The Yale expositor., 1899-12-01

under ceilings dyed with all the splen-
doris Of color, and between snow banks
Of white and glistening sculpture.
passes a poor, pale, sick young man OF
SO, 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 .avement is an INSCRIPTIONS,
compromising, time-serving, cowardly
man, with a few traces Of sympathy
and fair dealing left in his composition
Governor 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
semi-circle around the prisoner
are the Sanhedrists, with flashing
eyes and brandished fists, prose-
cutting this case in the name OF
religion, for the bitterest persecu-
lions have been religious prosecutions;
man he makes up by intensity for
brevity of occupation. If you have
never seen an ecclesiastical court try
ing a man, then you have no idea OF
the foaming infernalism Of these old
religious Sanhedrists. Governor Pr
late cross-questions the prisoner, and
finds right away that 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 mes
sage from Claudia Procula, his wife,
who has had a dream about the inno-
cence 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 Sanhedrists u
make out their case. Governor PLATE
resolves 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 has
already suspicion in regard to PLATE,
and that suspicion does not cease until
PLATE is banished and commits suicide.
So Governor Pontius PLATE compro-
misses the matter, and proposes that
Christ be whipped instead of assas-
sinated. 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-
twisted. 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 a spectacle OF suffer
ing in which Rubens, the painter found
the theme for his greatest master
! piece.
But the Sanhedrists are not yet sat
| isied. 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 corpuscle. So Governor Pontius
PLATE, after all this merciful heslta-
ton, surrenders to the demoniacal cry
| of Cruelty him!" But the governor
sends for something. He sends slave
out to get something. Although the
ccnstables are in haste to take the pris-
oner to execution and the mob outside
are impatient to glare upon their vic
tim, a pause is necessitated. Yonder
it comes, wash basin. Some pure,
bright water is poured into it, and then
Governor PLATE puts his white. deli
cate hands into the water and rub5
them together, and then lifts them
dripping for the towel fastened at the
slaves girdle, while he practically
says: 81 wash my hands of this whole
homicidal transaction. l 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 We to it,"
Behold in this, that ceremony
amounts to nothing, If there are not in
1t correspondence of heart and life.
IL 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 particular di-
rection now that the hands must be
thrust three times up to the wrist in
water, and the palm of the hand must
be rubbed with the closed fist of the
other. All that well enough for a SYM
Dol, but here in the text is a man who
proposes to wash away the guilt of a
sin which he does not quit and of
which he does not make any renent-