CHAPTER XXVII.

THE REMORSE OF JUDAS-HIS ONLY CONSOLATION-THE PURCHASE OF THE POTTER'S FIELD-JESUS BEFORE PILATE-BARABBAS PREFERRED TO JESUS-DREAM OF PILATE'S WIFE-PILATE'S CONSCIENCE AND COURSE-INSCRIPTION ON THE CROSS-DEATH OF THE GREAT SACRIFICE THE GRAVE THAT WILL GIVE UP NO DEAD.

Ar the commencement of this chapter we read that on the dawn of Good Friday, as it is commonly called, the chief priests and elders of the people entered into a resolution, or arrangement, to put Jesus to death. In order to accomplish this, which they could not do without the aid of the civil, or Roman, power, they delivered him to Pontius Pilate.

Forthwith, the remorse which is the result of crime took possession of the heart of Judas in all its fury, and under the agony of convictions he could not crush, of recollections he could not extinguish, and of a sin too heinous and too inveterate to be expiated or forgiven, he flung the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests who had bribed him, and exclaimed, not in penitential confession, but in bitter remorse, "I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood." But all the consolation that he received from these who were conspirators with him, was the consolation that is always given by those who urge others to perpetrate, or take part in, a great crime, and who are anxious only to exculpate themselves, "What is that to us? We have

no business with your conscience. That is your own matter. What does it signify to us whether you are saved or lost, whether you weep or smile? That is your business, and not ours. It is too late to repair the error, or to alter the consequences of the sin or crime that you have committed." He then went and committed suicide. In his case it was the suicide, not of lunacy, but of remorse. It was self-destruction springing, not from a deranged mind, but from a diseased and a wicked heart. It was suicide in the strictest and severest sense of that expression,—a sin perpetrated in modern times only, I hope, when the mind has lost its sovereignty, and the conscience its power, the reason being deranged, and staggering under the difficulties by which it is surrounded.

The chief priests, instead of receiving the money, rejected it. They did not think of the crime involved in their conspiracy with Judas; but they felt that to touch the price of blood would be to defile their hands. They did not remember, or if they did they did not care, that they had defiled their consciences by joining in a great crime, but they were most scrupulous not to defile their hands ceremonially by accepting the money returned to them by Judas. How often do we find that where men are ceremonially most rigid, they are morally most lax; that those who will fast most severely, will at the same time be in the weightier matters of the law most careless and remiss! "They took counsel, and bought with the money the potter's field, to bury strangers in ;" thus getting rid of it in a way that they thought would excuse them for allowing it to pass through their hands. It was a potter's field full of pits from which clay had been dug to make

brick and earthen vessels. It was, therefore, of no use for agricultural purposes, and might be had for very little money; and it was to be turned, not consecrated, into a burial-place for the Jews of the dispersion scattered throughout the world.

We read that this was the fulfilment of a prophecy by Jeremiah; but it seems rather to be found in Zechariah; and some have supposed that the name Jeremiah has in some way by accident got interpolated instead of that of Zechariah; though it must be remembered that the Evangelists frequently quote a sentiment from ancient prophecy, and clothe it in their own words, -thus preserving the sentiment, but expressing it in equally true, but different language.

We read then that "Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? And Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest. And when he was accused of the chief priests and elders, he answered nothing." And Pilate, startled by his silence, asked him-" Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee?" But Jesus was still silent. Sometimes silence is our duty; at other times we ought to speak forth. A sound judgment and conscious innocence must determine when it becomes us to exhibit the one, and when to give utterance to the other.

Pilate told them that at this great festival of the Passover, it was the habit of the country to release a criminal. Just as at coronations, and at the recent marriage of the Emperor of the French, and at other great festivals celebrated in other kingdoms, it is the custom to release state prisoners, it was then a high or great day among the Jews, and it was their custom to release, in token of gladness and joy, some criminal whom the

people might select for that purpose. And what an

awful choice was here! Men have said that the voice

of the people is the voice of God. Would that it were So. It will be so in the age to come, but it is not so yet. When all shall be righteous, then every utterance shall be truth, and every song shall be praise; but at present the voice of the people has been often the very opposite of the voice of God; and on this, the most solemn occasion on which that aphorism was ever tested, when a robber and the holy, spotless Lamb of God were the two, one of whom was to be released, the voice of the people, the democracy, chose Barabbas the robber, and said "Let the Son of God be crucified." My dear friends, both the autocrat upon the throne and the mob in the agora, have alternately done wickedly, and voted wrong. Trust not in prince, trust not in people; but pray that the time may come when, by God's grace, prince and people shall be the manifested sons of God; and then they shall praise with one heart and one voice Him whom their fathers crucified and refused.

An incident occurs, and it is a very natural and a very beautiful one. The wife of Pilate dreamed a dream, and she said to her husband-" Have thou nothing to do with that just man;" and evidently that remonstrance of his wife made a deep impression upon Pilate. I have no doubt that dream was from God; for I can see no reason to doubt that God may speak to people by dreams. Only we are to bring our dreams to the test of Scripture, never the Scripture to the test of our dreams. If God speak to us thus (and surely, the Eternal may speak to man's mind in any way that he thinks best), if the dream suggest duties that are

obviously good, we should accept it as a memento from on high; but should the dream suggest what is condemned in Scripture, we are to regard it, not as an inspiration from above, but as a suggestion or device from beneath. In the case of Pilate's wife, the dream told her that Jesus was holy. She remonstrated with her husband, and urged him to have nothing to do with what she felt to be a great crime; and very plainly, the result of that was, that he endeavoured in every way that he could to let Jesus go free; for he said—" Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you?" and again, evidently his conscience prompting the very opposite course to that which he was to "What shall I do with Jesus which is called pursueChrist? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified. And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified. When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude," according to a ceremony prescribed in Deuteronomy, and he said, "I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it." How unworthy of his lofty office! He ought to have followed his convictions at all hazards. If a man is satisfied that a particular path is that of duty, let him not ask how many agree with him, or how many oppose him, or what may be the consequence of persistent obedience to his principles; and never let him suppose for a single moment that a ceremonial cleansing of the hands can ever exculpate the guilt that cleaves to the conscience. But how often is it, that a person guilty of a moral offence, will have recourse to a ceremonial rite in order to stupify the conscience, or to be