VIS COTS esso.of Hb Wee _—— —s QOL a ae THE John M. Webb Presented to TRINITY COLLEGE LIBRARY By Mrs. John M. Webb 1917 Digitized by the Internet in 2022 with fundin “VIA CRUCIS” (eoued0[, ‘Wd Ozze[Bq ‘OamojOjADg DAT) SSsouoO GH WOU NOLLISOdUd Cli “VIA CRUCIS” The Lesson of Holy Week By HERBERT CUSHING TOLMAN, Ph.D., D.D. Hon. Canon of All Saints’ Cathedral, Milwaukee; Profesor of Greek, Vanderbilt University MILWAUKEE THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN COMPANY 1907 To My Wife MARY WELLES TOLMAN, Whose life has always been an inspiration To follow in the footsteps of Christ By the same Author URBS BEATA A VISION OF THE PERFECT LIFE. “Profoundly spiritual thought blends here with fine simplicity, and the wisdom of an accomplished scholar with the truth as it is in Jesus.”—The Outlook (N. Y.) “Dr. Tolman’s motto seems to be non muita, sed multum.”’—Church Standard. “Tllustrated with abundant learning drawn from new sources.”—Methodist Quarterly Review. “Epigrammatic, pithy, and replete with tender sentiment beautifully expressed.’’ — Nashville Christian Advocate. “Combines virility with quiet devoutness to an unusual degree.”—The Living Church. “Simple and beautiful.””—Diocese of Albany. “Happy the college student into whose soul are dropped such seed thoughts as those contained in this dainty book! Dr. Tolman has the gift of say- ing a great deal in few words. His talks are always thoughtful and inspiring, and are sug- gestive of reserved power. ‘The religious spirit of the book is lofty and healthy.”—American Weekly (Chicago). “Tt is just the kind of book that busy men and women need, a book they can take up for five minutes and that will furnish them with food for meditation during the entire day.’’-—The Southern Churchman. Price 75 cents. By mail .83. THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN CO. MILWAUKEE, WIS. “Foreword N the spring of 1905, I chanced to be a member of the First International Con- gress of Archaeologists, which convened in Athens. After its adjournment the privilege was afforded me of spending Holy Week in Jerusalem. What spot in all the world could be more filled with holy asso- ciations than beneath the same sky where Jesus suffered, and on the same soil where Jesus trod! Many of the meditations here recorded, I wrote down at the close of each day, after standing but a moment before on the ground made sacred by the footsteps of our Saviour. Where the order of events of this Great Week is disputed, I have fol- lowed Holtzmann (Leben Jesu) and his historical setting, although in some cases I have departed widely from him. As we thus walk with Christ on the last days before His death, may we realize that viii VIA ORUCIS His divine religion demands that, loving as He loved, and serving as He served, we walk with Him in such self-denial that others seeing us do know that we have been with Jesus. Hersert Cusuina TouMan. Vanderbilt University, October, 1906. ‘dv0u ANVHLEd AHL NOU WaTVsougr Palm Sunday S the traveller coming from Beth- any rounds the southern spur of Olivet there bursts upon his view Jeru- salem, with its ten thousand sacred memories. He sees in front of him the Valley of Jehoshaphat, the Vale of Hinnom, the castellated battlements of the city wall, the old Temple precinct, while above the cupolas and minarets of the modern town looms conspicu- ously on the western side that palace structure which tradition styles “The Tower of David.” It was near this point of the road that the throng following our Lord on Palm Sunday, strewed the ground and broke forth into loud Hosannas. This spontaneous outburst of acclaim was voiced in the words of a Psalm filled 2 VIA CRUOCIS with eager hope of the speedy advent of the Messianic Kingdom. “Help (Hoshvah na). Blessed be He that cometh in the name of Yahweh. Help in the highest.” The Kingdom of the Messiah had indeed begun, but not as the expectant crowd imagined. Christ entered, mount- ed not upon a horse with martial trap- pings as an earthly conqueror, but upon a lowly ass, a symbol of humility. How unlike the brilliant triumphs which Rome had often witnessed, with their pageants and their train of cap- tives! Jesus’ victory was the emanci- pation from sin for those who had en- tered into His own life, His crown of conquest, the majesty of sacrifice; His kingdom, the reign of love in the hu- man heart. Tradition says that the triumphal procession approached the city by the portals of the Golden Gate. This gate, VIA CRUCIS 3 which is usually closed, we were per- mitted to enter, and to study minutely the ancient columns within the en- closure. From the time of the Cru- saders the procession from the Mount of Olives always passed through it into the Temple Court. In recent times, however, the entire structure has been walled up because of the strong Moslem belief that some day a Christian con- queror will enter here and wrest Jeru- salem from Mohammedan power. An examination of the prostrate and ruined columns, which contain Hebrew carving on capitals of Greek shafts, leads us to infer that the gate was built partly out of the remains of the Jewish Temple. It is very probable that through an earlier gateway erected near this site our Lord made His tri- umphal entrance into the city. Even in its present form it is a dominant fea- ture of the modern wall, and from its 4 VIA CRUCIS summit there is an extended prospect over the environs of Jerusalem. As imposing as to-day is the view of the Holy City from the Mount of Olives, it gives but a slight conception of the splendor which met the gaze of _ our Lord as the sunlight fell upon the Temple. No doubt it was the grandest sanctuary which the eye of man ever be- held. The solid walls of white stone rose from the steep valley beneath to a height well nigh prodigious. Above this vast substructure magnificent colonnades surrounded the whole enclo- sure, while high beyond the various courts distinctly marked with terraces and guarded by gates which flashed with plates of gold, silver and polished brass, towered the Holy Temple itself, the symbol of Yahweh’s everlasting pre- sence. What Jew would not be pro- foundly impressed by a scene so awe-in- spiring and incomparably sacred! THE GOLDEN GATE. VIA CRUCIS By) Yet Jesus saw that His teachings im- parted to a humble band of Galilean - peasants were to be mightier and more enduring than the costliest shrine. We stand where once the Temple stood. Of its glory nothing remains. That proud monument of Yahweh’s favor has long since been leveled to the dust. But to-day in place of one House of God, are our churches, our hospitals, and our asylums where dwells the spirit of the Father revealed in Jesus. The Holy of Holies is now the human heart, where is enthroned the royalty of service. The lesson of Palm Sunday is not our contemplation of the historic scene which occurred before the steep incline which we saw leading up to the city walls, but its vital truth is the trium- phal entrance of the Messiah into our own souls. It is only with this thought before us that we are fitted to follow the 6 VIA CRUOIS Saviour through the coming days of His Passion and Death. What does the advent of Christ as sovereign Lord into our hearts mean ? It means the clear detection and con- quest of sin—the clear detection, I say, for sin is not fully discernible until we see it against the white background of Jesus’ life and character. No foe ever lurked in deeper ambush. It is so dis- guised that we do well to digress a little as we inquire what is the nature of sin from which the dominion of Christ saves US. Probably a concise summary of the views of the late Dr. Julius Miiller, who for a long time was regarded by many as an authority, is in the state- ment that sin is self-absorbed selfish- ness. If this be so, certainly we need something more than self-vision to re- veal it to us. We must see sin as Jesus saw it. VIA CRUCIS 7 Mr. Tennant in his recent work (Origin of Sin) has followed Miller along the same lines, but has reached a conclusion more advanced when he de- clares that we come to morality only through “the formation of the non- moral material of nature into charac- ter.” The thought in this brief quota- tion is so important that I may be par- doned if, to make the idea a little clearer, I give the words of Archdeacon Wilson in his address to the Church Congress. “To the evolutionist,” he says, “sin is not an innovation, but is survival or misuse of habits and ten- dencies which were incidental to an earlier stage in development. Their sinfulness lies in their resistance to the evolutionary and divine force that makes for moral development and right- eousness.” If sin be the terrible anachronism which these writers believe, a lagging 8 VIA CRUCIS behind in the race for the goal, a tardi- ness in advancing from the non-moral to the moral state, then the keen moral consciousness of the Christ becomes a necessary vade mecum for our progress in the divine life. We must see what sin is—and that is a difficult thing— before we can escape from it. It is here we need one who shall be to us Jesus “Deliverer,” for, as proclaimed at His birth, He shall deliver His people from their sins. Should we for a moment suppose that our self-assertive tendencies do not make sin difficult to detect, I beg that we remember how our most fatal and disastrous sins are so subtle as to clothe themselves with even the garb of vir- tues. Cruelty puts on the cloak of justice; pride and hate that of self- respect; greed and envy that of ambi- tion; narrowness, bigotry, and intoler- ance that of truth. It is only through VIA CRUCIS a Christ’s triumphant lordship in our hearts that we are enabled to know sin, and at the same time to realize fully God’scondemnation of and sorrow for it. Yes, such clear moral vision is the victory of the love of Jesus shed abroad in our hearts. Let me use a simple illustration. Radiant energy—that white light from God’s heaven—must exist before the sensitive plate of the camera re- ceives any effect whatsoever. So our hearts must glow with divine love— that pure love, uncolored by envy or malice, even that love which “thinketh no evil”—ere the Christ-likeness can be created there. The surface of the plate, again, must be brought before the projected image of the object. Should anything inter- vene reproduction is impossible. In like manner between our souls and Christ nothing can come. Should self 10 VIA ORUOIS intervene there will be no impress of the Christ-image. And finally—to carry the figure far- ther—the solar rays upon the exposed film cut out the silver nitrate and other chemicals so that the part shaded by the object stands out clear and distinct. Has not the love of Jesus to eut out of our souls all impurity, jealousy, pride, greed, and hate before His likeness can be discerned ? A hard process we say, yet this is the triumph of Christ in the human heart, a triumph which means nothing less than Christ-similitude. “We all with uncovered face, reflecting as in a mir- ror the glory of our Lord, are trans- figured into the same likeness from glory unto glory.” It is said that after the lions in the amphitheatre had devoured one of the ancient martyrs, his heart was found in- tact, and on it was inscribed the single VIA ORUCIS 11 word Jesus. Surely, yes, surely, this supreme name alone will be in our souls when the Christ-victory is won. So we see that Jesus’ triumphal en- trance into our hearts means a life- union with Himself, effecting in us a divine character like His own, whose realization is absolute harmony and complete fellowship with God. This is salvation, and is a lifelong struggle. Over our dead past with all its fail- ures and mistakes, as on the old Egypt- ian obelisk standing to-day in the Piazza of St. Peter’s, will now be written the words so significant of the reign of Jesus within us, Christus vincit, LR Ae of ahs Christus regnat, FLEA Christus imperat, which means that the dominion of self is replaced by the dominion of our Master, our Lord, our King. Curistus TRIUMPHAT. Wonday Before Easter N Monday Jesus is at Bethany. Bethany! How tenderly Christians pronounce this name, for it was here that Christ showed more of His human feelings. Here He de- lighted in the quiet home of Mary and - Martha. Here He sorrowed for the dead Lazarus, even as we sorrow at the death of our beloved. Here was re- vealed the tender love of the Christ- heart: “He whom Thou lovest is sick,” was the only message necessary to dis- tinguish this friend of our Lord. Happy Lazarus! That He who had come from the Father’s bosom, He whom angels revered, should have singled him out for such peculiar and intimate companionship! ANVHLGE VIA CRUCIS 13 Looking eastward we see the illimi- table waste of the barren hills stretch- ing on as far as the Dead Sea and the Jordan. It is a part of that vast wilderness of Judea whither Jesus withdrew to fight the power of evil in solitude. Certainly upon these desert hills our Lord had looked many times. Above our heads is the clear Oriental sky, the same heaven that opened to re- ceive the ascending Christ after He had led His disciples out even unto Beth- any. The traditional grave of Lazarus is pointed out to all travellers. Descend- ing into a second subterranean chamber we come to a small vault unlike the many rock-hewn tombs which abound in the environs of Jerusalem. It was at some open grave on this eastern spur of Olivet where the evangelist places that transcendent scene of Death bowing before the summons of the Lord of Life 14 VIA ORUOIS who, in the sublime consciousness of the immortality of self-giving love, pro- claims: ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life. He who puts his trust in Me, even though he has died, shall live, and he who lives and puts his trust in Me shall not ever die.” May our life- union with Christ be such that these words of promise become more and more realized in our souls. Some ruined walls rising in the centre of the insignificant modern town are associated with the house of Simon the Leper, while a fairly preserved sub- structure, a short distance from the road, marks the foundation of the tra- ditional home of Mary and Martha. However incredulous the traveller may be in accepting the authenticity of these scanty remains which the drago- man points out with such zeal, yet this little village on the eastern slope of Olivet is a sacred spot, for here Christ VIA CRUCIS 15 withdrew from the noise and bustle of the city to the comfort of social joys. We do well to remember that our Lord threw His life into the throbbing, pulsating world with the same sym- pathy as He entered into the religious services of the Temple. It is a false dualism that would separate the sacred and the profane. All life is holy. The name “Christian” means that we are to be Christs in society, Christs in the home, Christs in business. Our words will be forgotten, but the personal touch of our lives with other lives will live as long as the souls which we may have influenced. Jesus loved His friends. What is there more divine than friendship? Yet how loosely we use the term! Friends are not made ina day. I had a friend in childhood and I loved him, but it was with the love of childhood. I have a friend in manhood and I love 16 VIA CRUCIS him with the strong, true, intelligent love of manhood. So the friend of my old age will be he whom I shall love in a friendship tried and tested through the years. Christ says that He calls us “His friends.” We have perhaps loved Him with the love of earlier days, but how higher, diviner, richer, and deeper the love as the passing years of our com- panionship with Him bring us near the end of life! Eternal life, Jesus tells us, is to know God and Christ Himself; to know our Lord as we know our dearest friend, and by this lifelong friendship with Him to receive into us His person- ality. It is very true that our friends become a part of ourselves and we a part of them. Are we through con- stant communion with Him taking the life of Jesus into us? Are we in our social intercourse imparting to others the Christ within us? If not, we may VIA CRUCIS 7 call ourselves “friends of Jesus,” yet fail to have that friendship which Jesus meant. The evening of this day Christ spent at the house of Simon the Leper (Holtzmann) and received the devotion of a sinful woman who cast herself at His feet and bathed them with costly ointment. Along the road leading from the Mount of Olives over the Kedron Valley crowds of lepers to-day beg the passing traveller for alms. This foul disease in its present form obliterates the physical features. The eye be- comes glassy; the fleshy part of the nose falls away; portions of the limbs drop off. Is not this a fitting symbol of the loathsome disease of sin daily eating insidiously into the divine life of the soul? We note that our Lord mingled with lepers. He reached out His hand and 18 VIA CRUOIS touched them, saying “I will, be you clean.” He was called contemptously by the self-righteous, “a friend of sin- ners.” Blessed word! I¢ sin in the world is to be cured, it can never be done by drawing the robes of our self- righteousness about us. Its remedy is only through the personal contact of the Christ-life in ourselves with the de- generate, the erring, the wicked. It is certain that Jesus treated sin as a dis- ease, an unsound, abnormal condition of human life. Are not the Church and society to find here a solution of the great problem of criminology? A truly Christian civilization should re- quire that all institutions for the criminal class be reformatory, not penal. Jacob Riis, in writing his well known book which shows the awful in- fluence of heredity and environment on the human soul, was profoundly im- pressed by the thought of the impos- VIA CRUCIS 19 sibility of showing the love of God to those who have ever been nurtured in sight of the greed of man. The religion of Jesus Christ de- mands nothing less than that we bring our healing life to sinners and our com- fort to the outcast. Guesdsay Wefore Easter N Tuesday our Lord on His way to Jerusalem curses the barren fig tree, a type of many so-called Christ- ians, who show forth the external form of Christianity, but who have not in themselves that divine life which brings forth the fruits of the Spirit. Let us ask ourselves here that searching ques- tion: Have we these fruits of charac- ter? Think well on each as we enum- erate them: “love, joy, peace, long suf- fering, kindness, goodness, trust, gentle- ness, self-control” (Gal. v. 22). Within the Temple enclosure Jesus finds those who were selling doves for sacrifice and the money-changers, who gained considerable profit in the pre- mium exacted for changing Roman coin into the Jewish money required for offering to Yahweh. The confu- ‘vVoRry WTI, DNIMONY SUUGHS WS NVUVE WAL VIA CRUCIS 21 sion in the court was such that our Lord drives them from the Temple, and so justifiable was this act that the Roman soldiers quartered in the neigh- boring Castle of Antonia did not ven- ture to interfere. If our Lord’s anger was great in be- holding those who took advantage of the sanctuary for purposes of personal gain, with what displeasure he must look upon members of His Church who worship with hearts filled with avarice and greed, and whose ill-gotten wealth is amassed through the oppression of the poor! There is no doubt that the Jewish Temple occupied the site of the present Haram esh Sherif (“Holy Enclosure’), a spot in Mohammedan religion second in sanctity to the Kaaba in Mecca. On the south side Solomon erected his vast substructure to afford a broader plateau for the temple area, 22 VIA ORUCIS and the massive square stones on which are traced Phoenician marks for six courses of masonry attest the solidity of the ancient foundation. These painted and incised characters have been interpreted as masons’ signs and are identical with those carved on the tomb of the Phoenician king Eshmuna- zar. On this wall probably rose the pinnacle of the temple, whose summit commanded a dizzy height, overlooking the deep gorge of the Valley of Jehoshaphat. At the bottom of the southeast angle is a well-hewn block of stone, fourteen feet long and nearly four feet high, deeply sunk into the rock. It is evi- dent by the absence of marginal draft at the bottom that it was prepared in the quarry for its present position. For many centuries it has bound the two walls of supporting masonry above it, and strikingly became from the VIA ORUCIS 23 earliest period the symbol of moral strength, and later the token of the per- manency of Christ’s kingdom. “Behold I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation.” So St. Paul re- ferring to the solidity of the ecclesias- tical structure speaks of it as “built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Christ Jesus Himself be- ing the Head corner-stone, in whom all the building, exactly framed together, groweth unto. an holy temple in the Lord.” Are the lives of Christians such that no stone is placed therein which shall mar the spiritual edifice of the Holy Church of God? Are our acts, our thoughts, our words, such as to be com- pactly fitted into that building not made with hands, eternal in the heavens? Will they stand the scrutiny of the Supreme Architect ? 24 VIA CRUCIS Along the south wall of the city a little farther to the west are remains of the Double and Triple Gates. We de- scend under ground to these structures, and observe several ancient columns as evinced by Jewish ornamentation that had come under the influence of Greco-Roman art. Since the Double Gate lay in the direction of Bethany, we are certain that our Lord Himself passed under the shadow of these very pillars which have survived the vicissi- tudes of Jerusalem. On the upper terrace of the modern precinct was found the famous stone containing the Greek inscription for- bidding all foreigners to enter the imner enclosure on penalty of death. I thought as I saw this stele several years before in the Ottoman Museum at Constantinople, how little the Jews realized that their national Yahweh was the common Father of all men. VIA CRUCIS 25 On this stone the eyes of our Saviour must have rested often, and we recall His words: “Many sheep I have not of this fold.” So to-day, alas! Christians erect their barriers of religious prejudice and dogmatism with somewhat the spirit of Roman imperialism: extra ecclesiam nulla salus, “no salvation outside their fold.” Hence a disrupted and divided Christendom. Hence narrowness, big- otry, intolerance and schism. If the Church is to be what its divine Founder intended, a continuous and increasing revelation of Christ in the world—and who will deny this?—then there must be One Lord, One common faith in His love, One universal baptism of consecration. May the time be not far distant when a clearer understanding of the truths of Jesus shall sweep away the landmarks and boundaries of sec- tarianism, and the old walls which 26 VIA ORUOIS guarded bigotry be looked upon with the same idle curiosity as the passing traveller regards the ancient Jewish stele in the Ottoman Museum. Under the shelter of the dome of the Mohammedan Mosque is the ancient Rock of Sacrifice which stood on the summit of Mount Moriah, a _ spot transcendently sacred to Jew and Christian alike. Here all the victims were offered from the time of David until the fall of Jerusalem. Behind it, where to-day stands a small grove of cypress trees, was the Holy of Holies, and it was necessary that the priest should pass by this Stone of Sacrifice before he could stand in God’s presence in that inner shrine. Is not here a lesson for our lives? If we shall enter that higher, larger, and holier life, we must first pass through the stage of self-giving and sacrifice. This is the true ordo salutis. THE ROCK OF SACRIFICE. Wednesday Before Easter HE evening of Tuesday Jesus spent probably on the Mount of Olives, and again on Wednesday morning comes to the Temple court where He converses with a deputation from the Sanhedrin. It is at this time that Jesus is fully conscious of the in- effectiveness of His stern invective against the hypocritical piety of the Pharisees, and in despair He laments “O Jerusalem! Jerusalem !—how often would I have gathered thy children together—and ye would not” (Holtz- mann). In these haughty adversaries of our Lord we see a common type of Christ- ians who identify religion with theo- logic formularies, and complacent in the efficacy of their creed to save their souls, keep their heart untouched by 28 VIA ORUOIS love. Cold, cruel, self-opinionated, they look with scant charity upon the views of those who may be holding as a prerequisite for closer communion with God, the sign-manual Lua et Veritas, to follow wherever the Light and Truth may lead. They ponder upon the traditional theories of “personal” salva- tion, little realizing that “Who seeks for heaven alone to save his soul, May keep the path but will not reach the goal; While he who walks in love may wander far, Yet God will bring him where the blesséd are.” —Van Dyke. Jesus is aware also of the intense hatred His words have incurred, and knows that His enemies will not rest until they have accomplished His ruin. His suspicions are fully justified, for presently emissaries come from the Sanhedrin with the concealed purpose of inducing Jesus to make some rash statement which might be construed as NVLIUVINVG G00 IHL JO NVHY,, DNIMOHYG ‘OHOINAL OL WaATVSOUaAl WOU GVO AHL VIA CRUCIS 29 treason against Roman authority. So they introduce the tax question. A direct answer would either have given offence to Jewish sentiment, thereby diminishing Christ’s influence among the people, or, had Jesus questioned the right of Rome to levy tribute, a criminal procedure would have been the immediate consequence. Jesus’ familiar evasive reply, “Pay what is Cesar’s to Cesar, and what is God’s to God,” is a remarkable example of astuteness in avoiding a most difficult dilemma, and at the same time in teach- ing a profound truth. “His foes,” says Keim, “must have felt disap- pointed above measure, completely overthrown, for they had achieved nothing. They had neither as they had wished and expected, unmasked Him as a rebel and an enemy of Rome, nor even, as they might have afterwards wished, as a traitor to God, to the 30 VIA ORUCIS people, to their liberty, to their future, to their longings for Messianic salva- tion” (Jesus of Nazara). Another captious question is put to our Lord by the Sadducees respecting what they deemed an insurmountable difficulty to belief in the resurrection. Jesus does not answer the question, but plainly declares that the finite condi- tions which surround us here should not be projected into our thought of the world beyond. The spiritual com- munion of the next life transcends the human limitations of family, and is like that of the angels of heaven. “More illustrious than ever the hero from Galilee stood there, His foes His footstool, and the people, newly en- chained, roused afresh for the Prophet, the God” (Keim). In marked contrast to these responses to His adversaries is the plain and direct answer which Jesus gives to the VIA CRUCIS 31 honest inquiry of the Scribe respecting the greatest of the Commandments. Tt is then Christ made for all time that concise summary of religious obliga- tion: “Thou shalt love Yahweh thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy understanding, and with all thy strength.” The Second Commandment is this: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” The former was very familiar to every Jew, written as it was on His phylacteries, and naturally met with the hearty endorsement of Jesus’ inter- locutor. The latter command, although found in Jewish Scripture, had become obsolete. To make plain its meaning our Lord at the Scribe’s request defines the word neighbor through the graphic parable of the Good Samaritan (Holtz- mann), who was passing along the Jerusalem road which Jesus had re cently traveled, a region doubtless as 32 VIA CRUOCIS barren and wild in Christ’s time (Zpnpov xai merpodes, Josephus) as we see it to-day. Nothing met our eyes as we journeyed by this route to the Dead Sea save desolate stretches of sand upon which the rays of the sun beat with un- mitigated vehemence. Only two small Khans, which afford a little rest and coolness to the traveller, break the mo- notony of a long and tedious journey. One is named “The Inn of The Good Samaritan”; but it certainly cannot localize the imaginary place of the assault upon the wayfarer, since it lies nearly half way between Jerusalem and Jericho. We infer from the parable that the robbers attacked their victims at no very great distance from Jerus- alem, as the two passers-by were evidently coming out from the city. The priest was doubtless on his way home from service in the Temple VIA CRUCIS 33 (Jiilicher, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu). He had been standing in the quiet soli- tude of the Court of the Priests before the divine Presence, yet he had seen no vision of God. He, as well as the Levite, was an official representative of Judaism. Both were strict in their theology, but disregarded a fellow be- ing in distress. It remained for an ignorant, lowly, despised Samaritan to render a service more divine in God’s sight than magnificent temple cere- monies. Then Jesus sums up the ratio vivendi in a single brief sentence: “Do likewise.” In the old White Keep of the London Tower the visitor is shown where in the underground chambers stood the rack and the wheel. The walls are dark and damp, haunted even to-day by the cries of pain they have echoed. Yet by a strange inconsistency a wind- ing staircase brings one to the chapel 34 VIA CRUCIS of St. John the Divine. Here stood at the altar the cross, that symbol of suf- fering love; here men knelt and re- peated the very words of the Saviour of the world, while stifled by the thick stone beneath them were the shrieks and wails of victims tortured by cord and thumbscrew. Was that Christ- ianity? Yet have we not to-day much of that spirit? We leave our comfort- able homes and enjoy the dignity and calm which come from worship in the House of God. But did we see in that narrow alley which we passed any de- graded lives to lift Godward? Did we hear from the dank of the cellar and the gloom of the attic any ery of suf- fering? Christianity is seeing with the Christ-vision the sorrows of the sorrowing, the poverty of the poor, the despair of the despairing. That night Jesus retires again to the Mount of Olives. Waundy Ghursday N Thursday morning our Lord for the last time visits the Temple. The Pharisees had probably heard that a courtesan had anointed His feet a few days before, and that the act had met with His favor. Jesus’ compassion, they believe, will now destroy His in- fluence. An _ excellent opportunity offers. They find a common adulter- ess, who happened to be in the crowd about the temple, and publicly place her before Him. I know that this incident is not found in some of our best manuscripts, yet it is so in accord with the spirit of Christ that I feel it is real. Even Holtzmann regards it as genuine, and places it here in the order of events. If Jesus condemns the sinful woman, 36 VIA CRUOIS He will act inconsistently with His spirit of pardon. If He does not con- demn her, He will lose all claim to be- ing a moral teacher. But our Lord’s rebuke is to the woman’s accusers. He asks them to search their own hearts, and if they find they have lived blame- less before God, then and then only are they qualified to judge a fellow crea- ture. Unable to evade this searching test, they creep away, one by one, till Jesus stands alone before the sinner. I should like to have seen the look our Lord gave to that shrinking, abject be- ing. It must have been full of love, tenderness, sympathy. He saw, be- cause He was the Christ of Love, what her accusers had failed to see. He saw God’s image with all the possibilities of the divine life in that weak and broken body, and His words had to do only with the future: “Go and sin no more.” VIA CRUCIS ' 37 The Pharisees demanded punish- ment; Jesus Christ asked for reforma- tion. In a Christian city of New England a girl who had been nurtured under the influence of God-fearing parents found employment in one of the large factories. Deceived by the treachery of a so-called friend who had invited her to meet some of her acquaintances, she was drugged, ruined and aband- oned. Later as she reeled half uncon- scious through the streets she was arrested for drunkenness, brought with a load of vile and loathsome criminals into the police court, and sentenced to ninety days in jail. At the expira- tion of that time she sought her em- ployer and told him her story. He refused to take her back. She went to another city, but found evil report had preceded her. In despair she turned to her old Sunday School teacher, but 38 VIA ORUCIS the door was shut in her face and she was told not to defile that home with her presence. Yes, she was an abandoned woman—that awful term— abandoned by a self-righteous world, but still dear and precious to the Christ- heart. A week later the waves gently washed her frail and outworn body upon the rugged shore of that New England coast. The waters, more kind than the human hearts, to which she had appealed, gave that rest which had been denied her in the great city of Christian homes and Christian churches. How different the con- demnation of the world to-day from that of Jesus two thousand years ago! The Sunday School teacher still meets her classes, but she has not heard the Christ saying “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these least, ye have done it unto Me.” As Jesus was still sitting in the VIA CRUCIS 39 temple (Holtzmann), he observes a poor widow approaching the treasury and putting in two lepta (a quarter cent), surely an insignificant sum com- pared with the contributions of the rich. Our Lord takes this occasion to teach the great truth that the value of an offering in God’s sight is measured solely by the personal sacrifice in- volved. We cannot hoard our wealth and give to God something which costs us little to surrender. Neither can we use our money for selfish aims, and then satisfy our consciences by leaving legacies for great philanthropic purposes, since what death wrests from us is in no wise a voluntary gift. It is the spirit of individual self- denial which God accepts and blesses. Jesus now passes out of the temple buildings which by their size and magnificence overawed the simple band of Galilean peasants. Yet our Lord 40 VIA ORUOIS boldly foretells the utter destruction of a shrine so sacred to every Jew. The language of a similar prophecy was later used against Him at His trial. He had also on this day publicly ex- posed the hypocrisy and pride of Pharisaism, thus arousing still more the hatred of His enemies. Jesus is glad to retire again to the quiet of Olivet. Sitting on the hillslope He con- verses with His disciples concerning His second coming. He tells them, through graphic illustrations, of the necessity of preparedness, of the separation between those qualified and those unqualified for admission into His kingdom. He shows that the uni- versal law of that kingdom is one of love, and that the sole criterion of judg- ment will be based on the amount of this unselfish love contained in the hearts of His believers. He clearly UTIdIAG GSv]T ANG TO WOOW TVNOMIavaT, xO ‘WOTDOVNGO GAG VIA CRUCIS 41 teaches that service to humanity is service to Himself. When the evening shadows gather Christ prepares to eat His last meal with His disciples. Late in the afternoon of Thursday we visited the traditional cenaculum. A statement of Epiphanius, to the effect that the Upper Room used at that time as a little church had escaped the general demolition of Jerusalem, has led many to regard this chamber as one of the most authentic of sacred sites (Zahn, Neue Kirchliche Zeitschrift). Prof. Sanday commits himself fully to this view, remarking that the evidence appears to him so strong that he is pre- pared to give it an unqualified ad- hesion. The room is to-day in the hands of the most fanatical sect of the Moslems. It is an ancient edifice with later vaulted ceiling, supported by mas- sive columns, and I can easily believe 42 VIA ORUCIS that at least it may have been in exist- ence in the time of Christ. On the evening of that day we cele- brated the Holy Communion in the English Church at Jerusalem, certainly not far from the spot where Christ Himself established this memorial of His death. After the words, “This do in remembrance of Me,” we paused, that our thoughts might go back through the centuries to that solemn scene when, on this same night and at the same hour, our Lord took the cup into His hand and blessed it to be for- ever the pledge of His love. It is thought by many modern scholars that the Last Supper on that eve before the Passover symbolized the ancient Sinaitic Covenant whereby Yahweh bound Himself to His people (Titius, Neutest. Lehre). During the ceremonies of this feast the victim was slain, and his blood originally was VIA CRUCIS 43 drunk by the worshipper in the belief that he was actually partaking of the life of his God. Although the Jews in the time of our Lord had advanced far beyond that crude idea of sacrifice, yet there still survived a symbolism of the shed blood as a type of the union of God with His people. If this view be correct, I think we see a more suggestive and a diviner meaning in the Holy Eucharist. It is His Body and His Blood, not of the old Jewish compact with a national God, but of the new covenant “with Yahweh’s Servant suffering to redeem not only the nation’s sin but those of the world” (Giesebrecht, Der Knecht Jahwes des Deuterojesaia). It is strictly a communion service, for in it we take into ourselves the life and nature of our Lord. It is a type of Christ-similitude. We do well to ask ourselves as we a4 VIA ORUOCIS come Sunday after Sunday to His Holy Table, “Are we more like Christ now than when we partook of the Holy Communion in the days gone by?” If we are not, we have not that religion which Jesus brought. Are our hearts filled with pride, greed, jealousy, and hate? Then is it not sacrilege for us to partake of the emblems of His divine life ? Communion with Christ in this sacred ordinance means our becoming more and more Christ-ed. When our service in the church was ended, we passed out along the dark and tortuous streets of Jerusalem, through St. Stephen’s Gate, over the dry bed of the brook Kedron, to the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane. It was the time of the full Paschal moon. I have seen the moonbeams illumine the weird deserts of Arizona; I have seen them sport on the waters of the Aegean Sea, and VIA OCRUCIS 45 silver the domes and minarets of Con- stantinople; but never have I seen their effulgence greater than on that night when their light came down through the silver sheen of the olive trees. For a long time we gathered in silence, and then we read the simple Gospel narrative of our Lord’s agony and betrayal. It was no time for words, but each one of that little band gave himself up to the thoughts sug- gested by the holy environment. We stood there with no superstitious feel- ing that we were standing on the very spot where Christ had knelt, but we realized that it was under the same sky and on the same soil and at the same hour. We knew that the same moon had met His upturned gaze as He prayed, “If it be possible let this cup pass from Me.” We knew that the same ground had been wet with the sweat of His agony. 46 VIA ORUOIS From a band of Christians gathered at another point on the hillside were wafted the familiar words ‘Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee, E’en though it be a cross that raiseth me,’’ and we thought how in accord they were with the spirit of Christ’s prayer, “Not My will but Thine be done.” Do we, as we take the chalice into our hands, hear Christ speaking to us as He spoke centuries ago, “Are ye able to drink of this cup of sacrifice that I drink of?’ Upon our answer to that question depends the degree of our fel- lowship and communion with our Lord. A picture by a celebrated foreign artist has been fitly styled a sermon in painting. It is called “Despised and Rejected of Men,” and portrays the suffering form of our Saviour bound to an altar, on the pedestal of which is in- scribed Ignoto Deo, “to the unknown God,” while there pass by a confused VIA ORUCIS 47 and noisy crowd representing all con- ditions of life. The scientist is there absorbed in his investigations, the priest of God engrossed in dogmatic problems, the woman enslaved by the sham and emptiness of society, each of them oblivious to the divine call to share in the Christ-Sacrifice. The only one who responds in all that throng is a poor woman holding a babe to her breast; the love for her child has enabled her to catch some vision of the divine love, and she has crept up to the altar steps and looks sympathetically into the face of Jesus. Our Lord’s heart is broken with sorrow, and angels raise to His lips the cup of anguish which He again must drink. Are we of that number that pass by and receive not from the Saviour’s hands the cup of His sacrifice ? The evangelist beautifully tells us that an angel came and ministered 48 VIA CRUCIS to Him. The struggle is now over. Christ’s prayer is answered and He has entered into complete harmony and touch with the Father. So every life, which enters into communion with God, hears the divine voice. I remember that I was crossing the Atlantic shortly after the Marconi system had been put in operation. I spent many hours watching the move- ments of the little machine which was receiving messages from the distant shore. We were surrounded by the trackless expanse of water, yet the deli- cate receiver transmitted to us tidings simply because it was attuned to the vibrations of the ether waves. Our ears were too dull to respond to them. Is it not true that our lives must be in harmony with God before they can re- ceive messages from heaven ? Perhaps we have heard God speaking to us in moments of prosperity, in VIA CRUOIS 49 hours of sorrow. Perhaps God’s voice was heard as we stood by the bedside of a departing soul. We went forth thrilled and responsive, but the clamor of the busy world dulled our souls. Is not the function of all educative in- fluences whether in the school, the col- lege, or the church, is not the purpose of the disciplinary forces of life, to draw us out into such attune with God that we may hear the divine voice even as Christ heard the whisper of angels in dark Gethsemane ? Before we separated on that sacred hill we sang together that hymn: “When I survey the wondrous Cross On which the Prince of Glory died,” and it seemed as if we could literally survey that Cross which on the morrow was to be erected on one of the hills which frowned down upon the slumber- ing city. We returned across the Kedron 50 VIA CRUCIS brook by the road which preserves the direction taken by the captors of our Lord. As the domes and minarets of the city glittered in the moonlight we pictured the midnight scene in the Palace of the High Priest. Whatever the Sanhedrin had to do must be done quickly. The following day would be the fourteenth of Nisan (Holtzmann), and the Passover would begin at six o'clock in the evening. This accounts for the desperate haste of the Priests, Scribes and Elders to condemn and execute Jesus on the day previous to the Great Sabbath. They must kill the Son of God before they enter upon their religious services. Here is a lesson so deeply significant that it needs no comment. The hall of the Sanhedrin lay close to the “ancient city wall which joined the Xystos square with the western por- tico of the temple” (Holtzmann). The VIA ORUOCIS 51 power of this body to condemn Christ rested in the charge of His proclaiming a religion which would supersede the God-revealed tenets of Judaism. His caustic accusations against the official representatives of the national faith, His blasphemous prophecy relating to the destruction of the Temple, and His presumptive assurance that He could rear another in an incredibly brief period, were regarded as_ sufficient ground for his condemnation. But the criminal proceedings against Jesus were stayed through the failure in concur- rence of two witnesses respecting the actual language of the accused. Con- demnation on the testimony of a single witness was illegal. It was at this crisis that the High Priest resorted to the device of causing Christ to in- criminate Himself. Looking with de- rision upon the lowly peasant before 52 VIA ORUOIS him, he asks: “Art thou the Messiah, the Son of God ?” Jesus up to this time had said nothing, but now the question involved His Messiahship publicly proclaimed a few days before. To continue silent longer or to deny it would be disloyalty to His consciousness of His divine mission. “No degree of caution will allow Him to keep back the admission which revealed the essential meaning of His life now that He is questioned directly” (Holtzmann). Although knowing full well the fatal result of such an affirmation He calmly replies: “T am indeed the Messiah.” This statement of our Lord inter- preted in the light of His life and teachings could not be regarded by the Sanhedrin as fanatical; it must be blasphemous, and blasphemy was a capital offense. Jesus is forthwith condemned to death. VIA ORUCIS 53 Another legal step is necessary. Christ’s Messianic claims must be con- strued to mean treason against Rome. The Sanhedrin must bring Him to trial before the Roman Viceroy, who at this time happened to be in the city. While Jesus is waiting to be led before Pilate the servants of the High Priest mock our Lord as a blasphemer, blind- folding Him and demanding that He declare in His role of prophet who it is that strikes Him. At this point even Peter denies Christ. The other disciples had long since aban- doned Him. Jesus now stands alone. How often since that awful scene have the followers of our Lord been called upon to stand alone against the world! It matters little whether men applaud or condemn so long as we are conscious of truth and right. Moral isolation is power, if we stand alone with God. Good Friday N Good Friday we found Jerusalem crowded with pilgrims. The Mo- hammedans had come to celebrate the festival of Moses, a Moslem invention to counteract the Christian influence of Easter, the Jews to keep their Passover, while thousands of Roman and Greek Christians had assembled to follow the footsteps of Christ during Holy Week. Many of these were Russians who had walked their weary way overland. We meet them everywhere—even along the lonely road that leads from Jerus- alem to Jericho, tramping under a blaz- ing sun because Christ had gone foot- sore and weary as they over the same way. They have little purse or script for their journey. I remember seeing one venerable white-haired pilgrim en- VIA CRUOIS 55 ter with slow step a neighboring shop and spend his all for a glass ball, which was to be the receptacle of the Holy Fire on the Greek Easter. Death is constantly thinning their ranks. Funerals pass our hotel at the rate of five a day. In fact, very many never expect to return to the land of their fathers, but count it a privilege to be buried in holy soil. Why this self-denial, this toilsome journey, this coveted death? Simply to walk where Jesus walked; and I doubt not that our Lord receives this sacrifice in the spirit in which it is offered. Is not Christianity a walking with Christ in love and service? Are not His steps very plain? They lead us to follow Him in unselfish mission, rebuk- ing pride, hypocrisy and greed, bring- ing sight to the blind, opening the mouth of the dumb, healing by the 56 VIA ORUOIS touch of our lives the leprosy of sin, raising through our hearts’ love the sor- rowing and afflicted; they lead us to Gethsemane where we make His will our will; they lead us even to Calvary that we crucify our selfish selves and enter upon the immortal life of sacri- fice. Early in the morning of this most sacred day of the Christian year we stood beside the ruins of Herod’s Palace, preserved for several courses of great drafted blocks in the foundation walls of the fourteenth century citadel. The Roman Procurator presumably had his temporary residence here, and hither Jesus was brought as soon as Pilate was ready to give audience. It is probable that the trial took place on an elevation (Gabbatha) before the palace (Holtzmann). The charge against the accused is His treasonable claim to Judaic kingship. ‘SSHAITO WO LNOOW GNV GFANVNUSHLAD j a a'F VIA ORUCIS 57 Pilate tests the seriousness of this accusation by putting upon the populace the responsibility of choosing between an ordinary robber and the “‘king of the Jews” as to which should become a recipient of clemency. Had they re- quested the release of Jesus, he would have suspected a real plot against Roman authority; but their vehement demands for Christ’s execution convince him that Jesus is a victim of irrational Jewish fanaticism (Holtzmann). He regards Him as an innocent man and plainly tells His accusers that he finds no fault in Him. His subsequent condemnation of our Lord is an act of cowardice. He dreads a _ popular demonstration. He fears that he might be accused at Rome of pardoning a traitor. “The priests,” as Weiss points out, “threaten to appeal to the Emperor Tiberius, should Pilate release an acknowledged pretender to the throne” 58 VIA ORUOIS (Leben Jesu). They ery out, “If you let this man go, you are not Cmsar’s friend” ; a fearful accusation, for Taci- tus distinctly states that Laesa Majestas under Tiberius was the greatest of crimes. Political reasons alone in- fluence the Roman Governor reluctantly to pronounce sentence of death upon the guiltless Son of God. Alas! this is not the only time in the world’s history when right and truth have been sacrificed on the selfish ground of expediency. Jesus suffers now the flogging which regularly accompanied crucifixion. While some of the soldiers mock Him in the role of king, others prepare the cross. Doubtless they had made many crosses for condemned criminals ere this. They little realized when they fitted the rude transverse beam to the upright that this gruesome gallows- ‘TOVIV S,COUa_, TO STIVA-NOILVGNOOY ONIMONS ‘TACVLIO AMG VIA OCRUCIS 59 tree would come down through the cen- turies as the holiest symbol of our faith; that it would flash in gold and sparkle with gems upon our altars; that it would rise on heaven- pointing church spires, far above the din of our busy streets as if to hal- low the city’s life. Yes, around it martyr hands have clung. It has been oft-times the last earthly object on which were fixed the eyes of the dying. It is to-day the zdolon of service to those who have entered into life-union with Christ, and its divine lesson of consecra- tion and sacrifice must leave its impress upon the soul before it can fully com- mune with a God of Love. A centurion leads the party towards the place of execution. The Via Dolo- rosa, or Path of Pain, begins at the site of the Roman barracks of the ancient Castle of Antonia. At the hour of our visit a fanatical 60 VIA CRUOCIS Mohammedan procession was going from the Haram esh Sherif, where elaborate ceremonies had been held for several days, to the tomb of Moses, which, very conveniently for the follow- ers of the prophet, has been found on this side of the Jordan. From the din and discordance of the military music of the Turkish bands, from the confu- sion and jostling of the crowd, we with- drew into the peace and seclusion of the Latin Convent of the Sisters of Zion, situated at the beginning of this tra- ditional road which Christ trod on His way to Calvary. A Sister with a pure and sweet face which reflected the calm of her daily life, took us beneath the ground floor of the convent, and showed us the ancient pavement some twenty feet below the modern street. Pointing to it she ex- claimed: “It is very sacred; our Lord Himself walked here.” VIA CRUCIS 61 Deeply cut in the hard stone were the familiar outlines of the game of draughts, so popular among the Roman soldiers, and which the traveller ob- serves on the floor of the Basilica Julia in the Roman Forum. These marks, it is true, tend somewhat to confirm the hypothesis that the old Roman Pre- torium and the Judgment Hall of Pilate were situated near this spot. In fact Weiss (Das Leben Jesu) remarks that the narrative seems to indicate the tower of Antonia where the Roman cohort was quartered, and where doubt- less the commander resided. Yet I have accepted what seems to me the more plausible view, that the Procura- tor during his presence in Jerusalem occupied the royal Palace of Herod near the modern Jaffa Gate. We all looked, however, with deep reverence upon these ancient stones, feeling that it was indeed possible that 62 VIA OCRUOIS they had been pressed by the footsteps of the Son of God, and had resounded to the dull thud of the Cross on this very day and at this very hour. Spanning the modern street at this point is the Ecce Homo arch, a struc- ture not standing in the time of Christ, but probably erected during the reign of Hadrian. Here it is said Pilate showed our Lord to the people, saying: “Behold the Man.” A famous French painter has given us this sad scene. The Saviour wears the crown of thorns deeply sunk in His brow, yet is the only one quiet and com- posed amid the tumultuous throng. Pilate points to the sorrowing form of our Lord and utters the famous words: Ecce Homo. It is fitting that the Way of Pain should begin here, that we should see from the balcony of Pilate’s Palace that mocked but silent Christ as if saying to THH VIA DOLOROSA, SHOWING Eccr Homo ArcH. VIA CRUOCIS 63 us, “Look upon Me. Consider what the name ‘Christian’ involves before you take it upon yourselves,” and as if appealing to us to follow in His foot- steps of love and sacrifice as we enter the Via Dolorosa to ascend to Calvary. Following the Stations of the Cross we come to the spot where Simon of Cyrene took upon his own shoulders the Cross from the exhausted and fainting Christ. Is it not true that we need in Christ- ianity more Cross-bearers? We have enough Cross-parasites. Many are ready to sing “Simply to Thy Cross I cling,” but Christianity demands that we bear the Cross of sacrifice. Yes, on our own shoulders must be laid that great world-burden of our Lord. The Cross of self-denial is hard to bear, but He has borne it before us. The path may be rugged, but His feet have trod every step of the way. He 64 VIA OCRUOIS does not say, “Go,” but He turns and bids us, “Follow after Me.” Suppose every member of the Church of God were a Cross-bearer. How the afflicted, the downcast, the degraded, would crowd our doors! How lovingly and tenderly our names would be taken upon the lips of the poor, the father- less, and the suffering! What mean- ing would be carried by the name “Christian!” We cannot doubt that this is Christ’s test of our discipleship, for He has plainly declared: “He who would be My disciple, let him deny himself and take up his cross and fol- low Me.” A few steps beyond we reach the place where legend says that St. Veronica wiped the face of the Saviour with her napkin. She did not know it was the Lord of Glory; she doubtless thought it was only some poor criminal led to an ignominious death. VIA OCRUCIS 65 We envy her this holy opportunity ; we wish we could have been there to re- lieve the suffering Christ; but our Lord points us to the sad and the despairing, to the sorrowing and the bereaved, and says: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these least, ye have done it unto Me.” We are told that on the cloth the maiden carried there appeared the face of our Lord Himself. So every good deed and every kind word leaves the Christ-character stamped upon the soul forever. And now the Stations of the Cross end at Calvary. As we stood on this height, sacredly associated with the dy- ing agony of our Lord through a tra- dition extending over fifteen hundred years, we realized how the Church throughout the world was remembering the divine suffering; how the Cross upon each altar was veiled during these 66 VIA ORUCIS awful hours; how Christians were as- sembling to keep that day of days by solemn meditation on those last words uttered by our Saviour from the Cross, while we were permitted to spend that holy day beneath the same sky where He died. Desiring to keep full possession of His powers, Jesus will not drink the an- esthetic generally given to criminals before crucifixion. The soldiers now strip Him of His clothes and nail Him to the Cross, while they post above His head, as Roman custom required, the accusation of the condemned: KInG OF THE JEWS. They stand guard to prevent any at- tempt at rescue, and cast lots for the garments of the Lord. It happened at this hour of the day of our visit that the motley procession which I have described was filing out VIA CRUOIS 67 St. Stephen’s Gate. As we looked at the disorderly and shouting mob we could easily imagine the crowd that jeered, hooted and reviled as they passed by the Cross. They knew not that it was the Redeemer of the World who was hanging there. Jesus, because He was divine, looked beyond all hate and cruelty deep into their souls, and out of pity of a heart broken with sorrow He cries: “Father, — forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Even at this awful hour the heart of our Saviour forgot the pain of the Cross in filial solicitude for His mother as He commits her to the care of His beloved disciple saying: “Mother, look upon thy Son.” With the same unselfish love His next words are those of pardon to a penitent fellow sufferer, and a promise of entrance into His Kingdom. 68 VIA CRUCIS We were sitting beneath burning rays of an April sun. We realized how the unmitigated heat must have been even greater suffering to our Lord than the pain from the driven nails. As the blistering sun of midday fell upon that barren hill, we cannot wonder that there escaped from Him those words, wrung from His lips by awful torture: “I thirst, I thirst.” The populace which had proclaimed belief in Jesus as the Messiah, now de- mand a miraculous descent from the Cross as a vindication of His claim. Could our Lord have escaped death ? Even without a miracle, He had the power to save Himself, but He never could have had the desire. He could have withdrawn to the wilderness of Judeea at the time He was anticipating His capture in Gethsemane. If He had denied His Messianic mission before the Sanhedrin, it is probable that suffi- VIA CRUCIS 69 cient evidence of blasphemy could not have been brought against Him. Had He undertaken His self-defence before Pilate, the trial might have resulted in acquittal. But “as God, He could be moved by no necessity. As it would not be power but weakness for God to wish to lie (whence its impossibility), so it would not be power but weakness for Christ to desire to withold His life when once the purpose of salvation had been formed, and in view of the great good to be wrought by the gift of it” (Stevens, Christian Doctrine of Salva- tion). In the sight of the people Christ’s failure to avoid an ignominious death invalidates His Messianic claim, and they revile Him as an imposter. Their taunting words must have been greater agony to the heart of Jesus than any physical suffering. It is at this awful moment that our Lord takes refuge in 70 VIA ORUOIS the Psalm of Agony which He utters in the Aramaic dialect: Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me!” I cannot believe that He whose life had been in perfect fellowship with the Father could have felt a sense of divine abandonment in the very hour when He most needed God’s presence. “In life and death Christ’s conscious- ness of complete union with God was uninterrupted” (Ritschl, Die Christ- liche Lehre). Rather, He spake these words with the same spirit that inspired many a martyr at the stake to chant portions of the Liturgy, in calm assur- ance of divine comfort in the midst of the revilings and the mistaken judg- ments of men. Because of the noise and confusion around the Cross, this utterance of Jesus is indistinctly heard. The crowd imagine that He is calling upon Elijah VIA CRUCIS 71 for help. An observer takes this oppor- tunity to do a merciful deed (Holtz- mann). It was a violation of the Roman law to offer drink to a criminal during the period of his execution. Under the pretense of derision (for such an act would have been prevented had its friendly purpose been sus- pected), he raised a sponge to the lips of Christ, while he contemptuously re- marked, “Let us see if Elijah will come and take Him down.” Conscious of the approach of a re- markably speedy death, Jesus now utters those words of tremendous sig- nificance: “It is finished!” andcommits His soul to God in a prayer which can come only from a life in unbroken com- munion with the Father. Let us look upon the dying Christ as the centurion, amid the gloom of a heaven overcast with clouds as if 72 VIA CRUCIS nature felt the divine agony, exclaims: “Behold, this was the Son of God!” Behold Christ; and in His death you behold God’s incomparable sorrow for sin. You behold the world-vision of self-giving love. You behold the roy- alty of forgiveness and sacrifice. You behold what was central in the heart of God from eternity, His infinite yearn- ing to bring man into perfect fellowship with Him. You behold the great lov- ing heart of God Himself. You behold the divinest, noblest, most exalted revelation, that of the God-likeness of suffering and service. In the Paedagogium on the Palatine Hill at Rome, was found a rude graf- fito done by a slave in ridicule of a Christian comrade. It represents an ass suspended on a cross, and under it is scrawled in miserable Greek, “‘Alexamenos worships his god.” I thought as I saw this relic in the Museo THE CHURCH OF THH HOLY SEPULCHRE, ON TRADITIONAL SITE OF CALVARY. VIA CRUCIS 73 Kircheriano how little that slave knew that those arms were outstretched for him, that those feet and hands were pierced for him, that the agony of death was for him, all to reveal how a common Father loved the humblest of His children. We can pardon him, for he knew not what he was doing. But what shall we say of the pro- fessed followers of our Lord who hold up to the world the image of the Cruci- fied, marred by selfishness, narrowness, greed and pride? Do men see in our lives the Christ of Calvary? Let us answer seriously and thoughtfully, for Jesus Himself will some day ask, and He too will answer this question; and upon His answer will depend the promise of entrance into the joy of our Lord. “Easter Yorning HE Easter sun ushered in a glorious morning. Very early, while the birds were singing their carols, we came to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which by a tradition fifteen centuries old is supposed to mark the tomb of our Lord. At any rate it is a spot made profoundly sacred by blood and tears. Since the time when Helena may have identified some wooden beams of a sub- terranean reservoir with the true Cross, and Constantine surrounded the Holy Grave with a Basilica, sacred memories have gathered here. The cold stones shutting in the burial place of our Lord have been moistened by Christian blood, as hands of martyrs have been out- stretched to defend it. The conquest of this consecrated THE HOLY GRAVE. VIA CRUCIS 75 shrine has inspired the heroic deeds of the Crusaders. The Grave of Christ has been the goal of thousands and thou- sands of pilgrims who have come to lay down their sins and burdens before the Holy Sepulcher. Later that same morning I had the privilege of celebrating, within the walls of Jerusalem, the Holy Euchar- ist, at this hour especially, as its etymology implies, a true service of Thanksgiving : Curistus RESURREXIT. I cannot close this little volume with- cut repeating the great fundamental obligation of our Christian religion, that we go with Christ to Gethsemane, there to take the chalice of His sacri- fice ; that we follow Him in the steps of His divine forgiveness, by which He forgave those who reviled, cursed and mobbed Him ;that we go with Him even 76 VIA CRUOIS to Calvary, there to give up life, to show that the entrance into the life of God comes only through love and sacrifice and service. i Once more let me give the searching test of our discipleship; are we able to drink of the cup of self-denial whereof He drank, and to be baptized with the baptism of service wherewith He was baptized? Are we ready to deny our- selves and take up the Cross and follow Him? Then and then only can we enter into the Easter joy of a risen life with Christ. “Tf I find Him, if I follow, What His guerdon here? Many a sorrow, many a labor, Many a tear. “Tf I still hold closely to Him, What hath He at last? Sorrow vanquished, labor ended, Jordan past.” Re # Date Due MAR 29°54 MAR 23°51 WR 27 59 APR! 7 '52 MAR 23 eS ge | wo @ Ln) o S a= i = vane 2 APR 7 54 NOV28 ‘JUL 36 L. B. Cat. No. 1137 232.9 T652V 8587 School of Religion vc0G MC eAlUl) BYNG