The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1895-05-10
CHRIST BEFORE PLATE.
DR.. Talmage Discourses on the
Powers of Conscience.
The Trial of Our Saviour and the Coward
ice Of His Judge-wOnders Wrought
by True Conversion from

Inc AdltSb pANoShCa W NV
7. De Witt Talmage at the Academy
of Music in New York was upon Con
science" the text selected being Mat
thew. xvii, "a: HE took water and
washed his hands before the multitude,
saying, l am innocent of the blood of
this just person; see We to it" DIR.
Talmage said.
At about o'clock in the morning,
up the marble stairs of a palace and
across the floors of rich mosaic, and
under ceilings dyed with all the
splendors of color, and between snow
banks of white and glistening sculp-
ture, passed a poor, pale, sick young
man of 33, already condemned to death,
on His way to be condemned 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,
selfishness and generosity, arrogance
and humility, sin and holiness, mid
night and midnoon.
The bloated.lipped governor takes
the cushioned seat, but the prisoner
stands, His wrists manacled. In a
semi-circle 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 in
tensity for brevity of occupation. If
you have never seen an ecclesias-
teal court trying a man, then
infernalism of these old religious
Sanhedrist. Gov. Plate cross-ques-
tions the prisoner, and finds right away
He is innocent, and wants to let Him
90. 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
awakens 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 Sanhedrist to
make out their case, Gov. Plate re-
solves to discharge the prisoner from
custody.
But the intimation of such a thing
brings upon the governor an equinoc-
tial storm of indignation. They will
report him to the emperor at Rome.
They will have him recalled. They
will send him up home, and he will be
hung for treason, for the emperor at
Rome has alreadya suspicion in regard
to PLATE, and that suspicion does not
cease until PLATE is banished and com
mits suicide. So Gov. Pontius Plate
compromises the matter, and proposes
that Christ be whipped instead of as
sassinated. So the prisoner is fastened
to low pillar, and on his bent and
barred back come the thongs of leather
with pieces of lead and bone inter
the more awful Christ lifts Himself
from the scourging, with flushed cheek
and torn and quivering and mangled
flesh, presenting a spectacle of suffer
ing in which Rubens, the painter,
found the theme for his greatest mas
terpiece.
But the Sanhedrists are not yet sat
81 His
nerves lacerated; they want them all
lacerated. They have had some of His
blood; 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 Cru
city Him. But the governor sends
for something. He sends a slave out
to get something. Although the con-
stables are in haste to take the prisoner
to execution and the mob outside are
impatient to glare upon their victim,
a pause is necessitated. Yonder it
comes, a wash basin. Some pure,
bright water is poured into it, and
then Gov. PLATE puts his white, deli
cate 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,this whole
homicidal transaction. wash my
hands of this entire responsibility; you
will have to bear it." That is the
meaning of my text when it says: "He
took water and washed his hands be-
fore the multitude, saying, / am inno-
cent of the blood of this just person;
see ye to il"
Behold, in this, that ceremony
amounts TO nothing, if there are not in
it correspondencies of heart and life.
1t is 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 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 a dead failure.
Ceremonies, however beautiful and
appropriate, may be no more than this
hypocritical ablution. In infancy we
may be sprinkled from the baptismal
font, and in manhood we may wade
into deep dimensions, and yet never
cnme To moral nnrificatinn- We may