanded
cleanliness; and when the ancients did
not take the hint He plunged the
whole world under water and kept it
there for some time. Hand-washing
was a religious ceremony among the
Jews. The Jewish Mishna gave par
ticular direction how that the hands
must be thrust three times up to the
wrists in water. and the palm of the
hand must be rubbed with the closed
fist of the other. All that is well
enough for a symbol, but here in the
text is a man who proposes to wash
away the guilt OF sin which he does
not quit and of which he does not make
any repentance. Pilates wash basin
was dead letter.
Ceremonies, however beautiful and
appropriate, nay be no more than this
hypocritical ablution- In infancy we
may be sprinkled from the baptismal
font, and in manhood we may wade in
to deep dimensions, and yet never
come to moral publication. We may
hneel without prayer, and bow with
out reverence, and sing without ac-
ceP.ance. All your creeds, and litur-
GIGS, and sacraments, and genufec-
ticns, and religious convocations
amount to nothing unless your heart
ifFa rro into them When the Irorza