II.

Faith wins the battle of life against many odds.

Yes! this is indeed a romance of faith—faith overcoming the world. This child or youth starts out with all things against him. He is likely to grow up into an Ishmaelite if he grows up at all. He starts with an ill-starred name—a name that spells misfortune. He starts without his mother's blessing and without a glimmer of hope to cheer him; no father to give him a helping hand by the way—without endowment, fortune, family, or friends. What chance can there be in the race for one so heavily handicapped? Failure is written on his brow by the hand that nursed him. Failure is written on all his circumstances. It will be a desperate struggle all through. There will be none of the prizes of life for him. If he gets a bare living wage, it is as much as he may expect.

That is what he has before him, apparently! Well, for one thing, he puts on courage, and starts on his way singing Nil desperandum. And then, knowing well that he has few or no human friends, he falls back on the Father of the fatherless and the Helper of those who have no other help. He relies on faith instead of fortune. He will make prayer his main weapon, and the light of the Lord his guide, and duty his pole star. He will pursue a straight course, avoiding evil, trying to feel the hand of God upon him, and the watchful eyes of God over him. And he will make a brave fight of it day by day, doing his best, and leave a higher power to determine what shall follow. That is what we read between the lines of this story. Nay, that is all expressed. "He called on the God of Israel." He committed his life to the ordering of the Almighty. And the Almighty promoted him. He became more honourable than his brethren.

They are poor creatures who complain that the battle is lost before it is even begun, who groan that the chances of life are all against them before they have made one brave venture and endeavour; and they are vain and self-deceiving men who fancy that the victory will be easy because somebody has given them a good start, and they have the backing of family, social position, wealth, and mental gifts. If some of you think because your fathers stand high, because your education has been well looked after, because there are unlimited money and plenty of friends to push you on—if you think that because of these things you can dispense with the fear of God, and the daily obligations of duty, and make pleasure and self-indulgence your main ends, and do without honest, persevering, self-denying toil, you will be miserably disappointed. God has some hard things to say to you before you get far on in years. It does not matter how promising one's beginnings, if there is no steady, conscientious brave self-discipline, and endeavour.

Life is always a failure and a disgraceful thing with a downward course, if there is no serious purpose in it and no great thoughts. And if you are ever tempted to say, as many do, that there is no hope for a life which commences heavily weighted; that all the chances go to those who are clever, and richly endowed; that if a youth begins with no money to back him and no friends to push him into promotion, he must remain chained down to that low condition to the end—then I point you to this little bit of biography. I could take you round a certain town and point you to a hundred men who have repeated that bit of biography in their own lives, and I tell you that even now the chances are plentiful: waiting at the feet of those who tread life's way, a brave heart within and God overhead, and that no one need despair, however unpromising his start, who makes God his guide, and prayer his inspiration, and duty his chosen companion, and shuns evil, and pursues that which is good. Faith and loyalty to conscience and a courageous temper are still the weapons which conquer in the fight. Jabez, the child of sorrow and misfortune, became more honourable than all his brethren.

III.

And now I commend this prayer to all of you—the prayer which this youth offered when he went out carrying his unhonoured name and empty hand into the rough places of the world. It is a beautiful prayer. It is on the whole a wise prayer. There are better and more Christian prayers in the gospels and epistles; but in the Old Testament there are few prayers more worthy of imitation than this.

He asked that "God might bless him indeed," that is, above every human blessing and favour, that he might, by his life and conduct, deserve it He asked what we may all safely and humbly ask of God, provided that we give a large and not a low meaning. He asked that "God would enlarge his coast." If that meant broad estates, you had better drop it out of your prayer. But if it means to have your life enlarged, your sympathies and interests widened out, your influence and your power of service increased, it is such a prayer as Christ might have taught you. Never forget to offer it. He asked that "the hand of God might be with him"; that every day he might feel the leadings and take no step which was not a step approved by God. And he asked that the watchful and restraining power of the Almighty would "keep him from evil."

You will do well to offer that prayer at the beginning. You will do well to offer it every day to the end. It is a prayer that will keep; you will find it fresh each morning. And every day will be a better day which is thus commenced, and every life will grow honourable in the sight of men, and beautiful in the sight of God, which develops in the spirit of it.



SIMEON

BY REV. H. ELVET LEWIS

The Temple shows to better advantage at the beginning of the Gospel history than at its close. As we follow our Lord through the events of the last week, we meet no winsome faces within its precincts. Annas is there, and Caiaphas; Pharisees too, blinded with envy; but there is no Zacharias seen there, no Simeon, no doctors of the law even, such as gathered around the Boy of twelve. If any successors of these still frequented the sanctuary, they are lost in the deep shadow cast by a nation's crime. Perhaps we may consider those whom we meet on the threshold of our Lord's life as the last of an old regime of prophetic souls, the last watchers passing out of sight as the twilight of a coming doom thickened and settled on the Holy City.

But there he stands, the gracious, winsome old man, whom death is not permitted to touch till the Star of Bethlehem has risen. "It was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ!" He is like a dweller of the spiritual world, who only returns to visit earthly ways. For him the veil, though not as yet rent, has worn thin, and he is more familiar with the voices from beyond it than with the voices of earth. The priest, the Levite, the Rabbi, pass him like shadows: the Holy Ghost is his living companion and teacher. Browning's Rabbi ben Ezra might well have borrowed his song from the lips of this aged saint:

"Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand Who saith, 'A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!'"

Consider his CHARACTER: "the same man was just and devout." Inward and outward are in equipoise; he does not make frequent prayers atone for equally frequent lapses in duty. He looks upon men in the light which has risen upon him through looking upon God. He brought with him, from the Throne of Grace, the tranquil beams which helped him to perceive what he owed to his fellow-men. He was so subdued to charity, that his one expectation was the consolation of Israel. He was no prophet of doom; perhaps he was even blind to the moral deterioration, the blight of ideals, growing more wasteful, every day, of the nation's best life. To him, Israel was still more in need of consolation than chastisement. Alas! for these gentle-souled patriots, whose hopes rise from their own heart's goodness, and not from their nation's worth! So obscure, so devout: while the great ones sin, they pray; while the popular priests lead in worldliness, they retire into God's hiding-places to intercede. They have private paths into God's Paradise: they do not always see the cherubim with flaming sword. God often calls them home before the stormy dawn of the evil day. So they live and die, waiting for the consolation.

Consider, again, his HOLY FELLOWSHIP: "the Holy Ghost was upon him." His heart became the ark of the Heavenly Dove, wandering over the grey waters; and to him was the olive leaf brought. He looked past the face of the Rabbi and the priest, not contemptuously, but wistfully, wondering why he must: he looked past them, and beheld in the dawning shadow a diviner Face. He heard secrets which would be foolishness to others, even to frequenters of the Temple and to robed priests. He thought of death peacefully; but that other Face always came, faintly but immutably, between him and the Last Shadow. The Lord's Christ first, death after. What gracious ways God has of treating some of these simply-trusting children of His! How graciously He orders the course of spiritual wants for them! "And the evening and the morning" are—each day.

"And he came by the Spirit into the Temple." He required no ecclesiastical calendar, no book of the hours. This obscure denizen of the sanctuary had a dial in his own soul, and the silent shadow on the figures came from no visible sun. Be sure that there are men and women still, just, and fearing God, who anticipate the days of heaven, and almost win their dawning. How often must Simeon have come, waiting: and yet how fresh was his hope each time! He fed on God's disappointments; the unfulfilled was his hidden manna.

Consider his ONE GREAT DAY. An obscure worshipper suddenly becomes the richest, most honoured man in all the world: in his arms he holds God's Incarnate Son. Yesterday was a day of earth, tomorrow also may well be a day of earth: but this, a day of heaven! Alas! but only to him. To others this, too, is a very day of earth. Did some officiating priest watch the little group of peasant parents showing their first-born to an obscure worshipper? And did he look, without a stain of contempt upon his vision? And yet Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome, had no such gift and prize as the arms of that humble dreamer held. Who would not have taken his place, had they known! It is well to be reckoned God's intimate, lest we miss the Child.

"The sages frowned, their beards they shook, For pride their heart beguiled; They said, each looking on his book, 'We want no child.'"

But Simeon had dwelt nearer God than they—nearest God of all that came to the Temple that day. And so God trusted him with His Best.

Then, once more, consider his PROPHETIC PRAYER. He was now ready to depart. He had arrived at the house where the chamber of peace looks towards the sunrising: why should he return to the warfare again? He was unfitted for earth, by the face of that Child: he would go where such a vision would not be marred by earthly airs! "For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people: a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel." The sentinel has been long on duty: now the watch is done, "now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace." And as he passes from his well-kept post, his heart's charity overflows, and Gentile and Jew are covered with his blessing: the Gentile even coming first, as though, perhaps, he perceived that "the salvation of the Jews could only be realised after the enlightenment of the heathen, and by this means"—Godet suggests. To the darkened souls of the pagan world—light: to the humiliated Jewish people—glory. Israel had seen and lost many a glory: it had seen the glory of conquest, of wealth, of wisdom, of ritual, of righteousness: but in the little Child was the sum and essential radiancy of all glory that had been, the earnest of all glory that was to be. Eternally, Christ is "the hope of glory."

Consider also his PERFECT CANDOUR. He looked in the Child's face, he looked in the mother's face, with all the tenderness and love that made it half divine; and then this disciple of the Spirit, strangely moved from his wonted calm, described truth purely as he saw it. He scanned the future, heard the sound of many a fall, caught the hiss and cry of uneasy consciences against the "sign"; he saw the gleam of the sword, and the wounded mother's heart; he saw the revelations of good and of evil which the child would surely effect. One might not unnaturally conclude that these presentiments were of the day—of that very hour. He had hitherto walked and dwelt in the light of consolation; he had dreamed his tranquil dream "beside still waters." But in this moment of contact with God, he was made strong to see the darkness which is never absent from the azure of truth—"a deep, but dazzling darkness." So to young Samuel came the sorrowful vision of the fall of the house of Eli; so to the old prophet-saint now glittered the gleaming arrows of truth. But neither scorn nor wrathful eloquence moves him, in view of what he saw: he simply accepts this burden of the Lord, and bears it, without murmuring or exulting. He sees the "fall and rising again of many in Israel"; it is God's will: let His will be done! "A sword shall pierce through thy own soul also": bow, mother-heart, to the purposes of God's heart of love! "In peace" this servant of the Lord still stands; "in peace" he departs. Blessed are they whom darkling truths may grieve, but not distract; whom stormy revelations beat upon, but cannot shake. They live in the house founded upon a rock.

What presentiment of his nation's doom came to him in that moment of clearer insight, of more candid intercourse with truth? "The thoughts of many hearts"—"the uneasy working of the understanding in the service of a bad heart":—how much was revealed, how much was mercifully concealed? We cannot tell; but strength was given him to bear the gleam of the vision, and still wait. "O rest in the Lord; wait patiently for Him." He saw the Child go out of the Temple; and if, for a moment, a breath as of a chill wind smote his soul, he retired into the deeper consolations of God, where the sun smites not by day, nor the moon by night. If it was his last visit to the Temple, he had seen what would have made it worth his while to have gone there every day for seventy years or more. And let it not be forgotten that God still gives His Child to those who humbly, faithfully wait for the consolation of Israel.

Such a picture as that of Simeon gives piety its divinest charm. It is not simply that men have wished to be in his place; but—what is far better and far more practical—they have wished to be in his spirit. He draws them towards him, and after him. He stands in a glorious company of winsome souls, who not only lead to heaven, but attract men on the way.

"They are, indeed, our Pillar-fires Seen as we go; They are that City's shining spires, We travel to: A sword-like gleam Kept man for sin First out; this beam Will guide him in."



PONTIUS PILATE

BY REV. PRINCIPAL WALTER F. ADENEY, D.D.

In spite of the fact that he condemned Jesus to death, the Gospels present us a more favourable portrait of Pontius Pilate than that which we derive from secular historians. Josephus relates incidents that reveal him as the most insolent and provoking of governors. For instance, the Jewish historian ascribes to him a gratuitous insult, the story of which shows its perpetrator to have been as weak as he was offensive. It was customary for Roman armies to carry an image of the emperor on their standards; but previous governors of Judaea had relaxed this rule when entering Jerusalem, in deference to the strong objection of the Jews to admit "the likeness of anything." Nevertheless Pilate ordered the usual images to be introduced at night. When they were discovered, the citizens protested vehemently. Pilate had the crowd that he had admitted to his presence surrounded with soldiers, and threatened them with instant death. But they threw themselves on the ground, protesting that they would submit to this fate rather than that the wisdom of their laws should be transgressed. The governor had not reckoned on this. He was only "bluffing," and now he had to climb down, and the images were removed. On another occasion, described by the same historian, Pilate had seized the sacred money at the Temple and employed it in building an aqueduct, a piece of utilitarian profanity which enraged the Jews to such an extent that a vast crowd gathered, clamouring against Pilate and insisting on the stoppage of the works. Then the governor sent soldiers among the people, disguised in the garb of civilians, who at a given signal drew their clubs and attacked them more savagely than Pilate had intended, killing and wounding a great number. Although Josephus does not mention the incident recorded by St Luke (xiii. 1), in which Pilate mingled the blood of some Galilean pilgrims with their sacrifices, this is entirely in accordance with his brutality of conduct in the events the historian records. Philo goes further, giving a story told by Agrippa, according to which Pilate hung gilt shields in the palace of Herod at Jerusalem, but was compelled to take them down as the result of an appeal to Tiberius Caesar, and adding that Agrippa described Pilate as "inflexible, merciless, and obstinate." He says that Pilate dreaded lest the Jews should go on an embassy to the emperor, impeaching him for "his corruptions, his acts of insolence, his rapine, and his habit of insulting people; his cruelty, and his continual murders of people untried and uncondemned, and his never-ending, gratuitous, and most grievous inhumanity." Josephus is not trustworthy, always writing "with a motive," and Philo must be considered prejudiced, since he saw too much of the worst side of the Roman treatment of Jews; and the wholly unfavourable verdict of these two writers should be qualified by what we read in the New Testament concerning the subject of them. The interesting point is that we have to go to the Christian documents for the more calm and just estimate of the man who crucified Christ. This fact should deepen our sense of the fairness of the evangelists. They evince nothing of that bitterness of resentment which the Jews, quite naturally, as the world judges, cherished towards their oppressors. They were the followers of One who had taught them to love their enemies, and who, when in mortal agony, prayed to God to forgive the men who had inflicted it. But further, the early Christians discriminated between the Jewish authorities, who planned and purposed the death of Christ and really compassed it, and Pilate, who was but a weak instrument in the hands of these men. The fact that the evangelists so clearly mark this distinction is a sign that they are in close touch with the events, and that they faithfully record what they know to have taken place. In a word, it is clear that we have a more just and accurate portrait of Pilate in our Gospels than the representations of him by Josephus and Philo, who are thus seen to be less trustworthy historians than the New Testament writers.

The word "Pilate" as a proper name has been variously explained. Some have derived it from the Latin pileatus, meaning one who wore the pileus, the cap of a freed slave, and so have regarded the Roman governor by whom Jesus was tried as a man who had been raised from the ranks of slavery. The worst condemnation of slavery is, that it degrades the characters of its victims, developing the servile vices of cowardice, meanness, and cruelty—all of which vices are manifest in Pilate's character. But such a promotion as this theory implies would be most improbable. A more likely explanation connects the name with pilum, a javelin. The earlier name Pontius suggests the family of the Pontii, of Samnite origin, well-known in Roman history. It was customary to confine such an office as that which Pilate held to knights, men of the equestrian order. Nevertheless, it was not a very dignified office. It is described indefinitely in the Gospels as that of a "governor." But Pilate is designated more distinctly by Tacitus and Josephus as procurator of Judaea. This official served under the Legate of Syria. His proper duty was simply to collect the taxes of the district over which he was appointed. Thus he would be likely to come into contact with the chief local collectors, such as Zaccheus; and in this way he may have heard, and that not unfavourably, of One who was known as the "Friend of publicans and sinners." But in the turbulent districts—such as Judaea and Egypt—the procurators were entrusted with almost unlimited powers, subject to an appeal to Caesar on the part of Roman citizens. Soldiers were sometimes needed for the forcible collection of taxes, and the disturbed condition of these parts demanded an official in residence who could act at once and on the spot. The punishment of turbulence was with the rigour of martial law, which really means no law at all, but only the will of the man in charge of the army. A subordinate official lifted to a position of almost irresponsible power—such was Pilate. We can well understand how a man with no moral backbone would succumb to its temptations. Pilate was a much smaller man than Gallic the proconsul at Corinth, and that other proconsul at Cyprus, Sergius Paulus, whom St Paul won over to Christian faith. But his pettiness in the eyes of Roman society would lead him to magnify his importance in the little world he was trying to rule like a king, though often with consequences humiliating to himself.

Pilate's headquarters were at Caesarea, by the sea coast, the Roman capital of Palestine; but he came up to Jerusalem with a troop of soldiers at the Passover, to prevent any disturbance among the vast hosts of pilgrims then gathered together in the city, just as Turkish soldiers now mount guard at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre during the Easter celebrations, to prevent the Christians from quarrelling and fighting. That is how it was he happened to be present when Jesus was arrested and brought up for trial. In this fact also we may see why the Jewish authorities felt it necessary to hand their Prisoner over to the Roman governor; although, a few years later, they were able themselves to execute the death sentence on Stephen in the Jewish mode, by stoning, and still later to do the same with James, the Lord's brother.

All four Gospels refer to the trial of Jesus before Pontius Pilate; but the fullest information is to be obtained from the third and fourth. St Luke throughout both his works seizes every suitable opportunity for setting out the scene of his story on the large stage of the world's history, and he is especially interested in showing it in relation to the imperial government. Thus, while Matthew only connects the time of the birth of Jesus with the reign of Herod, a Jewish note of time, Luke also associates it with Caesar Augustus and the chronology of Rome; and later, while Matthew does not say when John the Baptist began his work, but notes the imprisonment of John as the occasion of the commencement of our Lord's public ministry, Luke carefully records that it was "in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea" (Luke iii. 1), that John the Baptist began preaching and baptizing. It is this same evangelist only who refers to Pilate's savage slaughter of the Galileans at Jerusalem. The author of the Fourth Gospel does not mention Pilate before the time of our Lord's trial, but he gives us a much fuller account of that trial than any of his companion evangelists. Next to John, our fullest account is in Luke. On these two authorities therefore we must mainly rely. But John's is not only the most ample and fully detailed narrative; it also furnishes us with by far the most vivid and convincing portrait of the Roman governor. This is one of the numerous cases of life-like character-drawing with which the Fourth Gospel abounds. Nicodemus, the woman of Samaria, Thomas, Judas, Mary Magdalene, and now Pilate, are all known to history from St John's portraits of them. Should not this significant fact lead us to attach great weight to his portrait of Jesus Christ, which soars above the Christ-pictures of the synoptics in the most exalted Divine glory?

Jesus had been tried soon after His arrest before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, the supreme council of the Jews, and there He had been condemned to death, not on the charge for which He had been arrested—threatening to destroy the Temple—for the evidence against Him had broken down, but for blasphemy during the course of His trial, when adjured by the high priest to declare whether He was the Christ. But the presence of Pilate prevented the council from executing their sentence (as doubtless they would have done if he had been away at Caesarea), in defiance of the law, which was entrusted to a weak and capricious governor. Accordingly they brought their Prisoner to the procurator's residence—probably Herod's palace, a magnificent building with two marble wings, containing large rooms sumptuously furnished, and spacious porticos surrounded by gardens and enclosed in a lofty wall with towers, situated in the western district of the city, and approached by a bridge across the Tyropaean valley. The facts that a later governor, Gestius Florus, resided here, and that Pilate lived in Herod's palace at Caesarea when in that city, and that he hung the shields about which there was so much trouble in the Jerusalem palace, make this view more probable than the traditional idea that the trial of Jesus took place in the Castle of Antonio, the imperial barracks, close to the Temple.

The Jews objected to enter this fine palace, because as a Gentile residence it was defiled, and therefore defiling, and they wished to be "clean" for the feast they were to eat in the evening. Pilate humoured them, and had his conferences with them outside the building. Seeing their object and observing their temper, he must have discovered at once their miserable hypocrisy. These were the men who affected to be the leaders of the one pure faith on earth, a faith which looked with scorn on the "idolatry" of the cultured Roman. He must have regarded them with immense contempt. If his tone is cynical, it is but a match for the unmitigated cynicism of their conduct.

Pilate inquires as to the crime with which the Prisoner is charged. At first, the Jews do not give an explicit reply, only stating that they have already found Him guilty. Pilate catches at that. His weakness, so pitiably apparent throughout the whole proceedings, appears at this early stage. Desiring to shirk the responsibility of deciding the case—he would use the first apparent loophole of escape. Since the Jews have taken this case in hand, let them carry it through, dealing with it according to their law. They are not to be caught by that flattering suggestion. They know that they have not the power of life and death. Pilate would not let them kill Jesus. His proposal, which on the surface looks like the granting of a privilege, amounts to this, that they may exercise ecclesiastical discipline, excommunicate their Prisoner, or perhaps fling Him into jail, possibly scourge Him. But the worst of these punishments will not satisfy their determined hatred, or rid them of the haunting fear inspiring it, that Jesus will undermine their influence with the people. Nothing less than His death will put an end to that danger; so they thought, although the event proved that it was this very death of Christ that was to lead to the victory of Christianity over Judaism. This, however, even His own disciples could not foresee, much less could it enter into the minds of His enemies among the Jews.

Thwarted in his first attempt to escape, and compelled to try this difficult case, Pilate enters the palace where Jesus is kept under arrest, and questions Him. He has been informed that Jesus claims to be the king of the Jews. Is that so? Is the charge but a piece of malicious slander? If it is, there is an end of the matter. Pilate is not going to lend himself to humour the whim of those hateful Jews, whom he affects to despise while in his heart he is mortally afraid of them. There is nothing of the bearing of the violent insurgent in this calm peasant who stands before him. Surely this is some stupid mistake, or there is more Jewish malice in it than Pilate can fathom. But the Roman magistrate soon discovers that he is dealing with no ordinary man. Jesus takes his measure in a moment. Pilate is a feeble creature, with no character, insincere, dishonest. He must be made to feel his littleness. We can imagine how our Lord would fix on him a penetrating gaze before which the shallow nature of the man would become apparent, as He asked whether this cross-examination was genuine, or whether Pilate was prompted to it; whether, as we should say, it was "a put-up affair"—"Sayest thou this of thyself, or did others say it concerning Me?" Picture the situation—the great marble palace, the representative of Imperial Rome clad in the purple robe of office, and seated in his chair on the dais, the surrounding officials and bodyguard; and then the peasant from Galilee, alone, unattended, undefended, come straight from insult and mockery in another court, and that after a night of mental agony. Observe how completely the relative position of judge and Prisoner are reversed, at least, to the eyes of the onlooker. Jesus calmly questions Pilate, calmly tells him of the limit of his power, and calmly claims the kinship for himself—there of all places—in the Roman governor's residence, speaking to this governor himself, knowing that it must seal His own fate. The two powers are now face to face—the world-power of Rome, outwardly so imposing, but at this moment shrinking to insignificance, looking so vulgar, so mean, so sordid, so unreal, so essentially weak, in the person of the paltry governor; and the heavenly power, the power of truth and goodness, the Kingdom of God represented by the provincial Prisoner whose inherent dignity of Presence is seen to be all the more sublime for the contrast. And Pilate? How does he view this? He is manifestly disconcerted, but he tries to hide his awkwardness under a mask of Roman scorn. "Am I a Jew?" he exclaims, in a tone of measureless contempt. It is like the contempt of Agrippa when, in response to St Paul's enthusiastic appeal and close home-thrust, he cried, "With but little persuasion thou wouldest fain make me a Christian!" Pilate reminds Jesus that He has been given up by His own people. Jews might be expected to stand by a fellow-Jew under the Roman tyranny. How comes it to pass that the Jewish people have brought a man of their own race to the foreign tribunal, prosecuting Him before this alien power, seeking His death from the hated Imperial government? What can He have done to bring about so unusual a situation? Pilate is perplexed; and the answer of Jesus does not clarify the magistrate's ideas. It seems only more mystifying. Jesus describes His kingdom, so different from any institution bearing the name that Pilate has ever heard of. It is not of the order of things in this world. If it were, of course Christ's servants would fight, as do the servants of the claimants of earthly thrones. But they do not resort to violence. The kingdom and its methods of government are both unearthly. Pilate is interested, perhaps amused, with what now seem to him the fancies of a fanatical dreamer. He pursues the inquiry, we may suppose, with a smile on his lips, "Art thou a king, then?" he asked. There is no ambiguity in his Prisoner's reply. He is a king. This strange kingdom, not resting on any basis of earthly power, dispensing with fighting, with all that an army suggests, with force, is the very opposite to Pilate's idea of a state. Rome was materialistic to the core. Her rule rested on brute force. The Empire, the Imperium, was the dominion of the Imperator, that is to say, of the commander-in-chief of the army. It was a military despotism. Nominally the government was still republican, and the older and more peaceable provinces were administered by proconsuls, whose appointment rested with the senate, or was supposed by a legal fiction to rest with that body. But the newer and more troublesome provinces were governed as conquered territory directly by the emperor as the head of the army. Now Judaea came in this latter division. Pontius Pilate and his superior, the Legate of Syria, were both directly responsible to Tiberius Caesar. Pilate was Caesar's officer under military direction. Military methods characterised the procurator's rule. To a man placed as Pilate, the notion of a ruler independent of fighting supporters, and that in territory held down by force of arms, was simply absurd.

Our Lord's further explanation seems to Pilate still more out of keeping with the notion of royalty. Jesus says He was born to be a king in order that He might bear witness to the truth. A king—truth—what have these two words in common, the one referring to the most real region, the other to the most ideal? To Pilate, the conjunction is absolutely incongruous. "What is truth?" he asks, as he turns away, too contemptuous to wait for an answer. This famous utterance has been quoted as a text for the anxious inquirer, and preachers have gravely set themselves to answer it. Jesus did nothing of the kind. Evidently it was not a serious inquiry. Pilate flung off the very idea of truth—a mere abstraction, nothing to a practical Roman. Still, though he was not seeking any answer to his question, by the very tone of it he suggested that he did not possess that gem which those who hold it prize above all things. "The Scepticism of Pilate" is the title of one of Robertson's greatest sermons. The preacher traces it to four sources: indecision; falseness to his own convictions; the taint of the worldly temper of his day; and that priestly bigotry which forbids inquiry, and makes doubt a crime. Pilate is the typical sceptic, who is worlds removed from the "honest" doubter. Serious doubt, which is pained and anxious in the search of truth, is in essence belief, for it believes in the value of truth, if only truth can be discovered; but typical scepticism not only does not credit what the believer takes for truth, but despises it as not worth seeking. That is the fatal doubt, a doubt that eats into the soul as a moral canker.

Nevertheless, although what is of supreme value to Jesus is reckoned by Pilate as of no importance whatever, the cross-examination has satisfied the magistrate of the innocence of his Prisoner. His duty, then, is plain. He should acquit the innocent man. But he dare not do so immediately. That howling mob of Jews and those odious priests and Sadducees of the council are determined on the death of their victim. Pilate has made himself well hated by the roughness of his government. Nothing would please the Jews and their leaders better than to have some chance of impeaching him before his jealous master at Rome, on the charge of leniency to treason. Pilate quails before the terrible possibility. In face of it he simply dares not pronounce a verdict of acquittal. Yet he means to do all he can to effect the escape of his Prisoner. His inbred instinct for justice prompts him to this; for the Romans cherished reverence for law, and even so corrupt a ruler as Pilate was not independent of the atmosphere of his race. Then it would be a bitter humiliation to let his judgment be overruled by those contemptible Jews. He would be heartily glad to confound and disappoint them. More than this, he had begun to feel some awakening interest in his remarkable Prisoner. He had come to the conclusion that Jesus was a harmless dreamer; but he had felt some faint shadow of the spell of the wonderful Personality. If only it could be managed with safety to himself, he would be glad to have Jesus set free.

Accordingly we now see Pilate resorting to a series of devices in order to escape from his vexatious dilemma. From this point his conduct opens out to us a curious study in psychological phenomena. The ingenuity of Pilate in resorting to one expedient after another, is very striking. Evidently he has keen wits, and he uses them with some agility. But it is all in vain. He is pushed from each of the positions he takes up by the same stubborn, relentless pressure which he invariably finds to be irresistible. The explanation is, that though he has intellect, he lacks will-power. On the other side there is not much need for intelligence, but there is the most obstinate will. The Jews possess a clear notion of what they want, and a set determination to have their way. In such a contest there is no doubt which side will win. When will is bitter against intellect, it is the latter that succumbs. The determined will forces itself through all opposition that rests only on intelligence, reasoning, contrivance. Intellect does not count for nothing; allied to a strong will, as in Calvin, Cromwell, Napoleon, it helps to effect gigantic results. But in the sphere of action, it is will-power that tells in immediate results. Even here, reason may conquer stupid obstinacy in the long-run. But you must give it time; and you must have honesty of character. Neither condition was present in this case of Pilate. He had to decide promptly; and his moral nature was unsound. Such a man under such circumstances will never find his most cunning devices a match for the set determination of his opponents. So Pilate, feebly protesting, helplessly scheming, is pushed back step by step; and ultimately he concedes everything demanded of him, and the final issue is more humiliating to himself and more cruel to the innocent Prisoner whom he is trying to shield, than it would have been if he had yielded at the beginning. The real victim of this tragedy in the palace is not Jesus, it is the soul of Pilate. We seem to see a weak man being thrust down a steep place, resisting and catching at the shrubs and rocks that he passes, but torn from his grasp of them and finally flung over the precipice.

Pilate's first device was to send Jesus to Herod Antipas, who happened to be at Jerusalem at the time. It was a compliment to the frivolous "king of Galilee" to remit a Galilean prisoner to his judgment, and Pilate would gladly rid himself of the awkward case by this ingenious device. But it was useless, for the simple reason that Herod had no power of life and death in Jerusalem, and Pilate soon had his Prisoner on his hands again. Next he clutched at the custom of releasing a prisoner during the feast. Here was a chance for letting off Jesus without declaring Him innocent. But this suggestion was hopeless. If the Jews were set on effecting the death of Jesus, they would not give up their right to choose their prisoners to be released, and take at the dictation of Pilate the very man they wanted to have done to death. They clamoured for an insurgent, Barabbas, a man caught red-handed in the very crime for which these hypocrites professed in their new-fledged loyalty to Caesar to be anxious to have Jesus executed. The cynicism of their choice is palpable. By daring to make it, they show in what contempt they hold Pilate. The governor loses ground considerably by this false move. Then he tries to throw the blame of the murder of Jesus, which he sees he cannot prevent, on the Jews. A new motive urges him to escape from the responsibility of committing a judicial murder. His wife had sent a private message warning him to "have nothing to do with that righteous man." She had been much disturbed by a dream about him. Romans were slaves to omens and auguries, and the most materialistic of them felt some awe of dreams, although they had lost faith in real religion. Your confirmed sceptic is often slavishly superstitious in the secret of his soul. It is a way the spiritual has of avenging itself on the man who openly flouts it. Boldly flung out of the window, it creeps back into the cellar and vexes the soul with petty tricks played on the subterranean consciousness. The man who expels his good angel is haunted by imps and elves. He who will not believe in God and despises truth succumbs to the message of a dream.

More anxious now than ever to escape responsibility, Pilate calls for water and publicly washes his hands, telling the Jews that the innocent blood will be on their heads. They accept the awful responsibility. What do they care for the weak Roman's scruples? He is doing their will, and of course no hand-washing can cleanse his conscience from the stain of guilty compliance.

Yet one thing more Pilate will do. He will scourge Jesus. Perhaps that may satisfy these savage Jews. For scourging was a savage punishment. The whip was loaded with lead and sharp fish-bones, and at every stroke the flesh was cut. Men often died under this severe treatment. Pilate had it inflicted on Jesus, knowing Him to be innocent; but hoping that, if He survived, no more might be required. It was an abominable compromise. If Jesus were innocent—and Pilate knew He was innocent—He should have been set free unscathed, with apologies for a mistaken arrest. If he were guilty, of course he ought to receive the death-penalty for the crime of treason. Justice could allow of no middle course. But Pilate is not thinking of Justice. He only wants to escape the onus of killing an innocent man. Then he has Jesus brought forth, bleeding, in agony, His lacerated flesh exposed to the view of that heartless multitude. "Behold the man," says Pilate. "Look at your victim; is not this enough?" If Pilate thought his appeal ad misericordiam would touch those hardened sinners of the Sanhedrin, he was strangely mistaken. The sight of their victim in His agony only maddens them. They are like hounds who had tasted blood. Like hounds, they "give tongue," and yell for His death. Pilate can resist no longer. He has played his last card, and it has been taken. Thoroughly humiliated and quite helpless, he gives sentence, and so in spite of the governor's desperate efforts to escape the stigma of his awful crime, it goes down to all the ages that Jesus was "crucified under Pontius Pilate."



BARABBAS

BY REV. J. G. GREENHOUGH, M.A.



"And they cried out all at once, saying, Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas."—ST LUKE xxiii. 18.

You have heard a crowd of people cry out all at once. It is always impressive, it is sometimes very terrible, occasionally it is sublime. It begins in a way that no one can explain. Somebody in the crowd utters a name, or ejaculates a brief sentence. What happens? Often nothing at all. Men are not in the mood for it; it drops unnoticed, or provokes a jeer or two and is then forgotten. But sometimes the word falls like a spark on a mass of dry tinder—ten thousand hearts have been prepared for it—swift as a flash of lightning a sympathetic current passes through the whole throng—ten thousand lips take up the cry. They are all carried away by contagion, magnetism, or madness, and a shout goes up enough to rend the sky. When some great and noble sentiment has laid hold of them, the shout of a people is one of the grandest things on earth; when it is some awful prejudice, unreasoning hatred, or cowardly terror that sways them, the shout is the most inhuman and hellish thing on earth; and that was the character of the shout that was raised here.

The world has never forgotten that cry, and never will. To the very last the world will wonder how it should have come to be raised, and will condemn and pity the crowd of people who gave themselves up to it, for they were making a hero of the vilest stuff, and clamouring for the murder of the world's one Divine man. There never was a more brutal and insane shout than that; never again can there be a choice so fatal and so suicidal as the choice they made: "Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas."

If the thing had not happened, we should say it was impossible. It seems well-nigh incredible that human eyes and human hearts could be so blind. A story of this kind is food for the bitterest cynic. He who has the most utter contempt for the race to which he belongs might find here almost a justification of his scorn. Oh what a satire upon human nature, that a whole city full of people, men, women, mothers and daughters, had come to this pass that they could not discern which was the nobler of these two—nay, thought that Barabbas was more deserving of their honour. One the very flower and crown of humanity, the express image of God; and the other a gaol bird, a notorious criminal, whose hands had been dyed red, and whose heart had been hardened by the shedding of blood. Well might those pitiful lips say, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Why did they do it? Why did they raise their voices for Barabbas?

The main answer is that men make their heroes as the heathen make gods, after their own image. There is no doubt that Barabbas was more to the taste of this people, more according to their heart, than Christ; or at least they thought he was; not quite their ideal man, perhaps, but certainly nearer to their ideal than the Christ whom they rejected. It may be that they had had no particular love for him until just now, possibly they had hardly thought of him at all; but now it was a question between this man and Jesus, and Jesus they did not want at any price. And their very hatred of the one made the other look beautiful. Barabbas is our man, they said, and the more they said it the more they believed it; and each time the name was repeated it sounded sweeter, until they were all shouting it, nine-tenths of them because the others shouted it, and until they really made themselves believe that in this man they had got a veritable hero and hardly less than a god.

That is always what happens in such cases, the greater part begin shouting for no particular reason because a few others have led the way, and they end by believing that the man whom they are acclaiming is almost divine; yet it is certain that they elected this man on the whole because of the two he had more points in common with them, this poor despicable and very unheroic thing was the person whom they delighted to honour because they themselves were very unheroic and somewhat despicable. We cannot see the greatness of a truly great man unless there is just a bit of greatness in ourselves; Christ was too big and too divine to be seen and measured by their small and vulgar eyes. Barabbas was about their size, and they raised their voices for him.

We have had Carlyle's words quoted to us a thousand times about heroes and hero-worship—how it is part of human nature to go after heroes and make them—how the world has always been given up to this worship, and always will be. We all revere and follow great men, or those whom we deem great, which is not quite the same thing. And it is a beautiful feature in human nature if it is wisely directed, if we can only set our hearts on the true heroes and follow them. It is not beautiful at all when we make our gods of clay, and shout ourselves hoarse in exalting to the skies creatures as undivine and quite as small as we are.

Heroes are sometimes easily made to-day, and martyrs too. Modern martyrdom of the popular sort is about the least costly thing going. It calls for no tears and blood, it can be gained on very easy terms. You have only to break a law which you do not like, or your conscience does not approve, and to be brought up for it with an admiring crowd accompanying you, and to have a fine imposed, which is paid for, perhaps, by popular subscription—and lo, you are a martyr. I am not calling in question the thing itself. It may be both right and Christian to refuse obedience to a law on extreme occasions; but to call this martyrdom is extravagant and almost humorous.

It was not so in the olden time when the real martyrs were made. No, those martyrs were not delicately handled, but stripped and stoned to pieces, and burned, and there were no crowds to greet them with bravoes and caresses, but furious mobs clamouring for their blood. We have changed all that indeed, thank God: but they were heroes and martyrs indeed, and it sounds to me somewhat like a desecration of the word to apply it to men and even women who are good, probably brave in a way, but who win their crown of glory very cheaply indeed. If we are to have heroes, let us make sure that they possess some heroic stuff.

There is a vast amount of hero-worship to-day which reminds us too much of that shout for Barabbas. We are glorifying the wrong people; at least, most of us are. It is one of the deplorable weaknesses of the times, or if you like it better, it is one of the fashions or crazes to which human nature at times gives itself up. The heroes of the crowd, of the great mass of people, are not the good men, not the men of light and leading, not the men who are morally great or even intellectually great, not the men who are the strength and salt of a nation, but the men who minister to its pleasures, and lead the way in sports. No one can have any doubt of that. No one can have any doubt about the sort of persons whom the vast majority of young people, and some older people too, delight to honour. With some it is the star of the music hall or opera. With a great many more it is the winner of a race, or the champion player in a successful football team, or the most effective bowler, or the highest scorer in cricket. The crowd goes mad about these heroes. There is no throne high enough to place them on. Money and favours are lavished at their feet, and all the newspapers are full of their glorious triumphs.

Mark I am not speaking against athletic sports. I like to see a well and honestly played game, and I would join in the clapping when a man makes a clever stroke. What I object to is the crazy and almost delirious worship which is given to these champions of the sporting world. It is the excess of the thing that proves a diseased state of mind. There is more fuss made over some youth who scores a few hundreds on the cricket-field, than there would be over a man who had saved six hundred lives. In hundreds of journals his portrait appears, and his doings are chronicled as if he had wrought some deliverance for the nation. Poor lad, it is not his fault that he has sprung up suddenly into fame, it is the fault of the people who love to have these things so. It is because men have gone pleasure-mad and sport-mad, and in their madness cannot see the difference between a clever athlete and a mental or moral giant. We prove what our own tastes are, we prove the quality of our own hearts and minds, we prove our own debasement, when we exalt physical strength above excellence of character, when we make our heroes out of muscle instead of soul, when we worship those who serve our pleasure more than those who set us examples of noble things, and lead the way in them. It is only another rendering of the old shout, "Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas." Not so wicked, of course, but equally foolish and unworthy.

Who are your heroes? That is the question. Or in other words, What sort of men do you admire most? Answer that, and I know at once what sort of men and women you are. If you are worshippers of pleasure, the champions of the pleasure-world will be your idols and kings. If you are rooted and grounded in the love of lucre, the successful millionaire is the man that you will fawn upon or worship from afar. If your main delight is in intellectual things, the great thinkers and writers will be the men to whom you look up with reverence. And if you are good men, with a passionate love for goodness, and a constant striving to be better than you are, there are none whom you will admire with all your hearts except the good, except the best, and those who are leading in the way of goodness.

In a land which is truly Christian, the only heroes will be those who most resemble Christ. If we are truly Christians, and Christian thoughts have taken full possession of our hearts, we shall recognise no heroes save those who serve as Christ served, who live in a measure as Christ lived, who deny themselves for others, and spend their strength for the benefit of their fellow-men as the Master did. These are the true heroes, and all the others are more or less cheap imitations of them, or false substitutes for them. These are the true heroes, I say. The men and women who risk their lives to save other lives. The men who use their strength and ability, not for pay, but for the good and the advancement of their fellow-men, to save men from their sins, and to lessen the sum of human ill. The brave men and women who venture all things to serve some great and righteous cause, and to speed on the Kingdom of Christ and righteousness in the world.

We have no right to count any as heroes unless they have courage, patience, self-denial, great love for their fellow-men, and strength which they cheerfully employ for something greater than themselves. The men, in fact, who have something of Christ in them; these are the only heroes whom God writes down in His book of life, and they are the only heroes whom we shall exalt in our hearts if we are followers of the crucified One.

In a Christian land, the beginning and end of all true and healthy hero-worship, is to set Christ first and above everything else and every one else in our affections. We shall measure all other men truly if we have first of all taken the true measure of Him. Love Him with all your hearts, say of Him, "Thou art the chief among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely," and you will never give much of your hearts again to the things and the men who are morally not worth loving. You will never be carried away again into the worship of that which is false, common, or cheap. A man who sees all beauty, and the perfect beauty in Christ, will never say that there is much beauty anywhere else, except where there is something that resembles Christ.

We have to make our choice to-day, as those men made it long ago. It is not quite the same choice. It is not Barabbas against Christ, but it is the poor, coarse, common, frivolous things of the world against Christ. It is the earthly against the heavenly; it is pleasure and sin against the service of the Man who was crucified: it is the love of self, and things baser than ourselves, against the love of Him who died for us. And everything depends upon that choice. To make Him your King is to become kingly yourselves, and to be crowned at last with the true glory and honour. But it is a terrible thing to say, "Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas."



JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA

BY REV. ALFRED ROWLAND, D.D.. LL.B.

"Joseph of Arimathea, an honourable counsellor, which also waited for the kingdom of God."—MARK xv. 43.

The crucifixion of our Lord produced strange and startling effects in moral experience, as well as in the physical world. The veil of the Temple was rent from top to bottom as if a hand from heaven had torn it, in order to teach men that the ancient ritual was done with. Darkness covered the earth, suggesting to thoughtful minds the guilt of the world and the mystery of the sacrifice which atoned for it. Concurrently with these physical phenomena were spiritual experiences. The Roman centurion who, in command of four soldiers, had the duty of seeing the sentence of the law duly executed, was so profoundly moved by what he saw of the Divine Sufferer and by His dying cry, that he exclaimed, "Truly this was the Son of God," and thus he became the first of the great multitude out of all nations who give honour to the Lamb that has been slain. The women, too, who were sometimes despised for weakness and timidity, proved themselves in this crisis to be heroines. And Joseph of Arimathea, who up to this moment of shame and apparent defeat had been content to remain a secret disciple of our Lord, now boldly avowed his love and loyalty.

The "even" had come, the second evening of the Jews, and the last streak of golden light was beginning to fade from the western sky. Three lifeless bodies were still hanging on the crosses at Golgotha, but according to Jewish custom they were about to be taken down, and flung into a dishonourable grave, when Joseph "went in boldly to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus," caring for our Lord in death as another Joseph had cared for him in infancy.

This man is described as an "honourable counsellor," which doubtless means a member of the Sanhedrim. He is also spoken of as "a good man and a just," which could not have been said of many of his fellow-counsellors. On this occasion his action was sufficiently important in its relation to prophecy, and in its bearing as evidence of the reality of the burial and of the resurrection of our Lord, to be mentioned in each of the Four Gospels. Yet neither by this nor by social influence, nor by brilliant gifts (if he possessed them), did he become prominent in the early Church. Probably he was a man of practical sagacity and ready resource, rather than of great spiritual force. He could not stand on the same level with Simon Peter, the fisherman, whose honour it was so to hold the key of the Kingdom as to open the door of it to the Gentiles; nor did he ever attain influence comparable to that of Paul, who shook the citadel of paganism to its foundations, and planted amid its fallen defences the seed of the Kingdom, even the word of God. Joseph must be regarded as a common soldier, rather than as a general in Christ's army; but when the officers had fallen, or deserted their Leader, he bravely stepped to the front and proved himself a hero. Perhaps all the more on this account some study of his character and conduct may encourage those who are not prominent in the Church to cultivate his fidelity, promptitude, and courage.

If we piece together the few fragments of his biography which are scattered through the Four Gospels, we shall gain a fuller and more accurate conception of the man.

I.

It is clear that Joseph had already protested against the wrong done to our Lord by the Sanhedrim, though he had been powerless to prevent it.

In this protest no doubt Nicodemus would have sided with him, but he was probably absent, for Joseph seems to have stood alone in his refusal to condemn the prophet of Nazareth. This was not easy. He would be urged to vote with his fellow-counsellors on the ground that their ecclesiastical authority, which had been defied, must be maintained, and that loyalty to the Sanhedrim demanded that all members of it should sink their private opinions in its defence. To hold out against an otherwise unanimous council would be the more difficult if Joseph had but recently attained the honour of membership, and this is probable, for the allusion to his "new grave" seems to imply that he had not long resided in Jerusalem. It was difficult, and possibly dangerous, to assert his independence; but he did so by vote, if not by voice, for he "had not consented to the counsel and deed of them."

Right-minded men are not infrequently placed in a similar position. A policy may be initiated which they disapprove, and yet their protest against it may wreck the party and even displace the government, so that they naturally hesitate between party loyalty and enlightened conscience. Others who are engaged in business, or in professional affairs, have sometimes to confront doubtful practices which, though sanctioned by custom, unquestionably tend to the lowering of the moral tone of the nation. Their own financial interests, their fear of casting a slur on some known to them, who, though guilty of such practices are in other respects honourable men, and their dread of posing before the world as over-scrupulous, pharisaic men, who are righteous over-much—all urge them to keep quiet, especially as such a custom cannot be put down by one man. Yet is not conscience to be supreme, even under such conditions? The cultivation of the required moral heroism, which is sadly lacking in all sections of society, must begin in youth; and in this, elder brothers and sisters as well as parents and teachers of all grades have serious responsibility. Occasionally the moral atmosphere of a whole school becomes corrupt, and practices spring up which can only be put down by some right-minded lad or girl running the risk of unpopularity and social ostracism, yet it is under such conditions that God's heroes are bred; and books like Tom Brown's Schooldays have done much to foster the development of the heroic temper.

The truth is, that, wherever we are, in this world where evil widely prevails, fidelity to conscience must occasionally inspire what seems an unavailing protest against the practice of the majority. But we must see to it on such occasions that a real principle is at stake, and that we are not moved by mere desire for self-assertion, nor by pride and obstinacy. If, however, we are consciously free from these, and bravely protest against a wrong we cannot prevent, we may at least look for the approval of Him who carried His protest against evil up to the point of death, even the death of the Cross.

In thus taking up our stand against what we believe to be wrong, we may be, imperceptibly to ourselves, emboldening others, who are secretly waiting for some such lead.

II.

If Joseph required bravery on the council, he needed it still more when he went into the presence of Pilate to beg the body of Jesus.

The Roman procurator was a man to be dreaded by any Jew, and was just now in a suspicious and angry mood. But Joseph not only braved a repulse from him. He knew he would have to confront the far more bitter hostility of the priests. Theirs was a relentless hate, before which Peter had fallen, and Pilate himself had quailed. Yet this man Joseph, brought up though he had been in circumstances of ease, went in boldly to Pilate and deliberately ran the risk of their savage hatred, which would not only bring about as he believed his expulsion from office, but in all probability cruel martyrdom. It was a bold step; but no sooner did he take it than another rich man was by his side—Nicodemus by name—who also himself was one of Christ's disciples, though secretly, for fear of the Jews. The act of Joseph had more far-reaching consequences on the conduct of others than he expected.

Most heroic actions are richer in results than is expected by those who dare to do them; though the immediate effects may seem disappointing. Elijah learnt to his amazement that although all the people on Carmel had not been converted, more than seven thousand faithful men had been emboldened by his conduct. And when John plucked up courage to go right in to the palace of the high priest, Peter, who till then had followed Jesus afar off, went in also.

The truth is, that we all have influence beyond the limits of what we can see or estimate—parents over children, employers over their young people, mistresses over servants; for what we are these are encouraged to be, whether for good or for evil. Indeed, even a child who fearlessly speaks the truth, a servant who does her work thoroughly and cheerfully, an obscure lad who in a small situation is faithful to honour and truth, will effect far more than is imagined. Others who are unperceived are emboldened, and range themselves on the side of righteousness.

Joseph discovered, as many have done since, that when he steadfastly set his face towards duty he succeeded far better then he expected. When he went into the palace of Pilate he foresaw that he might be asked to pay an enormous ransom, for that would be only customary; or possibly his request might be scornfully refused by the procurator, who was angry with himself and with the Jews. But, doubtless to his amazement, no such thing happened. Without delay, or bartering or abuse, Pilate at once gave him leave.

History is crowded with similar incidents. How helpless and hopeless the Israelites were when they found themselves face to face with the waters of the Red Sea, while the army of Egypt was rapidly overtaking them; yet they soon discovered that their danger was to prove their means of deliverance; for the waters which barred their progress to liberty soon overwhelmed their enemies. In other spheres of experience such deliverances have come, and will continue to come, to trustful souls:

"Dark and wide the sea appears, Every soul is full of fears, Yet the word is 'onward still,' Onward move and do His will; And the great deep shall discover God's highway to take thee over."

Peter had a similar experience when in prison. He arose and followed the angel, and safely passed through the first and the second ward; but the great iron gate seemed an insuperable barrier, yet that opened to them of its own accord, and he stepped through it into liberty. Thus it was with the women who as they walked, while it was yet dark, towards the grave of their Lord, thought of one difficulty which seemed insurmountable, and asked one another, "Who shall roll us away the stone at the door of the sepulchre?" Still on they went, with faith and courage, and when they reached their imagined difficulty they found that it had vanished; for they saw that the stone was rolled away.

A similar experience is constantly met with. It is shared by a young man who is expected to undertake some doubtful transaction, but from conscientious scruple hesitates. He fears what the result of a refusal may be, but resolves to risk it; perhaps to find that the order is not pressed, or that some new incident opens up for him a way of escape. True, God does not always deliver a conscientious man from the special danger before him, but in the forum of conscience, and before the judgment-seat of Christ, he will be righted.

Be the result what it may, we must be true to conscience, which, however, is but another form of saying, we must be true to God; and instead of peering into the future, and picturing to ourselves all possible evil results, we must learn to take the next obvious step in the pathway of duty, trusting that God will make the next step clear, possible, and safe. When a tourist is climbing a difficult mountain, his guide sometimes rounds a corner, or climbs up to a higher level, and for a time is lost to sight, having left his charge behind him; and he, unaccustomed to such an expedition, dares not look down, and fears to stir another step, till feeling the rope taut between himself and the guide, and hearing his cheery voice, he ventures forward, to find that the danger was not so great as he imagined. Thus made bolder by each difficulty surmounted, he begins to feel the exhilaration of a mountain climb, which braces the nerves more than anything besides. If we are really anxious to be in God's appointed way, and boldly take it when it is made clear, we may be sure that He will answer the prayer: "Hold up my goings in Thy paths, that my footsteps slip not."

III.

There are crises in the experience of every one when the whole future is determined; and such a crisis came to Joseph of Arimathea.

He had been for some time a disciple of Jesus, but had never avowed the fact. But after standing on Calvary and seeing the death of his Lord, sorrow, shame, and indignation so stirred him, that at once he went in boldly unto Pilate. It was the turning-point in his history, when obedience to God-given impulse decided his whole destiny. The spiritual influences which play upon our souls are not even in their flow. There are times when one is strangely moved, although in outward environment there is little to account for it. The sermon listened to may be illiterate, the hymn sung may be destitute of poetic beauty, the friendly word may be spoken by a social inferior—yet one of these sometimes suffices as the channel of divine power, which shakes the soul to its very depths. We have known the unexpected avowal of love to Christ on the part of one obscure scholar set all in the class thinking on the subject of personal responsibility to God, and to His Church. And sometimes the sorrow of leaving home for the first time, or the death of a dearly-loved friend, has sufficed to arouse the question, "What must I do to be saved?" We must beware of allowing such opportunities for decisive action to slip away unimproved. When a vessel has grounded at the harbour-bar, she must wait till the tide lifts her, or she will not reach a safe anchorage; but when the tide does flow in, no sane man will let the chance go by, lest a storm should rise and wreck her within reach of home.

It is noteworthy that Joseph was moved to decision and confession by the crucifixion of the Lord; for this might have been expected to seal his lips. It would seem to have been easier to follow the great Teacher when listening crowds gathered round Him, and multitudes were being healed of whatsoever diseases they had, than to acknowledge loyalty to Him when He was crucified as a malefactor. Yet it was from the Cross that this man went into the Church. The light came to him when darkness seemed deepest. It was in the presence of the crucified Saviour, of whom even the Roman centurion said, "Truly this was the Son of God," that Joseph learned to say, "Because thou hast died for me, I will henceforth live for Thee." This was one of the earliest triumphs of the Cross, in which Paul gloried, and of Him who died thereon—dying for us all, that we who live should not henceforth live unto ourselves but unto Him. In the presence of that memorable scene we are called on for more than admiration or adoration, even for a passionate devotion to Him who gave Himself up for us all.

It may be that some of His professed followers may again fail Him, and that others will step in to do the service which He requires. In the hour of darkness all His recognised disciples forsook him and fled; and when the tragedy on Golgotha was over, it was not Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, who rendered Him the last service, but holy, humble women, and Joseph and Nicodemus, who up till then had not been reckoned as disciples at all. There are times in the history of the Church when our Lord seems "crucified afresh, and put to an open shame," while His so-called disciples remain silent and hidden. Superstition and sin still join hands to put the Christ to death, to bury Him, and seal His sepulchre. But secret disciples are meanwhile avowing themselves; coming from the east, and the west, from the north, and from the south, to fill up the vacant places, to do the needed services, and to rejoice in a risen and glorified Lord. Better by far the doing of a simple act of love to the Saviour who died for us—such as Joseph did—than loud professions of loyalty, or accurate knowledge of creeds. Hear once more the solemn words of Jesus: "Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven."

"And that voice still soundeth on From the centuries that are gone To the centuries that shall be! From all vain pomps and shows, from the pride that overflows, From all the narrow rules and subtleties of Schools, And the craft of tongue and pen: Bewildered in its search, bewildered with the cry: 'Lo here, lo there, the Church!' poor, sad Humanity Through all the dust and heat turns back with bleeding feet By the weary road it came Unto the simple thought by the Great Master taught, And that remaineth still: 'Not he that repeateth the Name But he that doeth the Will.'"



PHILIP, THE EVANGELIST

BY REV. GEORGE MILLIGAN, M.A., D.D.

Philip the Evangelist must be carefully distinguished from Philip the Apostle. And though it is little that we are told regarding him in Scripture, that little is very significant. He first comes before us as one of the seven chosen by the early Church at Jerusalem to take charge of the daily ministration of charity to the poor widows (Acts vi. I ff.). And when this work is hindered by the outbreak of persecution following on the death of Stephen, we find him at once departing to enter on active missionary work elsewhere (Acts viii. 4 ff.). The fact that he should have selected Samaria as the scene of these new labours, is in itself a proof that he was able to rise above the ordinary Jewish prejudices of his time. And this same liberal spirit is further exemplified by the incident in connection with which he will always be principally remembered.

In obedience to a Divine summons, Philip had betaken himself to the way that goeth down from Jerusalem to Gaza. And if at first he may have wondered why he should have been called upon to leave his rapidly progressing work in Samaria for a desert road, he was not for long left in doubt as to what was required of him. For as he walked along he was overtaken by an Ethiopian stranger returning in his chariot from Jerusalem. This man, who was the chamberlain or treasurer of Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians, had heard somehow in his distant home, of the Jewish religion, and had undertaken this long journey to make further inquiries regarding it. We are not told how he had been impressed; very possibly the actual fruits that he witnessed were very different from what he had expected. But one treasure at least he had found, a Greek copy of the prophecies of Isaiah, and this he was eagerly searching on his return journey, to see if he could find further light there. One passage specially arrested his attention, the touching passage in which the prophet draws out his great portraiture of the Man of Sorrows. But, then, how reconcile the thought of this Messiah, suffering, wounded, dying, with the great King and Conqueror whom the Jews at Jerusalem had been expecting! Could it be that he had anything to do with our Jesus of Nazareth, of whom he had also heard, and whom, because of the Messianic claims He had put forward, the Jewish leaders had crucified on a cross? Oh, for some one to help him! Help was nearer than he thought. Prompted by the Spirit, Philip ran forward to the chariot; and no sooner had he learned the royal chamberlain's difficulties than he "opened his mouth, and beginning from this scripture, preached unto him Jesus" (Acts viii. 35).

We are not told on what particulars Philip dwelt; but, doubtless, starting from the prophetic description of the Man of Sorrows, "despised and rejected of men," he would show how that description held true of the earthly life of Jesus. And then he would go on to show the meaning and bearing of these sufferings. They arose from no fault on the part of Jesus; but, "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities." And yet that was not the end. The life which had thus ended in shame had begun again in glory: the cross had led on to the crown. And as thus he unfolded the first great principles of the Christian faith, Philip would press home on the eunuch's awakened conscience that they had a vital meaning for him. "Repent," can we not imagine him pleading as Peter had pleaded before, "and be baptised . . . in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost" (Acts ii. 38). The eunuch's heart was touched, and he asked that he might be baptized. Satisfied that he was in earnest, Philip agreed to his request. And when they came to a certain water, "they both went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him." Thus "the Ethiopian changed his skin," and "went on his way rejoicing" to his distant home, to declare in his turn to his countrymen the tidings of great joy.

There are many points of view from which we might regard this beautiful incident, but it is with it in its bearing on the person and character of Philip that we are alone at present concerned. And in considering it further in this light, it may be well to confine ourselves to noticing in what way it gained for Philip his distinctive title of "the Evangelist," and consequently what it has to teach us still regarding all evangelistic and missionary work.

I.

The Evangelist.

With regard to the evangelist himself, one truth stands out clearly from the whole narrative, his work is given to him to do. He is first and foremost a missionary, one sent.

It is a pity, perhaps, that in our ordinary speech, we have come to limit the name "missionary" so much to the man who carries the gospel abroad. No doubt he is a missionary in the highest sense of the word; but still the fundamental idea in every minister or evangelist's position is the idea of one sent—sent for a particular purpose, with a particular message to proclaim wherever God may place him. He has no power, no authority of his own. All that he has comes from Him whose servant he is, and whose truth he has to announce.

You remember—to appeal at once to the highest example—how ever-present this thought of His mission was to the mind of our Lord and Master. His meat, so He told His disciples, was to do the will of Him that sent Him (John iv. 34). The word which He spake was not His own, but the Father's who sent Him (John xiv. 24). And so when the time came for His sending forth His disciples to carry on His work, it was as "Apostles," those sent, that the work was entrusted to them; and in the same spirit He prayed for them in His great intercessory prayer: "As Thou didst send Me into the world, even so sent I them into the world" (John xvii. 18).

If we keep this view of the evangelist as the missionary, ever before us, there is one fact regarding his position we can never lose sight of. He has no new truth of his own to declare, no new theories of his own to frame. The message which he has to deliver is not his own, but God's; and it must be his constant endeavour to learn that message for himself, and then, as God's servant, to announce it to others. Men may receive his message. If they do not, he dare not substitute any other.

II.

His Message.

In what does the evangelist's message consist? "Philip," we are told, "preached unto him JESUS." And what that included we have already seen. It was the story of the life, and the death, and the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, a new story then, an old story now, but still "the old, old story" for us.

The duty of the Christian teacher must be first of all to proclaim Christ and His salvation, to announce the glad tidings of mercy and of love to sinful men.

This is not, of course, to say that every address or sermon is to be occupied with the objective facts of Christ's life and death. Such teaching would soon become monotonous and wearisome, and fail in the very purpose it set before it. Nor have men only to be awakened to the truth, they must be built up in it. And the practical question for us all is to learn how to apply and carry out in our daily lives, the truths we have received, how to make our conduct correspond to our creed. That opens up an endless field for the evangelist's work: that introduces us to lectures on Home Missions and Foreign Missions, to the story of noble lives; to all, in fact, that is likely to deepen and to quicken our moral nature. But still this remains as the fundamental object of the whole evangel, to preach Jesus, to bring those to Him who know Him not, to strengthen and to comfort those who do.

When, then, men call upon the Christian teacher to leave the objective facts of the gospel alone, and to occupy himself with the philosophic and social questions of the day, they are calling upon him to surrender his special function and duty. He must indeed endeavour so to present the truth so as to meet the peculiar wants of his own time. The form in which the gospel was presented in one age may not be the best form of presenting it in another. At one time it may be necessary to emphasise one aspect of the truth, at another, another. But underneath all its changing forms and aspects, the truth remains unchanged; and it is that which must be taught.

And after all, has not the simple gospel message ever proved itself the one message that can touch the hearts and meet the wants of men? What was it, for example, in the preaching of Savonarola that so mightily moved Florence, the elegant, refined, wicked, pagan Florence of the fifteenth century? He himself tells us that it was the preaching of Scripture truth. When he discoursed in a philosophical manner, the ignorant and the learned were alike inattentive: but "the word" mightily delighted the minds of men, and showed its divine power in the reformation of their lives. Or, to take another instance from nearer home. Archdeacon Wilson describes somewhere the experience of the promoters of a certain evening-class, which they had instituted for the benefit of some of the more ignorant and degraded inhabitants of Bristol. All that they could think of they did for the benefit of the men who gathered to it. They read to them; they sang to them: they taught them to read and write. Yet, in course of time, interest flagged. Every expedient failed, and they were on the point of abandoning the work in despair, when it occurred to them to apply to the men themselves. "What would you like us to tell you about next?" they asked. "Could you tell us something about Jesus Christ?" answered one of the men. That was the one thing needful, the one abiding satisfaction for their deepest needs.

And so ever. It may be strange, but it is true, that it is "the Man of Sorrows" who has won the love of men; it is the Saviour who has been lifted up on high out of the earth, who has drawn all men to Himself. Christ: Christ crucified: Christ risen: that is the message which every Christian evangelist has to declare.

III.

His Message of Glad Tidings.

And is not that good news? "Beginning from that same scripture, Philip preached the GLAD TIDINGS of Jesus."

Philip made the eunuch's previous knowledge the starting-point of all that he had to say, and, as he went on, showed how there was in his message the answer to all his doubts and the solution of all his difficulties.

And the gospel has still the same meaning for us. It has a message for the man struggling with the battle of life, in the example of One who has fought that fight before, who knows its every trial and sorrow, and who has come gloriously through them all. It has a message for the sinner, brooding anxiously over his guilty past, conscious only of his own defilement and unworthiness in the sight of an all-holy God, as it assures him of mercy and free forgiveness, of sin blotted out in the blood of Christ. It has a message for the trembling believer, compassed about with temptations and doubts, as it tells of One who can still be "touched with the feeling of our infirmities," and who, because "He Himself hath suffered being tempted," is "able to succour them that are tempted." And it has a message for the mourner sorrowing over the loss of near and dear ones, for it points to Him who is "the Resurrection and the Life" of His people, and gives promise of the "Father's house" with its many mansions, where He is preparing a place for His children.

And yet great and glorious though that message is, where there are not a hearing ear, an understanding heart, and a willing mind, even a St Philip or a St Paul may preach in vain. But where, on the other hand, these are present, then God may use even the humblest and feeblest of His servants to speak some word, to utter some warning, which may be worth to us more than all we have in the world besides. God grant that it may be so with us, and that by the power of the Holy Ghost the word preached may be welcomed, "not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which also worketh in you that believe" (1 Thess. ii. 13).



ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA

BY REV. GEORGE MILLIGAN, M.A., D.D.

One of the most striking features of the early Christian Church was what we have come to know as Christian Communism, or as the historian describes it in Acts iv, 32: "And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and soul: and not one of them said that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common." It is a bright and a pleasing picture that is thus presented. Nor is it difficult to understand how such a spirit should arise amongst men whose hearts were full to overflowing with the new Christian graces of brotherhood and peace. For we must not imagine that there was anything compulsory about this communism. It was entirely voluntary, and was due to the eager desire on the part of the wealthier members of the Church to do all that they could for their poorer brethren. In this particular alone, we can at once see how widely it differed from what is generally known as communism or socialism in the present day. The spirit of much at any rate of our present-day socialism—so the distinction has been cleverly drawn—is, "What is thine, is mine": but the spirit of those early believers was rather, "What is mine, is thine."

At the same time, we can readily understand that in a large and mixed community like the early Church, all members would not think exactly alike, and that while many, we may believe most, would cheerfully obey this unwritten law of love, and share and share alike, others would give in to it—if they did give in, for, let me again emphasise, there was no compulsion upon any—more grudgingly and hesitatingly.

Of these two classes the writer of the Book of Acts presents us with individual examples—of the former class, in the case of Joseph, or Barnabas, a wealthy Cypriot, who "having a field, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet" (Acts iv. 37)—of the latter, in the case of Ananias with Sapphira his wife, whose melancholy story is now before us.

That story is very familiar, and is often regarded simply as an instance of the sinfulness of lying. And that undoubtedly it is; but it warns us also against other equally dangerous and insidious errors, as a little consideration will, I think, show. For what were Ananias's motives in acting as he did? If we can discover them, we shall have the key to the whole story.