Connecticut western news., 1895-05-09
CONSCIENCE TRICKS.
9RAeAlc STORY OF CHRIST BEFORE
 GOVERNOR PLATE.

6HAeNlc STORY OF CHRIST BEFORE
 GOVERNOR PLATE.
 Rev Dr. rAhnage Holds an Audience spell- bound by His Nratchless Eloquence-Pow- CT and Eneot of the sstill, Small Voice." Divine Mercy.
 NEW YORK, May 5.-Rarely does any discourse hold an audience with such in- tense interest as did that which Rev. Dr. Talmage delivered this afternoon in the Academy of Music. He chose for his subject Conscience, the text selected being Matthew xvii, 24: "He took wa ter and washed his hands before the multitude, saying: am innocent of the blood of this just person. See ye to it. "
 At about o'clock in the morning, up the marble stairs of palace and across the floors of richest mosaic and under ceilings dyed with all the splendors of color and between snowbanks of white and glistening sculpture, passes poor, pale, sick young man of 33, already con- demned to death, on his way to be con- demned again. Jesus of Nazareth is his name.
 Coming out to meet him on this tes sellated pavement is an interruptions compromising, timeserving cowardSy man, with few traces of sympathy and fair dealing left in his composition Governor Pontius Pilate. Did ever such opposites meet? Lu1ury and pain, self ishness and generosity, arrogance and humility, sin and holiness, midnight and midnoon.
 Christ Before Pilate.
 The bloated tipped governor takes the cushioned seat, but the prisoner stands, his wrists manacled. In a semicircle around the prisoner are the sanhedrists, with flashing eyes and brandished fists, prosecuting this case in the name of re- ligion, for the bitterest prosecutions have been religious prosecutions, and when satan takes hold of good man he makes up by intensity for brevity of oc- cupation. If you have never seen an ec- clesiastical court trying man, then you have no idea of the foaming infernalism of these old religious sanhedrists. Gov ernor Pilate 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 in- audible. It is 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 husband, 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, Governor Pilate resolves to discharge the prisoner from custody.
 But the intimation of such thing brings upon the governor an equinoctial 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 already suspicion in regard to Pilate, and that suspicion does not cease until Pilate is banished and commits suicide. So Governor Pontius Pilate compromises the matter and proposes that Christ be whipped instead of assassinated. 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 intertwisted, so that every stroke shall be the more awful Christ lifts himself from the scourging with flushed cheek and torn and quivering and mangled flesh, presenting specta- cle of suffering in which Rubens, the painter, found the theme for his greatest masterpiece.
 But the sanhedrists are not yet satis- fled. They have had some of his nerves lacerated :; they want them all lacerated; They have had some of his blood; they want all of it, down to the last corpus cle. So Governor Pontius Pilate, after all this merciful hesitation, surrenders to the demoniacal cry of " Cruelty him p But the governor sends for something. He sends slave out to get something. Although the constables are in haste to take the prisoner to execution and the mob outside are impatient to glare upon their victim, pause in necessitated Wonder it comes-a wash basin. Some pure, bright water is poured into it, and then Governor Pilate puts his white, deli cate hands into the water and rubs them together and then lifts them dripping for the towel fastened at the slave's gir- dle, while he practically says: II wash my hands of this whole homicidal trans action. 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 wash ed his hands before the multitude, say ing: I am innocent of the blood of this just person. See ye to it. ''
 Hypocritical Additions.
 Behold in this that ceremony amounts to nothing if there are not in it core spondencies of heart and life. 1t is a good thing to wash the hands. God created three-quarters of the world wa- ter 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 religious cere- mony among the Jews. The Jewish Mishna gave particular 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 we'll 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 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 immersion, and yet never come to moral purifcation. We may meel with