urging that this victim would appease the suspicion of their conquerors and preserve the nation, a consideration so important as to make it of no consequence whether He was innocent or not,-is a type of one who misinterprets the divine covenant which he represented. Herod, with selfish and sensual good-nature, thinly veiling ferocity and heartlessness, seeking to have miracles performed to gratify his appetite for physical marvel, and treating Christ's silence as a proof of His imposture, shows the end of a man in whom conscience is dead. John the Baptist, if he thought of him at all, would seem much superior to this dumb coward, who could not make a king tremble.

And Jesus, what shall we say of Him? The great characteristic of the history is missed in reading it, for the events pass quickly in the terse narrative. It is the almost utter silence before all the judges, and the complete passiveness in the hands of those who insulted-all this, accompanied, as has been truly imagined, by a look not of fortitude and tension, but rather of recollection, as if there was nothing in all these insults and questions to which any answer or expostulation was appropriate, but rather a current of in

evitable passions which must be, but the moving spring of which is beyond the reach of words. No morbid dejection, no personal resentment, but a complete detachment from all earthly passion, and at the same time a conscious drawing out of deep springs of strength and consolation, which no human malice could reach to choke-infinitely above them all, their Judge while they judged Him.

CHAPTER XIX.

The Seven Words on the Cross.

"Truly this was the Son of God."

"In the wild heart of that eclipse

These words came from his wasted lips."

ALEXANDER SMITH.

E do not attempt to describe the physical

WE

sufferings of Christ upon the Cross. Yet to describe, and in certain cases even to dwell upon these, is not only warrantable but dutiful. While it would be utterly wrong and needless to add any touch of color or horror, yet it is not without reason that the Gospels, which hurry over our Lord's life so rapidly, here take the minuteness of diaries, describing every incident and noting every word. The insulting voices, the racked frame, the fiery thirst, the last atrocity of crucifixion-these, and much else, are not described without reason. They were foretold in prophecy. And though it might seem as if human passion had been let loose to have its will with Him, yet even in its madness it was controlled by

a divine hand, and could go thus far and no farther. But we propose to omit these things, needful though it be to make much of them at times to "scarify callosities," and to teach sentimentalists, who see or wear the cross glittering in jewels, how terrible was the reality, and how deep and awful is the meaning of the commandment which bids us take up our cross. No reaction from the sensational preaching once, at least, prevalent in the Church of Rome, should prevent this. But we pass it by to dwell upon the seven words uttered on the Cross, which are as seven windows through which we may gaze at the soul of Christ.

Last words are always earnestly heeded

"The tongues of dying men

Enforce attention like deep harmony;

When words are scarce they're seldom spent in vain,
For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain."

Especially memorable and solemn are the last words of Christ-the few utterances amidst the long silence on that half day He hung upon the Cross. The absorbing and confounding agonies of crucifixion do not disturb the order and the

calm which marked all His life. As He had done all things fitly in the calmer spaces of His life, and in the three years of conflict, so now He does all things well in the midst of this awful battle on the Cross. Seven times His lips are opened. Not surely without a reason is the number chosen. There is sevenfold completeness in His utterances. We trace an order and progress in these seven utterances. All His life through He had thought first of His enemies and last of Himself. He came to call sinners to repentance. When the pains of death got hold on Him in the midst of His grief and trouble, He remained the same. His first thought was for His enemies, His last for Himself. We find Him thinking first of His enemies, next of an enemy who had become a friend, next of a friend, and so narrowing the circle, He comes to Himself last of all.

1. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." He said it after a night of mortal agony, after six successive trials, after Roman scourging and mocking, while the rough nails were being driven through His hands. The horror of it all overwhelms Him. He has no thought of His own agony, but much of His