Lord was "a just man," and it was his earnest desire to have "nothing to do" with His condemnation. He would very gladly, therefore, have complied with the letter of his wife's request, but he shrank from the sacrifice which a compliance with its spirit would involve.

Yet one last hope of escaping the dreaded responsibility still remained. It appeared in the course of the trial, that our Lord's teaching had extended to Galilee, and as this placed Him under the jurisdiction of Herod, he endeavoured to transfer the decision to him. Now the character of Herod differed widely from his own. He was so far from being troubled by our Lord's presence, that when he saw Him, he was exceeding glad: the rumour of His miracles had long since reached him, without awakening any deeper feeling than that of curiosity in his mind; there was no inward conflict, as there had been in that of Pilate; and it was probably for this cause that our Lord, Who had en

couraged by repeated warnings the doubts and misgivings of the one, would vouchsafe no answer at all to the idle questioning of the other. Herod grew angry at His silence, and at length, as it would seem in mere wantonness, and without a thought of the awful guilt he might be incurring, he, with his men of war, set Him at nought, and mocked Him, and arrayed Him in a gorgeous robe, and sent Him again to Pilate 6"

Still, however, the Roman governor took advantage even of this treatment to declare publicly, that the opinion of Herod confirmed his own; for he said, "I sent you to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto Him. I will therefore chastise Him and release Him"." But the eagerness of the people was only rendered the more uncontrollable by each subterfuge and delay: "they were instant with loud voices requiring that He might be crucified; and the voices of them and of the chief priests Luke xxiii. 15.

6 Luke xxiii. 11.

prevailed; and Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required." Yet before he did so, as though his mind were to the very last moment torn by conflicting emotions, and he felt its guilt, and was anxious that others should bear the responsibility of a deed which was his own, we read that "he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person; see ye to it "."

And now let us pause, and dwell briefly on the character of Pilate, his sin and its consequences, in order that we may perceive the more clearly the practical warning which they convey.

First, as regards his character. Its peculiar features appear the more marked when we contrast them with those of other wicked men, who, living at the same period, were in some degree exposed to a similar trial. He was He was not, as I have

already said, like Judas; for while the one

8 Matt. xxvii. 24.

had from whatever motive embraced the Gospel privileges, the other studiously shrank from the responsibility which they involved. He was not like Herod the Great, who dared to massacre all the children at Bethlehem, in the hope that he might destroy the infant Jesus; on the contrary, Pilate never once molested Him during the whole course of His ministry. Neither was he like the other Herod, who made our Lord's miracles and teaching the subject of mere curiosity; nor again, like the deputy Gallio, "who cared for none of those things:" there were deeper, if not better, thoughts in the breast of the Roman governor. Far more nearly did he resemble Felix, when he trembled at the reasoning of Paul "on righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come"." But he differed from Felix in the position in which he was placed; the convenient season for which he would fain have gone

9 Acts xxiv. 25.

on waiting, was forced suddenly upon him, and he strove in vain to set it aside. His was, in truth, a character which under ordinary circumstances slowly and imperceptibly becomes worse as it gathers more and more of the world's alloy. He did not wish to seem a decidedly religious, nor yet to be a decidedly wicked man. There were earthly interests to withhold him from the one; there was the voice of conscience to cause him to tremble at the other. His desire was to follow a safe path which would involve no self-sacrifice, and yet lead to no deliberate act of sin. But this, as we have seen, was in his case impossible. He loved darkness rather than light; but on the morning of Good Friday the light shone full and clear before him, and the shadows lengthened, and his minutes became as years. Satan took advantage of it to hurry him along; and thus the excuses, weaknesses, subterfuges, and evasions, which might otherwise have been scattered through a long life of pro