The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-10-16
BY wILLIAM n. ELLIS.


 BY WILLIAM T. ELLIS.
 The imperfections of the judicial sys- tenn in the United States have lately been pointed out by President Taft himself Except in very rare Instances, these do not include corruption. At times we learn of judges who are swayed primarily by ambitions social ties and pecuniary considerations; by all such the administration of justice Is utterly impossible. Pure water does not, flow from a foul spring. An in- stance of the effect of bribery upon the character or a judge Is the case of Felix. before whom we find Paul stand ing in the course of his adventures.
 Felix was a grafter. The graft hab- 1t had So eaten into his whole nature, that even when he came to consider seriously the question of personal re- ligion, he still could pot shake of the desire to make personal gain out of his teaching; even as many man today finds the ruling evils of his life rising up before him in church, as veil to shut out the truth of God. His essen tial corruption had so distorted the na- ture of Felix (history writes him down as the worst governor Judea ever had) that he could not deal justly with the prisoners before him. The high. infiex- ible and even-handed justice Of the Ro- man courts was made mockery by this debauched and crafty official. His story Is one that should bring home to the youth of the Sunday Schools the blighting effects upon character and destiny of being swayed by any other considerations than those of honor and 4 oshnt at the Bar 8e PfGny Sn the Bench.
 Tn this Roman court room at Cesarea. the capital oS the province of Judea. we see enacted scene which history has aften been .called upon. to record greatness and honor standing at the judgment bar O. pettiness and greed. Felix was plgmy; Paul was a giant. Felix was not worthy to wash the feet of this prisoner upon whom his lech- erous eyes leered so superciliously. He was serene and conteulptuous in the delusion that power and position made him great-an error that has not yet perished from the earth. Jesus had to stand before Pilate; and truth and mo- bility often finds itself arraigned be- fore meanness and time-serving poli- tics. Mediocrity often sits in judgment upon genius. Boorish wealth some times is served by true gentility. The present lesson. with Its dramatic con- trast in injustice. reminds us that
 "IIonor and shame from no condition rise,
 Act well thy part: there all the honor lies."
 A cynic,, aware of the facts. would have found food for epigrams in that court room scene. Knowing the shady record of Felix. whose only merit seems | to have been diligence In suppressing crimes of violence. so that
 l ''He left corsair's name to other times l Linked to ore virtue and thousand crimes.
 the observer would have smiled in- wardly at the fulsome flattery of the hired Roman edvocate- Tertullus.N who was doubtless employed for his "infiu- ence" with this Roman judge. The ob- seuuiousness and servility of these proud Jews, including the high priest himself. before the naughty and crael representative, of the hated alien -do- minion, must have been delight to the cynic. Even such 8 one could not have failed to show interest in the sophis- try-puncturing statements of the plain ly clad and badly battered heretic at the bar, whose adventurous, career had been enough to stir a cynic's blood. Anybody accustomed to measuring men could see that the merits of the case. as well as the personal greatness, all lay with the little Christianized Jew from Tarsus.
 The Debate in Court.
 A stormy petrel was Paul. There is no denying that wherever he went. commotions seemed to follow. That was because he was a personality. and preached a gospel which, when present ed straight, always makes a stir. Com mander Claudius Lysias. of the Jerusa- lem garrison, had been glad to have his hands free of Paul; after rescuins him from a mob. he had foiled the plot of forty assassins by sending the pris- after five days. delegation of leading Jews, including Ananias, the high priest. attended by a Roman pleadef named Tertullus, followed to prefer charges against him.
 The lawyer was sycophantic. He 1 fattered Felix without regard to the facts. He called Paul "a pestilent fel' low" "a mover of insurrections among all the Jews throughout the world, "s ringleader of the sect of the Naza renes," and a profaner of the temple l It will be noted that he dld not cal | Paul a leader of the "Christians" Il was the pagans who gave that name tE | the followers of Jesus, and not th' Jews: to the latter 1t was aR~onense for Christ was their sacred word fql l the expected Messiah. So they uset the despised name ''Nasarenes." whicf Is illuminated by their proverb, "Cai any good thing come out of Nazareth 7
 When the prisoners turn came t speak, he showed himself as suaye, poi ished and urbane as the Roman lawyer
 But with this difference: Paul. in per feet self possession. proved himself tn
 better diplomat and orator by his self
 restraint In his opening salutation; h.
 kept within the facts. which Is alway
 the way of a master. pr. w. Smitl
 says, There is scarcely a more strtk
 ing contrast in the records of orator
 than that between the fulsome har
 angue of the hired advocate. Tertullui