Class Book.. Copyright N°_ COPXRIGHT DEPOSIT. THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN Rev. F. W. NORWOOD, d.d. THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN Rev. Efw. NORWOOD, d.d. MINISTER OF THE CITY TEMPLE, LONDON NEW XS^ YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 7 .'Hue COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY / THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ©C1A683873 OCT 25 '22 *** CONTENTS PAGE I THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN ..... 9 II THE FUNDAMENTAL SACRIFICE 1 9 III WHAT IS TRUTH? 29 IV THE THREE CROSSES 43 V THE INCOMPLETE PASSION $2 VI THE GOD OF THE LIVING 6l VII THE CREDULITY OF INCREDULITY .... 73 VIII TO ALL NATIONS 84 IX GOING BEYOND JESUS 96 X HOW FAITH GROWS 105 XI GOD IS LIGHT Il6 XII THINGS THAT WORK TOGETHER .... I29 XIII THE PLACE OF VISION I4I XIV THE ONE THING I54 XV WANTED : LEADERS FOR THE CROWD ! . v . l68 xvi "last of all" . . . A - >; >: . , : . 179 THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN TEXT: John 19:41. Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden. AND the garden, if they had understood and be- lieved its message, made the resurrection inevi- table. For the garden was a collection of choice flowers that Joseph of Arimathaea had been gathering to- gether through the years. It was his dream that some day he would sleep in the midst of his garden when life's fitful fever should be over. He would lie down among the flowers that he had loved so well, not as is our horrid custom, enclosed in a wooden box, buried deep beneath the sod; but he would repose upon a ledge, preserved by the spices of the garden among the flowers that he had loved all his life. Alas! it had never entered into his dream that the serenity of his garden would be broken by the raucous shouts of men, that its peace would be invaded with pain, that the crimson of his choicest flowers would be out-crimsoned by the blood of the most flower-like man he had ever seen. 9 10 THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN For Joseph had never seen a life that reminded him so much of the flowers in his garden as the life of Jesus of Nazareth. It seemed almost too fair to be truly rooted in this murky and miry world. It seemed to belong to Heaven rather than to earth, it seemed like the promise of what a man ought to be rather than the revelation of what a man could really be. Joseph had watched this flower-like life through the years in silence and reticence but with growing faith and devotion. When he saw it trampled down under the heels of men, he felt the same indignation, only deeper if possible, as if he had seen them trample down his flowers beneath their feet. In his indignation he was stung out of his reticence; he rushed into the midst of the horror and said, — "Let Him lie among my flowers, He is more worthy to lie there than I." No one else thought of the garden that day but Joseph of Arima- thaea who loved it. Long afterwards, when John was writing the story he remembered, and his face was lit up with a smile as he wrote, — "Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden." So they laid Jesus in the garden where every flower was bearing mute but beautiful witness to the life that springs out of death, to the life that shall endless be. As the breeze rustled amidst the plants of the garden, every flower bowed to its neighbour and smiled, saying: — "Man is always a destroyer; he tramples us down beneath his feet, he strips our kins- folk of their fruits, their nuts, their seeds. He can- not live without us though we could live without him. He is the life destroyer, we are the life makers. When THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN 11 he sees a life that is like a flower he cries, Crucify! Crucify! He has not learned our secret yet; we know that those beautiful lives like ourselves only die that they might live again." When the breeze ceased, and the sun was setting and every flower bowed its head to slumber, it whispered to itself as it fell asleep, — "There will be a resurrection in the morning.' , If they had only understood and believed the mean- ing of the garden, they would have known that the resurrection was inevitable. You say that is poetry rather than fact. There are some people who seldom see anything beautiful in the world and when they do they say, — "It is poetic, but not true." "Poetry," said Aristotle long ago, "is more philosophic than history and of a higher seriousness." Men who crucify never see the garden. They look for blood and they find it, for they spill it out of its crimson arteries where it colors delicately the palpitating skin and splash it like wanton savages who over-turn the artist's paint-pot over his exquisitely tinted picture, the while they tread the flowers down under their heels. There is no garden for men who crucify. Have you not noticed that the world has no char- acter until you give it one? You cannot say whether it is love or indifference or even hate, — you give it its character. It is a pig-sty for pigs, it is a garden ^ior those who love flowers. In the end you make the world, you give it its character, it answers back to what is in your own heart. Yesterday I was going through a street in the slums. There were half a dozen children in front of me of 12 THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN tender age. Their eyes fell on some innocent word on a tradesman's sign, and they twisted it in their unclean little minds to make of it something obscene. God knows I do not blame the little children ; I rather pity them. Those who are blamable are older folk who by guilty speech or even by equally guilty silence allow such thoughts to germinate in minds which ought to be pure. I could blame also some hoary old cus- toms and social conditions which make such things pos- sible and almost inevitable for children. It sent a shudder through me to notice that the minds of chil- dren could make a pigsty of the world. I thought of what the Poet, T. E. Brown, said: — i "Between our folding lips God interposing, slips An embryo life, — and goes; And this becomes your rose. We love, God makes : in our sweet mirth God spies occasion for a birth. Then is it His, or is it ours ? I know not — He is fond of flowers." The one is poetry, the other is fact. To some minds the only facts are those which are covered with slime. The world is what you make it; it is a garden for those who have flowers within their souls: it is a jungle for those who have wild beasts therein. Man made the cross, God made the garden ; they did not see the garden but it was there all the time. John remembered half a century later writing it down in the imperishable record, — "In the place where He was crucified there was a garden." THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN 13 For the garden is older than the cross. Plants were the first living things that God made. There could be no life until there were plants, for plants are the only things in this world that can create living material. All animals, including man himself destroy life, plants make it. Somewhere back in the long ages there was a period when there was no living thing. Something had been flung out of the flaming bosom of the sun, seething in its heat but gradually cooling, and there was no living thing. If that had been all there was, you could have told then if you had been there, and had been wise enough, all that would be in the world to- day; but somehow and somewhere there came into the midst of things a principle of life and plants began to grow. Nobody knows how it happened, nobody can tell even yet, but the plants made life out of death, gave to the world something which had not visibly existed before, — shall we say, created it? Oh, well, I do not know, who knows? I suppose it was there somewhere in the very beginning, potentially All that was to come was there but it had not crossed the r bridge from the inorganic to the organic until it crossed in the mystery of plant life. The first begin- ning of a garden made the world a home; the first development that made for growth of any kind or opened up any door of possibility, was in essence a resurrection, life out of the dead. There is not a flower anywhere that does not speak of the resurrection. It is surely not harder to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, than it is, if you truly understand the nature of the problem, to believe what you know is true, that plants brought life into being 14 THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN out of a dead world. Long before the cross a miracle had been accomplished and the world was all aglow with the dandelions, the daisies, the buttercups, and all the beauteous flowers which you scarce can say are alive and yet you know are not dead. Jesus said, "Consider the lilies, how they grow." If we kept near the lilies we would be better men and women. If we kept near the lilies we would not crucify. Men only crucify when they do not see the flowers. You cannot take in in one sweep of vision a lily and a cross. When you want a cross you do not see the lily; when the cross is a hideous fact you know the lily is greater. Man can destroy, only God can create. Why do we not dare to judge life more by its flowers than by its slime ? There was a significant ar- ticle in one of the newspapers this week from the pen of Dean Inge. It has gladdened my heart because it came at last to this point, that the supreme line of argu- ment for the life beyond is the line of your affections. Love is the supreme argument after all for the con- tinuity of life. There is nothing destroyed in this world, every school boy knows that. Things go back to their primal elements, they are used up again and again in all manner of ways. You lose track of them. That which was once part of a flower may become part of a Cathedral next, you do not know where it comes from, you do not know where it is going to, but it has not lost its identity though you can no longer identify it; you speak of it as the conservation of energy. But where does love go? You cannot split that up, it is not love if it loses its personal connection, it has THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN 15 gone, the fairest thing, the most beautiful thing has eluded you. Do not mock me by speaking of the conservation of energy, or say that nothing is lost. I tell you that love is lost if personality is lost; so is reverence, and so is religion, — true religion. Your i j flowers are either your greatest mockery or God's Vgreatest prophecy. To me there is a whole world of theology in that one word which Jesus spoke to the weeping woman, — "Mary!" She was weeping so copiously, her heart was so broken that nothing comforted her. The empty tomb instead of being all athrob with hope was only vacant with despair. Even two angels, sitting one where the head and the other where the feet of Jesus had lain did not break through her grief or touch her imagination. Even Jesus Himself standing outside and speaking to her could not at first break through the crust of her despair. There was no argument that any school-man could have propounded that would have touched her; she was walled up in grief, and broken in despair. And Jesus said, — "Mary!" In that word there was affection, the affection of a great true soul, a soul that loved her soul. And in that word there was reverence, the thing that Mary had lacked. God knows she had beauty and charm which brought her troops of admirers, but no reverence. She was the play-thing of others, she was their scorn. Nobody for years, but Jesus, had ever used her name in tones of reverence; He had always touched the deepest chords within her heart; He had made her believe that though she had been trampled in the soil her soul was yet a 16 THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN flower, and she saw that beauteous vision again at that moment. In that word there was religion, for He who spoke it stood to her for God and all the best she knew about God; and when that one word pierced her conscious- ness again, touched her heart afresh, religion was re- vived in the soul of Mary Magdalene. There is a whole world of theology in that one word; it means that God, reverence and affection are eternal in their essence, death has no power over them. Let us judge life by its flowers rather than by its crosses. Near every cross there is a garden if we would look for it. Many of us know that we pluck the choicest flowers at the foot of our crosses. Many of us know that it is the evil power of men which in the main makes the crosses, but it is the vibrant, unobtrusive, ever pulsating power of God which makes the flowers. For my part I dare to value life by its gardens rather than by its crosses. I would strive to do so even though faith faltered, though my theories fell like birds that were broken-winged, though every man in the world doubted the faith, the faith of the risen Christ ; for my part I would try to believe in the gar- dens, I would try to believe in the flowers. If there could be a God whose character could not be har- monised with the flowers then I would have nought to do with Him, I could not worship Him, I would even defy Him. Believe in the flowers! I believe that beauty is an emanation from the divine. I am very conscious of the crosses, as you are. The cross is never so terrible THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN 17 as it is to the man who sees it with the flowers in the fore-ground. It is easy for the brutal who only see red, to tolerate the cross. It is the artistic and poetic souls who quiver and quail in the presence of the cross, though even they believe through, and see in it at last a radiance and a beauty that others have not seen. So long as there is a single flower blooming man should believe in God. One lily is enough to make a man believe in life after death. The flowers at the foot of the cross bear witness to the throbbing, patient power of God and the irresistible omnipotence of the Christ who was crucified. Flowers are the prophets of the world beyond, the heralds who declare that the good is never lost. You remember perhaps those words of Brown- ing's :— "There shall never be one lost good ! What was shall live as before. The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound; What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more; On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round. "All we have willed, or hoped, or dreamed of good shall exist ; Not in semblance, but itself; no beauty or good or power, Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist When eternity affirms the. conception of an hour. "The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, 18 THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard ; Enough that He heard it once : we shall hear it bye and bye." II THE FUNDAMENTAL SACRIFICE TEXT : Revelation 13 :8. The Lamb slain from the foun- dation of the world. IN those few words, infinity seems to be flung into a phrase. It is a strange book, this book called the Revelation of St. John. In our time one has a feeling that it is scarcely worth while to try and ex- plain in detail its symbolism, it is so oriental, so highly coloured, so remote from our ordinary western thinking. The experience of commentators through long cen- turies has shown how impossible it is to reach una- nimity in our interpretations of this book. So much that was poignantly present or imminently impending to the writer has passed into the distance for us and it is only with difficulty that we may re-discover it. Opinions differ as to whether the meaning of the book is entirely in the past or whether it is not even yet mainly in the future. Amidst these contending views, choleric argumentative people continually quarrel about the book, and lethargic people consistently neg- lect it and so both become losers, for it is a great 19 20 THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN and wonderful book with a singular faculty as I have said for flinging infinity into a mere phrase. Nobody can read it through, even though they feel they do not understand it but they will carry away with them sentences they will never forget ; great sen- tences which are like searchlights throwing light upon some of earth's most intricate problems. Here in this passage before us is one of those phrases : — "The Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world. ,, Nobody can forget that, nobody has forgotten. For all these centuries it has laid hold upon the imagina- tion of Christian men. It is of course possible, and it is only right that I should point out to you that there are two ways of rendering this passage; it is largely a matter of punctuation. You may read it as though that phrase, "from the foundation of the world" belonged to the book in which the names of the elect were written or you may read it so that it belongs to the Lamb that was slain. But after all, to hesitate seems mere pedantry. We know that the Christian imagination laid hold of that thought of a fundamental sacrifice in the first generation. You re- member how Peter says: — "The precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb with- out blemish and without spot: who verily was fore- ordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you." You can recall many passages in the Epistles of St. Paul which carry the thought concerning Jesus the THE FUNDAMENTAL SACRIFICE 21 Christ back, back to the very beginning of things, back to the very heart and will of the Eternal. You cannot doubt that in the first generation the Chris- tian mind seized upon this thought concerning the Christ, and in all the generations which have succeeded, the experience of men has been responding to it. When you come to consider the life of Jesus of Nazareth as you consider most other people's lives, you wonder what there can have been about it which so took hold of men and so fastened itself upon the imagination of the world. If you have been to the East and have yourself trodden over those sacred spots, or if you have merely gazed at pictures of Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane, and perceived the comparative insignifi- cance of these localities, the crudity of so many things that still persist in that locality, you find the thought coming into your mind, "How did it happen that a life lived amid such mean surroundings, in such a remote corner of the earth, at such a far distant time should have so taken hold of mankind as to become the central thing in history, in thought, in morals and in religion? Do you realise that there were probably not so many people who saw Jesus of Nazareth in the flesh as there were who saw the boat-race yesterday? It was only a brief life, very simple in its habits, very unostentatious in its methods, very clear and true ill its character, a brief life blotted out suddenly in shame. How was it? Let history tell us, for it is a prob- lem which falls to it to explain. Surely it must be, as the Christian imagination saw almost from the first, that there were implications 22 THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN in that life and in that death that go right back to the foundation of the world. That is what men of in- spired intuition saw in the first generation, that is what men have been working out for nineteen cen- turies at least, and I venture to say will continue to work out so long as man endures. Here in the heart of it is this comparison of Jesus Christ with the Lamb. Why, there is something that goes back to the foundation of things. There has always been something in the world which corre- sponded to the lamb, just as there has always been something in the world which found its appropriate symbol in the lion or the tiger. You cannot go out and look about you in this wonderful world of God's but you feel those two powers continually present, the power of the lion and the power of the lamb. When Nature smiles upon you and the sun shines, when the gentle rain falls bringing forth the harvest, when the great sea hushes itself and becomes like glass, you think of that marvellous gentleness that pulses through the world of which the lamb might seem to be the symbol. Ay, but to-morrow there will be not sun- shine but storm, there will be not the green fertile meadows but the drought and the famine and the hur- ricane. You will marvel then at the power there is in the world which is ruthless, fierce and cruel as a lion or a tiger. Away in Australia once, far away in the remoter parts where the drought sometimes comes and stays for months and even years, a minister of the Gospel came to the home of a settler and said to him as he met him on the verandah, "I have come to offer THE FUNDAMENTAL SACRIFICE 23 prayer with you for the breaking* of the drought." And the man said, — "Listen" — and as they listened they heard the poor sheep pitifully bleating, and the cattle gasping in the heat, and the man said, "If that prayer is not reaching Heaven do you think yours would?" Have we not looked upon Nature when she seemed the crudest thing conceivable? You remember those words of William Blake, who chose not the lion as the symbol of the more cruel as- pect of nature but the tiger. The tiger was not known to the writers of the Bible or doubtless they would have fixed upon him rather than the lion as the emblem of the fierceness which is in things. In this strange chapter from which I have quoted you get the apocalyptic vision of evil as coming out of the sea in the form of a beast part leopard, part lion, part bear: — "The beast which I saw was like unto a leopard" (swift springing force) "and his feet were as the feet of a bear," (dull brutal force) "and his mouth as the mouth of a lion" (strong, indomitable, fierce). William Blake has the same vision as he writes these words : — "Tiger, tiger burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? "In what distant deep or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire? 24, THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN "And what shoulders and what art Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hands and what dread feet; "What the hammer, what the chain ? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? What dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp? "When the stars threw down their spears, And watered heaven with their tears, Did He smile His work to see? Did He who made the lamb make thee? "Tiger, tiger burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry ?" Expound it how you will, they go back to the foundation of things, the tiger and the lamb. No wonder that religious thought chose as the symbol for the expression of its deepest feeling, the lamb; no wonder that in the Old Testament literature you meet again and again, the lamb. You remember how cen- tral a place it occupied in the ritual of the Jewish peo- ple, how familiar a sight it was to see a lamb being taken away to the Temple to be offered as a sacrifice for the sins of the people. Religious thought was instinctively right. You could not imagine it choosing the lion or the tiger as the symbol of its worship. That lowly feeling of dependence upon the infinite; that tender searching of the conscience, of repentance and prayer could find no more appropriate symbol where- THE FUNDAMENTAL SACRIFICE 25 with to express itself than the symbol «of the lamb. You remember when John the Baptist in a moment of inspiration looked upon Jesus of Nazareth, he said, — "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world." No one can think of the. life that He lived, of the death that He died without feeling that the lamb was the true expression of His character, of His attitude towards God and man. Right down the Christian centuries you know what a great place in its symbolism and its imagery the lamb has played It is a symbol of weakness, of de- pendence, of sacrifice. But I think we have over-stressed the passivity of the sacrifice of the lamb. When I read this wonder- ful book we call the Revelation, I notice that the lamb is spoken of twenty-seven times. But when I have finished reading the book the impression that is left upon my mind is not the passive sacrifice, but the strength of the lamb. It is stronger than the lion. It is the conqueror of the leopard and the bear. The lamb as it had been slain is seen in the centre, and the voice that cries that none is worthy to open the book save the lamb. The victorious saints "overcame by the blood of the lamb." It is the victory of the lamb that the book proclaims, it is with the marriage of the lamb that the book closes. Have we not misunderstood our Lord very largely when we have considered that His contribution was the contribution of sacrifice only? Did Christ lift the world simply because He lay down to be trampled upon? No! He lifted the world because about His gentleness there was a strength that was greater than 26 THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN the strength of the lion. When He hung upon that Cross with drooping head, with the blood trickling from His thorn-crowned brow He was not the weakest in that multitude, He was the strongest. The very Roman soldiers at the foot of the cross bowed before Him; they who had spat in His face went away smit- ing their breasts, confessing their sin. There is a strength about gentleness which is greater than the strength of the lion. Right does not conquer wrong merely by lying down to be trodden upon. Right wins over wrong by refusing to take the same weapons that wrong uses, because you cannot beat the beast in the beast's own way without becoming a beast. You will not conquer the lion upon his own ground, except as you become fiercer than the lion. If you would out- do the tiger in fierceness you must become worse than the tiger. That is what we have been proving these t last few years. How did we overcome the ruthless nation which sprang upon the world with the sudden- ness of the leopard, the dull brutality of the bear, the remorselessness of the lion? Alas in those unprepared moments we had no other means than to outbeast the beast. So we won what we call the victory, but we are beginning to discover that it was not the victory, it was only a tilt upward of the see-saw. The victory has still to be won, and we shall not win it until we win in the spirit of the lamb. We have not yet begun or have scarcely begun to discover the strength of character. It has only just begun to dawn upon us that there are resources of power in the spirit of the lamb which are infinitely mightier than the spirit of the lion. We have scarcely THE FUNDAMENTAL SACRIFICE 27 as yet begun to attempt to solve our problems by jus- tice, and reason and law. We have said that the swift- ness of the leopard or the deadly brutality of the bear, or the ruthless strength of the lion were symbols of a nation's greatness, yet all the time history proclaims with manifold voices that the nations which grow in power are after all the nations that serve, the nations that manifest patience and generosity. It is the vic- tory of the lamb that is the only victory over the beast. It has taken us a long while to learn it, but we shall have to learn it in time or our children will have to learn it after us. The only way upward is the way of character, character that is strong within itself but gentle in its expression, which finds its ideal in service rather than in domination. The "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" has taken hold of the world for that very reason, because of His power to go down to the roots of things. You cannot dislodge Jesus Christ from His central place in the history of the world because all the time He is bearing witness to those great and holy truths which as yet mankind has only seen dimly and afar ofr*. This is but one facet of that marvellous flashing jewel, the Cross. One feels ashamed to have spoken of the Cross and have said so little. You cannot ex- haust its meaning. The Cross is like a great cut diamond with a myriad of facets upon which the light flashes from every angle. Let us try and catch this one beam of light this morning, that true strength is lamb-like in character. The tiger is only overcome in the end by that superior strength which looks into its eyes and quells its savageness. Sin, injustice, social 28 THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN tangles, international quarrels are not solved in the end by the swift springing of the leopard, the slow brutality of the bear, or the relentless ferocity of the lion, but by the meekness which is anything but weak- ness and the capacity to receive and interpret that divine lamb-like spirit which endures from the founda- tion of the world and was manifested in Him whom we gladly own as Lord. Ill WHAT IS TRUTH? TEXT: John 18:37. Pilate therefore said unto Him, Art Thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end have I been born, and to this end came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth My voice ! Pilate saith unto Him, What is truth ? THE men who wrote the Gospel stories did not write as dramatists would have written. They scarcely seemed conscious of their audience ; there is no perceptible striving after effect; there is no massing of events to reach a great climax; there is little or no use of emotional words. About this strange reticence there is doubtless a divine wisdom, for nothing palls upon us more than a stereotyped scene or dramatised emotion. Every man must paint his own picture and try to see these great things that happened so long ago. And this is how it seems to me it came to pass that Jesus said to Pilate : "Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice/' and "Pilate said unto Him, 'What is truth?' " Pontius Pilate had been wakened up in the early hours of the morning, just about cock-crow, and had gone reluctantly out to deal with the angry mob which surged about his palace steps, for they were led by 29 SO THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN men whose hostility he knew and whose power he feared. He was in a sullen and angry mood. He disliked this Jewish people, over whom Caesar had sent him to rule. They were the most turbulent race of which he had any experience. There was something about them which baffled and irritated him. The most am- bitious, the most restless of all the nations with which he had come in contact in his campaigns, they were yet the most religious. Pilate had a Roman soldier's contempt for religion. It is true he was superstitious ; some unexpected event, some omen, a dream, the pronouncement of some oracle., could cause him to tremble, but as for religion — had he not seen hundreds of them? He had been in Egypt and Persia, through Asia Minor and in the Balkans — had seen hundreds of different forms of re- ligion, and all seemed much alike. With all their prayers and mystic rites, none of these peoples had been able to stand up against the Roman legions. As for him, give him a legion of hardy veterans, shining armour, flashing spears, trusty swords, and a fig for all the religions in the world! Yet these Jewish people baffled him, irritated him. He had tried putting them down by force, he had ridden rough-shod over their prejudices, but, so surely as he touched their religion, they rose against him, defenceless as sheep, but angry as wolves. It was all so illogical and absurd. He looked at them now. It was like their bigotry, that they would not so much as set foot within the palace, because, forsooth, they counted it unclean, as a WHAT IS TRUTH? 31 court of the Gentiles, — they, the members of a subject race, were yet so arrogant as to regard Caesar's Pre- torium as an unclean thing. Nothing would do but that he, their Governor, must go out to them, taking no notice of their insult, and speak to them from the marble pavement. Verily it would have pleased him better to have sent a file of soldiers to clear them away from the place, but experience had taught him that it was better to swallow a great deal of insult from the Jews than to stir up their passions. Therefore Pontius Pilate had gone out to them, and one glance was enough to show him that all this com- motion concentrated in one solitary Man, whom they had thrust forward. Pilate's first impression was that He was perfectly harmless. He looked at Him with the eyes of a trained soldier; he looked first for sign of weapons. There was none. He was dressed in a simple white robe, open at the neck, and somewhat dishevelled with rough handling. His hands were se- curely bound behind His back. He looked for con- federates. There were none. Every face was dis- torted with passion and set against the prisoner. Pilate shrugged his shoulders. A mouse in the talons of an eagle was not more helpless than this Man. Such things had happened before, and had nothing to do with him. "What accusation bring ye against this Man?" said he. He knew that they did not like him. There was a secret hostility always in their hearts ready to be manifested against him; they would as soon have his life as anybody's, and their reply was like a snarl, as 32 THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN it came back, — "If He were not an evil-doer, we should not have delivered Him up unto thee." Once more Pilate looked at the Man. An evil-doer ? He knew in an instant, for he was a trained observer of men, that this Prisoner would not have harmed a child, the honour of a woman would have been safe with Him, the wealth of the Indies would have passed through His hands undiminished. It was a pity to see Him in the clutches of this mob, — but then, — it had nothing to do with him. "Take Him away," he said, turning to go back into the palace ; "take Him away and deal with Him accord- ing to your own law." Their answer caused him to turn back again and face them. They said, "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death." Ah, so that was what they wanted. Their looks be- tokened it surely enough. The blood-lust was in their eyes; they seemed to show their fangs as wolves do. He knew now why they had troubled him, — not out of personal respect, but merely to save legal consequences. They would make a convenience of his rank and official position, but woe be to him if he thwarted their de- sires. It was known to some among them, as it was known to himself, that his favour with Caesar was very insecure. It was not easy to set this Man free. Once more his eyes rested upon the Prisoner. His was the only calm face amid that seething sea of faces. And what a face it was. There was that about it which forbade Pilate to send Him to death, as he had sent many another in his time. He could not for the life of him act with his usual arrogance that day. WHAT IS TRUTH? 33 There came to Pilate an instinctive desire to get away from the madding crowd, and, unhampered by their prejudices and clamours, to be alone with this Man and speak with Him face to face. He entered again into his palace and sat down upon the dais in the seat of authority. He gave command that the Prisoner should appear before him. Quietly and with stately mien, Jesus moved to a position in front of the powerful Roman, and turned His deep and beautiful eyes full upon him. Outside, the impa- tient murmuring of the cruel crowd continued, and the sound was wafted into the Judgment Hall. Pontius Pilate sat in his richly gilded chair of office, looking moodily at the white-robed figure of the Man who stood before him. Around him were the marks of luxury and refine- ment. Costly tapestries hung before the walls, statu- ary adorned the apartment, his feet rested upon a rich rug that lay upon the polished floor. He rested his chin in the palm of his hand, and looked into the face of the Prophet of Galilee. For a moment there was silence; then Pilate's in- voluntary question surprised even himself : — "Art Thou the King of the Jews?" A faint smile came over the face of Jesus, as He said : — "Sayest thou this of thyself, or did others tell it thee concerning Me ?" It was the first time Pilate had heard His voice. Pilate was angry. The question seemed to him to $4, THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN suggest that he had lowered his dignity enough to ex- change opinions with that crowd outside. It was the Prisoner's own deportment that had made him asso- ciate the thought of kingliness with Him.