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SOCIETY, SIN
AND
THE SAVIOUR

Leonardo da Vinci.

Franx Hanfstaengl,
"HE LOVED ME AND GAVE HIMSELF FOR ME."

SOCIETY, SIN
AND
THE SAVIOUR
ADDRESSES ON THE
PASSION OF OUR LORD
BY
FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN
OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS
Given in the Church of the
Immaculate Conception
Mayfair 1907

LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD.
DRYDEN HOUSE, GERRARD STREET, W.
1908

NIHIL OBSTAT
JOSEPH KEATING, S.J.
CENSOR DEPUTATUS
IMPRIMI POTEST
* GULIELMUS EPISCOPUS ARINDELENSIS
VICARIUS GENERALIS
Westmonastbrii die io Sept. 1907

Mxn&5 V4&

" High God, and Pure and Strong and Kind !
The low, the foul, the feeble, spare !
Thy brightness in His Face we find,
Behold our darkness there."
E. B. Browning.

TO YOU MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS
WHO LIKE ANNAS, CAIAPHAS, PILATE AND HEROD
ARE VAINLY STRIVING TO RID YOURSELVES
AND YOUR COUNTRY OF
JESUS CHRIST,
I DEDICATE THESE SCENES
IN THE HOPE YOU MAY LEARN FROM THEM NOT
ONLY THE MALICE OF YOUR ATTEMPT,
BUT ITS FOREDOOMED FUTILITY.
FOR "KNOW MOST CERTAINLY THAT GOD HATH
MADE BOTH LORD AND CHRIST THE SAME JESUS
WHOM YOU HAVE CRUCIFIED . . . SAYING,
SIT THOU ON MY RIGHT HAND
UNTIL I MAKE THY ENEMIES
THY FOOTSTOOL."

PREFATORY NOTE
These Addresses are here presented,
as far as possible, in the shape in which
they were delivered, no attempt being
made to re-mould them according to
the canons of written rhetoric. For the
preacher is persuaded that the congre
gations that listened, with what at least
seemed to be profound interest, did so
on account of the home truths they
enumerated, regardless of the dress
in which they were clothed. Home
truths, he ventures to call them, for
they seem to him to be those verities
in the living, practical acceptance of
which consists the putting on the livery,
the likeness, nay, the character itself of
Jesus Christ, Who for all time is for all
Christians their divine Model as well
as their divine Master.

CONTENTS

SCENE I
PACE
CHRIST BEFORE HIS FATHER .... 3
SCENE II
CHRIST BEFORE ANNAS  35
SCENE III
CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS . . . . 6l
SCENE IV
CHRIST BEFORE PILATE . . . .89
SCENE V
CHRIST BEFORE HEROD  1 23
SCENE VI
CHRIST BEFORE THE PEOPLE . . . .155
SCENE VII
CHRIST DYING ON THE CROSS . . . 183
SCENE VIII
CHRIST RISEN FROM THE DEAD . . .255

INTRODUCTION
There are few points of doctrine upon which
men who still call themselves Christians are more
at variance than upon that of the Atonement.
But the reason is not far to seek. So long as men
make little of the essential sanctity of God and of
the consequent intrinsic malice of sin, so long they
must fail to grasp the real meaning of the Atone
ment. By some it is contended that sin is only
an ugly name for what in reality is a token of
health and growth ; and that the pain accompany
ing it is in no sense punishment for wrongdoing,
but is rather evidence of a striving for perfection
never in fact attained.
Or again, we are assured that in the struggle for
the survival of the fittest, in the moral no less than
in the physical order, there must be both weak
and strong, worse and better ; and just as in one
order there can be no merit attaching to the fittest
who survives, so there can be no guilt attaching to
him who goes under in the other. It is all a
question of heredity, of environment, of constitu
tion, of character; and God, if there is one, the
modern world contends, is no more concerned
about our moral wellbeing than He is about our
physical health or beauty. " There is no room in
xiii

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
the Heart of God for anger against what theo
logians call sin " ; " There can be no sin in trying
to make each other happy."
Seeing that views such as these about sin and
its consequences lie at the root of much that is
assumed in our novels, magazines, and daily
papers, and is acted on by not a few in daily life ;
and seeing that novels and papers sum up all
that men nowadays care to read, a foreword
may not be out of place on the true character of
Sin and the true meaning of the Atonement.
Sin is lawlessness, deliberate, done with know
ledge and freedom. " Whosoever committeth sin,"
writes the Apostle St. John, " committeth iniquity,
and sin is iniquity." Formal sin is a human act
deliberately done against the moral law ; ii is an
iniquitous act.
Being deliberate rebellion against the law of
God, sin is constructive treason against God Him
self. Observe, some laws cannot be resisted ; they
defy man's defiance. Such are the laws of gravita
tion and of respiration, and the laws of growth
and decay.
Again, there are penal laws, which a man may
violate whenever he has a mind to do so, but with
the penalty of physical suffering to follow. For
instance, mental strain unchecked will produce
neurasthenia ; while too much self-indulgence, as
Society can tell you, produces physical disease
with its countless by-products.
But besides physical laws there are other and
higher obligations to which on this planet man
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INTRODUCTION

alone is subject. We call them moral laws. As
with the penal laws just mentioned, man is free
to keep or to break them; let him set them at
defiance, and sooner or later he will become con
scious, not only of mental torture, but also of
having offended the Lawgiver, upon whom he
now altogether depends for forgiveness: "The
wages of sin is death."
When a man violates, say by overwork, the
laws of health, he recognises that he has done an
act for which he must pay the penalty, say of in
somnia ; but when he breaks the moral law, say
the law which forbids him to lie or to steal, he is
conscious that he has done a disgraceful and
degrading act, for which no amount of sleepless
ness in the shape of remorse will atone. There
can be no violation of the moral order which does
not in some way degrade, while its repetition drags
a man down, and down, and down, till finally the
habit reduces him to a level below that of the
brutes that perish. Well may such a one exclaim :
" And ah ! that a man may arise in me
That the ' beast ' I am may cease to be ! "
No matter by what euphemistic name modernity
may label sin, you cannot get away from the
hideous fact that Pride and Covetousness, Lust
and Anger, Gluttony, Envy and Sloth, with all
other moral iniquities, are
"Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told."
While the follower of Christ longs to free him
self of the disgrace, demoralisation, and degrada-
xv

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
tion of sin, the worldling is satisfied with trying to
rid himself of the thought of the ravages and of
the publicity of it. Society finds fault with us for
living too much under the Shadow of the Cross,
but not without reason we blame it for basking
too much in the glare of day. And we do well
to remind Society, that it is not so much in the
sunshine of prosperity as in the dark chamber
of adversity, that Christ's likeness in the soul is
developed into a perfect picture.
To members of Society the one great evil in
life is physical pain ; to the followers of Christ, on
the contrary, the only real evil is moral pain —
sin. With the Psalmist the Christian cries out to
God: "Against Thee only have I sinned and
done evil in Thy sight"; "Wash me yet more
from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin " ;
" My sin is always before me."
Christianity is the one and only religion which
paints sin in its true colours, and which with up
lifted crucifix forces the sinner to sink to his
knees, reminding him that it is an evil and a bitter
thing to offend God.
Now comes the question : Is there any cure for
this evil? Does God forgive sin? If so, how
far does that forgiveness reach? Is it a mere
sentiment or a real act ? Is God's pardon akin
to the feeling of compassion which a judge may
show to a criminal, even while he is compelled to
pass sentence of death? Or is it a deliberate
sentence remitting the penalty of death by remov
ing the guilt of the culprit ?
xvi

INTRODUCTION

We know that God's forgiveness is a real act of
pardon restoring the penitent to favour. We
know, as well as the Apostle St John knew, that
" If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the Just, and He is the pro
pitiation for our sins ; and not for our sins only,
but also for the sins of the whole worla." We
know there is such a thing as sin, and such a thing
as its forgiveness.
It is to revelation and not to reason that we are
indebted for the doctrine about " the forgiveness
of sins." To the superficial observer it may in
deed seem quite natural that sin should be par
doned, and that the stain of sin, if any there be,
should pass away with time and be forgotten.
But to any man who will try to fathom the depth
of sin's iniquity, or, which is the same thing, to
gauge the height of God's sanctity, there will seem
to rise up before him objections wellnigh insuper
able against the teaching about the pardon of sin.
Are not laws relentless and pitiless? They are
deaf to all appeals for mercy. No matter how
eloquently we may plead, fire will burn, frost will
chill, blows will hurt, war will wound and slay.
And so it would seem that without a miracle —
and that, we are assured, "of course never happens "
— not even the most penitent sinner who has
violated any law, physical or moral, need look for
absolution. Again, God is not only the Author of Law, He
is also the Ruler of Society. What would be
thought of the head of a State who, provided an
b xvii

SOCIETY,SINAND THE SA VIO UR
offender expressed himself contrite for his out
rages against it, at once relented and proposed to
release, and not to convict him? Similarly it may
be asked : Is God to be considered so indifferent
to the moral law, so easy and indulgent, that He
will surely relent and forgive when pressed to do
so by the drunkard, the gambler, the sensualist,
the assassin, or the infidel ?
Take the doctrine of forgiveness of sin ; examine
it from any point of view you like, and you will
find that apart from revelation the difficulties
against it are unanswerable. We are forced back
upon some such text as the following from St
John: "If any man sin, we have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the Just ; and He is
the propitiation for our sins."
In a preface I cannot pretend to exhaust the
full meaning of this passage, but let us at least
draw from it the pregnant truth that in some real
sense Jesus Christ is the "propitiation for our
sins," and that but for Him there would be no
positive sanction for the doctrine of the forgive
ness of sin.
What is the Scriptural meaning of the expres
sion, "propitiation for our sins"? It means, as
any Biblical student will tell you, the remission
of the sins of men by the sacrifice of the Cross.
When we assert that Christ made satisfaction for
us, we declare that He took our cause upon Him
self, and in our place He made full compensation
for the injury done by us to God when we sinned.
St Cyril of Jerusalem thus puts it: "God had
xviii

INTRODUCTION

declared that death should be the punishment of
sin. Therefore one of two things must be done ;
either God, to be consistent with Himself, must
destroy the race of man, or He must make use of
clemency and remit the sentence. But here was
the wisdom of God displayed : He preserved the
force of His decree, even while He gave full vent
to His goodness. Christ assumed sin in His body
on the Cross, that by His death we who were dead
in sin might live to justice."
But He not only made satisfaction, He also
won us the grace of repentance. " He suffered,"
as St Clement of Rome puts it, " to win for the
world the grace of penitence." But not without
conditions on the part of man himself; and the
first of these is the recognition of the loathsome
state into which sin plunges the sinner. And
here again His Passion makes the condition much
more easy, for there is no sight like the Cross to
bring home to us what a hateful thing is sin.
Hence the instinctive hatred of the Cross in the
sin-seeker. It is to the Cross that we look for
the source of our cleansing contrition ; just as it is
to the Cross that we point as to the Great Charter
of our deliverance from the servitude of sin to
the freedom of the children of God.
"O Crux ! ave spes unica."
In other words, Christ's propitiation was offered
to the Eternal Father as a most perfect act of
penitence, so as to merit for us the grace of for
giveness and reconciliation. xix

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
" God was in Christ," says St Paul, "reconciling
the world to Himself."
Jesus Christ chose to become the great Penitent
of mankind — " He was made sin," is the daring
description of St Paul — and He offered, not for
His own sake, not indeed only for mere abstract
right and justice, but for our sake and for our
salvation, "that perfect good thing to God,"
which, St Thomas says so well, " more than re
paired the evil wrought by sin." "He offered
Himself." "Christ loved me and gave Himself
for me." " For us men and for our salvation He
came down from heaven." " For our sakes also
was He crucified under Pontius Pilate."
But let us not forget that " Christ is indeed our
Advocate with the Father," and " the propitiation
for our sins," but this is not because the Father is
reluctant to forgive and to save us. The Advocate
is the Father's own provision. " Herein is love,
not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and
sent His Son " — at the impulse of His own infinite
mercy — " to be the propitiation of our sins."
God wants us to hate sin with Him, and to see
with our own eyes what an evil it is, and so we
look up to see Incarnate Love — bleeding, agonis
ing, dying to atone for sin.
Our Lord's motive in laying down His life was
not only to satisfy justice,, but to provide for
fallen man the best means of restoration to the
grace and favour of God. For the satisfaction of
justice a single breath of His life would have
sufficed ; for the satisfaction of love His life's-blood
xx

INTRODUCTION

poured out was all too little. We cannot too
often repeat this beautiful and consoling doctrine
concerning Christ's propitiation, insisting, again
and again that it was a perfectly willing sacrifice
of self in order to restore wayward children to a
most loving Father, by winning back for them as
their high Representative that life of Grace which
went under and was lost in the struggle with that
soul-destroying fiend, sin. " Faithful is the saying
and worthy of all acceptation," writes the Apostle,
" that Jesus Christ came into the world to save
sinners." Sin is alienation from God, the Fountain of
Living Waters, the Fountain of Life, the Fountain
of Eternal Light, the Source of Wisdom and
Knowledge, the Torrent of Delight, as St Bona-
venture calls Him. So terrible even in this life
are the consequences to the sinner of his mad act,
that God, with the picture of it before Him, seems
to lose sight of the gross insult which it offers to
His own Person. Hence when He speaks of sin
by the mouth of His prophet He dwells especially
on the disasters it occasions in the sinner's own
soul : " Leaving Him, the Fountain of Living
Waters, and digging cisterns which can hold
none." Does not our own experience bear out the
truth of this text ? Say what we may, we know
that by sin we go away from God rather than that
God goes away from us. It is our own act ; the
alienation is on our side. What percentage of
our people go to no place of worship on the day
set apart for praise and rest ! It is not that God
xxi

SOCIETY,SINAND THE SA VIOUR
leaves them ; it is they that deliberately go away
from Him. They abandon the Fountain of Living
Waters, and dig for themselves cisterns that can
hold none. Yes, seven out of every eight per
sons in this Christian land leave Him and His
temples for recreation and pleasure on Sundays.
Surely the straight and simple explanation of the
feverish unrest which to-day is so conspicuous
among all sections of the community — among the
wage-earning, the shopkeeping, and the leisure-
gifted classes alike — is none other than that
already told us by God Himself.
We are trying the impossible — trying to find
meat in husks and drink in sieves. With
reason ts the daily press flooded with letters
under the title, "We are tired of Society as at
present constituted." As creatures of God, how
could we be otherwise? Is not the social
organism suffering from a malignant growth which
can be cured by no Physician but One ? And yet
He is passed over fpr the self-asserting quack,
whose loud mouth bawls through this Babylon that
he has discovered the secret of healing the evils
within by readjusting the circumstances without !
That our social system with its attendant
circumstances is out of gear no one will care
to deny. For instance, can it be otherwise than
criminal to allow the alien into our household,
that he may snatch the bread from our poor
brothers and sisters who have no room wherein
to breathe, and no food on which to live, and
no work in which to sweat, unless it be the
xxii

INTRODUCTION

sweated industries themselves? Fortunate is many
a poor girl who can get five paltry half-pennies
for making a gross of match-boxes; fortunate
her brother who can earn ninepence for making
a pair of boots ; and even of this beggarly
pittance a sum must be subtracted for paste and
string, for rivets and grindery. Well do I re
member a sweated shirtmaker who, when I told
her how grieved I was at not seeing her at all
at church on a Sunday, answering me with tears
running down her pinched and furrowed face :
"Well, Father dear, after working all the week
nearly sixteen hours a day to keep a bit of roof
over mother's head and mine, by the time Sunday
comes I scarcely know whether it 's myself or the
machine I have put to bed." How can we pre
tend to sit quiet and be satisfied with this state
of things? I have taken but one instance.
Multiply it a million times, and you will have some
faint idea of what those are enduring to whom
the gospel of Socialism is being preached to-day.
Can we be surprised if the proletariat rises up
asking its leaders when they are going to lead
it westward for air, clothes, and food ?
And yet, believe me, it is not by converting all
the pieces on the chessboard into pawns that the
game of life is to be played. Rather it is by
persuading bishop, knight, and the rest to fulfil
with intelligence and charity the duties which
their respective positions on the board demand
of them. Socialism is not a constructive but a de
structive theory of life. Play the game, and play up.
xxiii

SOCIETY,SINAND THE SAVIOUR
The present chaotic state of the world, with
armed neutrality at best between capital and
labour, could never exist if Christ and His
Christianity were our rule of life. All is wrong
without, because nothing is right within. , We
have shouted as the Jews did of old : " We will
not have this Man to reign over us." We have
with them trampled on the Blood of our Saviour ;
and in return — is it not true ? — we ourselves are
now being financed and dominated by them —
"And we gave the Cross when we owed the Throne."
By our sins we have turned away from Christ
the Lawgiver and have brushed aside His laws.
We have, I repeat, trampled on the Blood of
Christ, and have torn to pieces the Sermon
on the Mount; we have abandoned Him, the
Fountain of living waters, and have dug for
ourselves cisterns which can hold none. Oh if we
did but know the gift of God !
We, calling ourselves a Christian people, are
suffering from a virulent disease — apostasy from
Christ, — and unless we recognise the fact and
come back to Him, how can it but be woe for
our boasted Empire ? Surely it is better to reap
with Christ than to glean with Ruth.
What may serve even more than the testimony
of the prophet to bring home to us the true
character of sin is our Lord's description of it in
the Parable of the Prodigal. There the mis
guided youth is represented as going away from
his father and his home into a far country, and
xxiv

INTRODUCTION

there " wasting his substance living riotously."
Observe the awful change that takes place when
the Prodigal has left his well-ordered house for
the riot of fast society. He goes from bad to
worse ; till finally we find this exquisite, for whom
once nothing was sufficiently refined, now herding
with swine, thankful to be allowed to feed with
them from the same swill-tub of husks and garbage.
Meanwhile, what does our dear and blessed
Lord say about the boy's father? Does He
describe him as turning his back upon his child,
and as being so angered by the personal insult
offered Him that when the right moment shall
come he will crush and ruin him ? Not so ; on
the contrary, in this most beautiful and most
wonderful of all wonderfully beautiful parables,
our beloved Master tells us that the father, instead
of brooding over the wrong done to himself, is
altogether absorbed in the thought of his son's
wretchedness and misery. He feels —
" This beaten way thou beatest, I feat is hell's own track,
This downhill path is easy, come turning, hasten back."
Indeed, when the boy after much self-conflict
does resolve to return and fling himself upon his
father's mercy, that father is presented to us as
hurrying forth with flying feet to meet and clasp
him in the everlasting arms.
Nay, more ; so overjoyed and even overpowered
is the heart of the father by the return of the
spendthrift son, that in answer to his pleadings
for mercy he can do nothing but repeat to
xxv

SOCIETY,SINAND THE SA VIOUR
himself again and again : " My son was dead and
is come to life ; he was lost and is found."
With the Parable of the Prodigal before us,
how can any one venture to speak of the Atone
ment as "a device of the Only-begotten Son to
check an angry Father from flying at us"? or
as "an instance of an angry Father punishing an
innocent Son " ? It was not anger but love that
devised the Atonement. "God so loved the
world as to give His only begotten Son; that
whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but
may have everlasting life." Nor is sin an offence
against the Father only. The Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost, being one and the selfsame
God, sin cannot be more displeasing to one
Person than to another. It is the same offence
against the Son as it is against the Father ; and
the mercy which supplies the Atonement as well
as the Justice which demands it, are the Mercy
and the Justice of all three Persons alike. To
borrow the fine saying of St. Leo : " One is the
kindness of their mercy as tbe sentence of their
justice, nor is there any division in action when
there is no diversity of will."
What would I not give to see my own prodigal
brothers and sisters in English Society returning
like the wastrel described by our dear Lord to
their Father ?
Is not the life of fast Society to-day a real riot
— lawlessness, iniquity ?
I know it is contended by some that my charges
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INTRODUCTION

against the vulgar rich were unfounded, or, at
any rate, grossly exaggerated. Would to Heaven
they were right and I wrong ! Unfortunately I
can only reaffirm that the section of Society to
which I refer resembles to the life the Prodigal
Son, in every phase of his life but his contrite
and humble penitence.
Not only does it leave its Father's house, going
to a far country, as far removed from God as hell
from heaven, but there it wastes its substance in
riotous living, caring for nothing else but a free
indulgence in the Seven Deadly Sins. What
does it seek in the library but sensation, slime,
and sin? What in the theatre but costume,
crime, and cosmetics? What in conversation
but frivolity, flattery, and filth? What from its
own members but licence, luxury, and lust ? To
those who call in question my deliberate state
ment, I refer to the lists of divorce, decrees of
nullity, judicial separations, and other legal dis
solutions of marriage published in the criminal
and judicial statistics. And if the figures relat
ing to deeds of separation mutually arranged
were available, I should cite them more than the
rest in support of what I know to be true.
Divorce has been called "the luxury of the
rich " ; and cases of divorce in the United King
dom have increased fifty per cent, during the last
quarter of a century. There is no need to refer
to what is commonly known of that terrible sin
crying to heaven for vengeance, which sets at
defiance God and His will in regard to the mul-
xxvii

SOCIETY \SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
tiplication of the human race. It would seem
that, compared with some of us, the unclean
animals are purity itself. Nor is there any occa
sion for my giving an advertisement to some
authors who, knowing the gross appetites of an
ever-expanding Society circle, have during the
past season flooded our bookstalls with the
filthiest stuff that was ever flung into a swill-tub.
Again, I dare not shock my readers by citing
the appalling computed statistics in regard to
infant mortality. Suffice it to say that, roughly
speaking, their death-roll mounts up to one-
fourth of the total of deaths in the year. But
I cannot refrain from reminding them of the god
less way in which so many of the children who
do happen to be born in the lap of luxury are
trained. Why, the very bloom and fruit in our
conservatories receive more consideration than
they ! They are permitted to run wild from their
birth; and before schooldays are reached they
have learned to lie, to swear, to gamble, and to do
worse. The home bringing -up of England's
children is the despair of schools and colleges.
What is all this but Society playing the Prodigal,
wasting its substance, living riotously ! It is for
ever intending to do better ; but, infirm of pur
pose, it does nothing. Well may we write for its
epitaph : " It revelled under the moon,
It slept beneath the sun,
It lived a life of going to do,
And died with nothing done.'
The following scenes from Our Lord's Sacred
xxviii

INTRODUCTION

Passion I offer to Society, in the hope that the
contemplation of them may awaken in its soul a
yearning to return, if it be but as a hired servant,
to its Father's house.
Of one fact be sure, that God our Father is
yearning, as never did an earthly father yearn for
his one and only child, for the home-coming of
penitent Society. Through the merits of Jesus
Christ our Elder Brother, who has done so much
to win for you, by His atoning Passion and Death,
the grace of penitence, let us plead for the speedy
return of Prodigal Society to the Eternal Father,
from whose lips, when once again folded most
lovingly in His arms, it too shall hear: "You
were lost and are found; you were dead and
have come to life again."
If there be any single one among my dear
countrymen who, after meditating on the true
character of Christ's Atonement, will say he
cannot accept the doctrine —
" Upon the ground
That in the story has been found
Too much love ! How could God love so ! "
I will answer him : " But, Friend, God could not
help it ; ' God is Love.' "
Bernard Vaughan, S.J.
P.S. — Only too pleased shall I be to try and
help any brother seeking at my hands spiritual
direction or advice.
114 Mount Street, W.,
Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, 1907.
xxix

The Passion of Jesu Christ confounds
the fiend: it destroys his deceits and his
snares : it slackens fleshly temptations :
it clarifies the mind to covet only Jesu
Christ's love.
Fasten in thine heart the memory of
His Passion : I wot nothing that shall so
inwardly take thine heart to covet Gods
love, and to desire the joy of heaven,
and to despise vanities of this world, as
stedfast thinking on the hurts and the
wounds, and on the death of Jesu Christ.
It will raise thy thought above earthly
pleasure, and set thine heart burning in
Christ's love, and purchase into thy soul
delightability and savour of heaven.
By one who felt
" Christ's Heart so hot-loving."

SCENE I
CHRIST BEFORE HIS FATHER

CHRIST BEFORE HIS FATHER
" Father, if Thou wilt, remove this chalice from Me,
nevertheless not My Will but Thine be done." — St
Luke xxii, 42.
Borne upon the wings of imagination
let us transport ourselves to the city
seated on the hill Jerusalem. The sun
is down when, the hymn being sung,
Our Lord, accompanied by the eleven,
leaves the supper-room, and begins to
make His way, through the crowded
narrow streets, in the direction of the
Fountain Gate lying South East of Zion.
Once beyond the noise and glare of the
city, garrulous by night as by day during
the Paschal week, the disciples, full of
strange forebodings, press closely round
their Divine Master. And so together
they go towards the deep ravine, past
the gardens of Ophel, past the Jewish
burial ground, down to Siloam, where,
leaving Gehenna and the Hill of Evil
Counsel on the right, they soon reach
the narrow wooden bridge spanning the
historic Kedron.

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
Crossing the brook, big with the rains
of early spring, they turn to the bridle
path hugging the eastern bank and
going northward. See them — follow
them, this timid little flock clinging
fearfully to the Good Shepherd — alas !
on His way to lay down His life for His
sheep. Under the guidance of the light of
the Paschal moon, onward they press,
they know not whither, nor do they dare
to ask. Presently the ruins of Solomon's
temple to the false gods fling lengthening
shadows across their path ; and now that
other temple built to the honour of the
One, true God, stands out, on the op
posite bank, before them. Strangely,
sadly beautiful it looks, springing up
white as a vision of heaven out of the
richly wooded terrace of Moriah, and
tracing an outline of supreme loveliness
against the western sky. Alas! it too,
along with the city that knew not the
time of its visitation, is before long to
be beaten flat to the ground like the
"abomination of the Ammonites" already
in ruins on the hill opposite. But the
little company of disciples with Jesus
is in no mood for reflections such as
these. Their hearts are too heavily

CHRIST BEFORE HIS FATHER
laden with sadness for speech, so in the
brooding silence broken only by the
sullen voice of the dreary stream, they
walk straight on till the western slopes
of Olivet dotted with yellow Jewish
tombstones break into view before them.
They have reached the point where
their pathway meets the road leading to
Bethany. Is the Master, they wonder,
going to take them there? No, Jesus
has come to His journey's end.
On the right, almost directly facing
the Gate Beautiful there is a garden,
some eighty paces square, called Geth
semane. It lies under a cluster of olive
trees whose silver-lined foliage forms a
net-work through which the moon is
shining in chequered light upon the
dewy, green grass of spring. Pausing
nere with His hand upon the wicket-
gate opening into the garden, our
blessed Lord having cast one long sad
look upon the Temple turns to His
anxious disciples, and addressing eight
of them, He says tenderly, " Sit you
here, till I go yonder and pray." Oh!
how they wish He had not said it.
They cannot bear the thought of the
wrench of parting from Him. Perhaps
something will happen to Him in His
5

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
absence; had He not Himself said that
very evening that the Shepherd would
be struck ! Is it to be this very night ?
They know not; their eyes fill as they
watch Him stealing away from them
into the darkness. In obedience to His
wishes they sink to their knees, struggling
hard to awaken the spirit of prayer.
Meanwhile our Lord taking with Him
Peter and the two sons of Zebedee,
passes into the enclosure and is soon
lost to sight among the trees.
Reverently and devoutly let us in
spirit follow our dear Lord with these
three disciples, who, having already had
the privilege of being witnesses to their
Master's transfiguration and glory on
the mountain, are now to see Him in
His humiliation and agony in the garden.
Behold Him, your Saviour, with His
most intimate friends. Casting aside all
restraint He begins to reveal to them
the tide of trouble that is rising in His
soul. Great as a sea is His grief. They
fix their gaze upon Him, they listen,
holding their breath. How ashy pale
He looks, what a weight of sadness is
in His eyes and on His lips. See, too,
how tremulous they are with emotion as
He struggles to say to them : " My soul
6

CHRIST BEFORE HIS FATHER
is sorrowful even unto death." Then
quickly He passes on to add : " Stay ye
here and watch with me." They stay,
they stand, they watch, but pray they
cannot. The echo of the word : " One
of you is about to betray Me," keeps
beating its dull thud into their ears like
the sound of the passing bell, sending
into their hearts as though the hand of
death were already on them an icy chill
of agonising fear. Meanwhile Jesus
tears Himself away from them, going,
as it were, a stone's throw, whence He
passes into " the Valley of the Shadow."
" He began," says St Mark, " to fear."
Deliberately putting aside the defences
of the Divinity, the Son of Man bares,
so to speak, His bosom, presenting His
Heart as a target to the poisoned shafts
of the children of men, and to the fiery
darts of the wicked one.
As thus He stands alone, under the
trees, forecasting the troubles, the trials,
the torments, and the tortures that are
so soon to fasten upon Him, to pierce
Him through and through Body and
Soul, He becomes unnerved, He reels,
totters and falls. The three see Him
falling upon His face, nay, falling "flat
upon the ground " over-mastered by the
7

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
vision of that terrible tragedy to close
on the morrow with its death-scene in
shame on Calvery.
Here let us pause to ask ourselves,
what is the meaning of this strangest of
all strange sights ? Do our eyes deceive
us? Is that white figure outstretched
yonder in agony on the green grass
beneath the trees, the figure of Christ,
the Son of the Living God ? Is this the
strong Son of Man Whom in His boyhood
days we saw among the doctors of the
Temple at His ease, fearless ; Whom in
the springtide of His youth we watched
heedless of the death with which the Phari
sees and others were wont to threaten
Him? Can strength then be afraid, can
courage be timid? "Art Thou," I ex
claim with St Laurence Justinian, " the
Lord of Hosts and yet fearful ? "
Can it, I ask you, really be fear —
the emotion which we usually associate
with unmanly cowardice — that has fas
tened upon the Son of Man, flung Him
to the ground, and left Him there as one
struck by God — a criminal condemned
to some ignominious death ? Yes, He
Who never before has felt what fear was,
not even when His own townsmen at
Nazareth attempted to murder Him ;
8

CHRIST BEFORE HIS FATHER
He Who till this moment has always
looked forward to His passion so long
ingly, Who has always spoken of it so
joyfully, declaring Himself to be strait
ened till it was accomplished, is now,
when in the Garden this night, alone,
so completely overcome, so utterly un
done by the mere thought of it, that it
seems impossible that He can ever rise
to face and endure its realities.
Why does our Saviour permit this
sense of fear thus to attack, seize, and
fling Him on His face upon the ground ?
" Oblatus est quia Ipse voluit." He
permits it, because He is resolved, as
the Apostle reminds us, to be in all
things like unto us. He cannot bear to
think that there should be any cup of
bitterness offered at any time to the lips
of others, which He Himself has not
previously drained to its deepest dregs.
Accordingly as He lies along the grass
in mental torment, there pass in vision
before His Soul all those tortures of body
and of soul which are, in later days, to
test the loyalty and love of His followers.
How is the Master to ask His servants
to face all these trials, saying, " Fear
not, little flock ; why are ye fearful, O,
ye of little faith," or, " Fear not them

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
that kill the body," unless He Himself,
in His own flesh, has first felt what fear
is, and has Himself already robbed the
sword of its sharpness, the rack of its
fierceness, and shame of its bitterness ?
And so " He begins to fear." He
permits fear to seize upon Him, and to
spend its fury on that nature which He
assumed for our sakes. The vile kiss of
the betrayer He feels like a blister upon
His sacred lips ; the servant's cruel blow
is already stinging like a stab upon His
cheek ; from His back the scourge is
even now tearing to shreds His sacred
flesh, the sharp thorns of the mock crown
are actually piercing His brow, while
iron nails are burning like fires in His
hands and His feet. But Jesus reckoned
little of these tortures to His highly
organised body ; it is His human Soul
that most of all appeals to us for pity.
To be jostled and jeered by an infuriated
mob of His own countrymen ; to be
rushed through four mock trials, in which
injustice and cruelty, perjury and blas
phemy are to vie with one another for
mastery ; to be pronounced free of crime
and yet to be scourged with the lash ;
to be judged innocent of fault and yet
to be sentenced to death — this out-
10

CHRIST BEFORE HIS FATHER
rageous handiwork, this miscarriage of
justice it is, which seems almost more
than even He, who came to suffer for us,
can undertake to endure. And yet,
terrifying almost to stupefaction as these
gross injustices appear to be as they
come leaping upon Him like a mob of
fiends let loose from Hell ; yet what are
they after all when set beside the agony
to His Sacred Heart, as our Lord con
templates the ingratitude, the insult and
ignominy He is about to experience from
those for whom, during the past three
years, He has devoted and spent Him
self, and who owe to Him a debt which
not even service expressed in terms of
sacrifice could repay ?
There, as He lies stretched upon the
ground, His face buried in His hands,
Jesus hears the yells of His own people
clamouring for His blood. Young, men
and old, to whom He has been an eye, a
foot, a tongue, and an ear, are rending
the air with the savage cry, " Crucify
Him, crucify Him ; " mothers, with in
fants at the breast, and little ones cling
ing in fear to their skirts, are screaming
themselves hoarse with the curse, " His
blood be upon us and upon our children ; "
worse still, He can hear the tramp of
n

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
priestly feet rushing to and fro, like
fiends among the people, urging them
to yield not but to hunt Him down, to
tear Him to pieces, to do Him to death.
But what most of all dismays and terri
fies His Sacred Heart is the part which
His own disciples will play in this awful
tragedy — the story of their desertion and
flight ; and then, the cowardly denial of
one, and the treacherous betrayal of
another ; all this is borne in upon Him
with such appalling definiteness and
minuteness, that as He looks it in the
face it unnerves Him, and sends such an
acute thrill of agonising fear through His
whole frame that at last there breaks
from His heart the reluctant cry, " Father,
if Thou wilt, remove this chalice from
me ; nevertheless, not My Will but
Thine be done." It is as though He
would say, " Father, if this blasphemous
tragedy about to be enacted is too deeply
stained with blood, too heavily charged
with guilt for this assumed nature to
bear, hold it back, hurl it aside, stop its
fulfilment : yet ' Thy will, not Mine, be
done.' "
Shaken with fear, broken with agony,
the Man of Sorrows with difficulty rises
to His feet, and turning to the spot where
12

CHRIST BEFORE HIS FATHER
He left His beloved three, He draws near
to them seeking comfort. Alas ! James,
with his mantle drawn closely round
him, lies under the tree where Jesus had
left him, and there too is John with
Peter, all sleeping heavily. Softly ap
proaching the last named, the Master
wakes him, saying, " Simon, sleepest
thou? couldst thou not watch one
hour?" then without waiting for an
answer He addresses all three of them,
saying appealingly, almost plaintively,
" Watch ye and pray that ye enter not
into temptation." Then, seeing them
pained and ashamed of their conduct,
He adds, in order to mitigate that pain,
to relieve their shame, " the spirit indeed
is willing, but the flesh weak."
Jesus again withdraws a stone's throw
from them, uttering and pondering in
His heart the word, " I looked for one
to grieve together with Me, and there
was none, and for one to comfort Me,
and I found none."
" And now He begins to be heavy,"
says St Mark. By this expression, the
Evangelist, I take it, means to imply
that there now comes over our Lord a
sense of weariness, or sickness, nay, of
revulsion, almost of disgust. Is He not
13

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
kneeling as a sinner in the presence of
the Father all Holy ; has He not made
Himself responsible to the justice of that
Father for the whole mass of sin which
lies like a mouldering blight upon the
world ; has He not taken upon Himself
the role of the penitent, and must He
not atone for the whole weight of guilt ;
nay, for each particular sin of sinful
humanity ?
Yes, our divine Saviour has chosen
to become the Victim of sin, and its
weight of guilt is actually bearing down
upon Him, beating Him to the ground,
flat as a ripe harvest field under a pelting
storm driven by the gale. See Him,
lying there, drenched, so to speak,
through and through by this sin torrent,
while God's anger, like a dark cloud
charged with thunder, is hanging over
Him. What a piteous sight is this ! From
the north and the south, from east
and west the gathering storm of sin
rolls up, discharging its torrent of filth
upon our dear and blessed Lord.
" Hopes blighted, vows broken, lights
quenched, warnings scorned, opportun
ities lost, the innocent betrayed, the
young hardened, the penitent relapsing,
14

CHRIST BEFORE HIS FATHER
the aged failing, the sophistry of mis
belief, the wilfulness of doubt, the
tyranny of passion, the canker of re
morse, the wasting force of care, the
anguish of shame, the agony of dis
appointment, the sickness of despair."
Yes, these with all other forms and
species of sin are being poured out upon
Him ; the whole brood of sin " more
numerous than the plagues of hail, and
flies, and frogs, that were sent against
Pharaoh," is actually let loose by the
avenging hand of God and is well-nigh
breaking the Heart of His Son doing
penance. They fasten upon Him, spend
their fury on Him, sending their virulent
poison through all the pores of His
being, till every sense and nerve and
fibre of His sacred Body, and every
faculty, power, and emotion of His ador
able Soul seems to Him to be steeped in
sin, saturated with sin, reeking with its
abomination, just as though He had
been plunged body and soul into some
loathsome cess-pool, lying in the fiery
stench of hell itself.
The divine Victim raises His bowed
Head, and fixing His gaze upon His
own quivering limbs, He seems to ask
Himself; "These hands so red with
IS

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
blood are they Mine own ; these eyes
and these ears, this mouth and these
lips, are they what they cannot be, the
instruments of the culprit and not of the
Victim ; this mind so heavily weighted
with ghastly burden, this bosom so
sorely charged with heartbreaking op
pression, and this conscience so torn
with anguish and remorse, are they the
faculties of the Sinner or of the
Penitent ? "
Oh ! what an awful moment is this,
when sin, when every kind and species
of sin clings so closely to our divine
Lord and presses so heavily upon His
Sacred Heart that there is drawn from it
the cry ; " Oh ! Father, if this chalice
cannot pass, except I drink it ; Thy will
be done ; " as though He would say,
"If this foul leprosy cannot be healed
and cleansed, except I bear it in My own
Person, and My own blood wash out its
stains, Thy will be done."
Having offered this great act of con
trition, the divine Penitent once again
rises from prayer seeking a little human
sympathy from the three friends so dear
to His Sacred Heart. Alas ! for a second
time they had been overcome by sleep,
for their eyes, like their hearts, were
16

CHRIST BEFORE HIS FATHER
heavy. Sadly He stands before them,
till a sense of His sacred presence
awakes them, and then because, as St
Mark observes, " They know not what
to answer Him," the indulgent Master
spares their feelings, and withdraws to
pray the third time.
" He began," says St Matthew, " to
be sad." There steals over and into
the sacred Soul of Jesus a sense of pro
stration and desolation, a sense of dis
appointment and despondency, of anguish
and agony ; a state of soul altogether
distinct from that sense of the fear and
of the heaviness through which but now
we saw Him pass.
Do you ask me what it is that causes
our Lord's Soul to be sad and sorrowful,
even unto death ? Surely you will say
the thought of the loyalty and love of
that army of Christian martyrs, of that
troop of virgin heroines, of that company
of untiring confessors who in the near
future are to spring into being as the
fruit of our dear Lord's blood-shedding,
must drive away all sadness, even as the
presence of the sun breaking from the
clouds will, as so often we observe, drive
away rain from the mountain, mist from
the river, fog from the city. Yes, it is
b 17

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
so, but while the vision of His friends
supports and encourages Him, the sight
of the luke-warm, and of the indifferent,
of the negligent and the ungrateful, de
presses and saddens Him even unto death.
Do not, then, for a moment imagine,
that it costs our dear Lord little to meet
and to bear the withering blast, the cruel
storm, driven into His Sacred Heart by
the coldness, the indifference, and per
sonal hatred that are only too often
returned to Him, in exchange for the
wealth of His love shown in His sacred
passion. Come nearer, draw closer to Him,
and for a moment fix the eyes of your
souls upon the sacred person of your
loving Redeemer, as He lies struggling
to live under this dull, dead weight, like
one buried under an avalanche of snow.
You yourselves some of you, perhaps,
have known what it is for a mother to
have lost the love of an only child on
whom she doted ; or you have read of
the agony of a man, come home from
service to his country abroad, to find the
love that was once pledged to him at
God's altar, a love pure and strong as a
mountain torrent, now diverted from its
legitimate channel, rushing in its wild

CHRIST BEFORE HIS FATHER
mad career like a fiery, muddy, volcanic
stream whither it should not. Alas!
are not the ways of life littered with
broken pledges ?
But what are these and all other
stories gathered from the cruel experi
ences of Society life, compared with
the torturing agonies, burning like
a blast of hell, in the Heart of the Son
of God as He follows the history of
fast Society turning from Him, their
only God, to feed on husks and garbage
like the beasts which perish ?
Turn your eyes to Him, look at Him.
He is bowed to the earth by the scorn
of men, which like a sand-storm of the
desert rises up against Him and swoops
down upon Him, covering Him over and
searching Him through, burning up the
very sources of His life.
As there He lies under this torturing
burden, with His sacred face buried in
the grass, Jesus is struggling in prayer,
straining every nerve of His sacred body,
and putting forth every power of His
human soul, pleading for strength and
courage to bear the dull dead weight of
despairing sadness which is pressing
upon the fires of His Heart's unquenched
and unquenchable love. *9

SOCIETY, SIN A ND THE SA VIO UR
In His ears He seems to catch the
echo of the word of the betrayer, ad
quid perditio haec, to what purpose is
this waste? Yes. Why should I, He
seems to ask Himself, for the sake of
those who despise and malign Me, waste
My energies, waste My mercies, waste
My blood, and waste My life ? Quae
utilitas in sanguine meo ? What is the
use of spilling My blood for those who do
not appreciate it ? Why should I supply
a copious redemption for those who will
not accept it, why die for those who do
not care to live ?
As these and kindred thoughts strike
in upon the Soul of Jesus, He feels His
Heart well nigh breaking, and death, like
a dark cloud, is hanging over Him. Yes,
darkness like a pall seems to cover
Him. He is broken, crushed, His very
utterance is choked. Ah ! see ! His
precious blood is actually forcing itself
away from its appointed channels, seek
ing release from His over- weighted
Heart through the pores of His skin.
It trickles down His sacred face, it dyes
His snow-white garments to redness,
falling in red beads like jewels upon the
green grass. He is in agony, and being
in an agony, He prays the longer, offer-
30

CHRIST BEFORE HIS FATHER
ing up His spilt blood for all creatures
made to the image and likeness of God,
for all the members of His mystical
body, who are bone of His bone, blood
of His blood, and flesh of His flesh ;
for all the ministers of His bride the
Church ; nay, for you, Society sinners,
who forfeiting your privileges, bartering
your rights, trampling on His blood,
despise Him ; like Annas treating Him
as an impostor ; like Caiaphas, as a
blasphemer ; like Herod as a fool ; like
Pilate as a fanatic. Listen ! hear Him ;
there is breaking from the sacred lips a
prayer : " Abba, Father, all things are
possible to Thee, take away this chalice
from Me, but not what I will, but what
Thou wilt." This strong cry startles
the drowsy three who at a stone's throw
distance from Him are half slumbering.
They wake and gaze — amazed by the
awful sight they see, and the words they
hear. They watch Him in the attitude
of prayer. His garments dyed red
clinging closely to Him, while His hands
are outstretched as though grasping at
something. A preternatural light seems
to envelop Him, and as they bend for
ward, straining their eyes to see, the
vision of an angel stands out under the
21

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
dark trees ministering to His failing
strength, as though offering Him a
chalice which the divine Victim drains,
holding it between His Hands. Yes,
drains to its very dregs ! Calicem quern
dedit mihi Pater, non bibam ilium ?
And now for a moment let us turn
from the Garden of Gethsemane, where
we have been contemplating our Lord's
estimate of sin, and let us ask ourselves,
what does Society, as we know it to
day, think of this thing, which brought
about that very agony ? If we are to
judge Society's estimate of sin by the
literature in which it delights, the parties
it gives, the scenes it watches, and the
plays it frequents, we are forced to one
painful conclusion. The fact is, we are
living in a day when the typical votary
of pleasure regards sin as a relic of a
bygone superstition. The very idea of
it is not only ignored by some, but by
others it is even ridiculed. Society has
made a discovery, and, we are glibly
told, that in reality there is no such thing
as sin! It is merely "a nervous
structure," a "growing pain," while
conscience should be treated like "a
bad dream," which the sooner we throw
off and forget the better. We are
22

CHRIST BEFORE HIS FATHER
assured that, just as we do not blame a
brother because he is suffering from
curvature of the spine, or shortness of
sight, weakness of heart, or other physi
cal ailment, so we must not blame one
who is incapable of uttering the truth,
or who cannot keep pure, or is unable
to control his temper, or, for any other
reason, cannot reach some generally
accepted moral standard. Like those
suffering from some congenital malfor
mation, these yictims to human passions
must only awaken our pity. Just as
there is no sin in falling short of physical
standards of health and beauty, so there
is no fault in not attaining to arbitrary
standards of moral excellence and fame.
In other words for the material egoist,
whose name to-day is legion, there is no
such thing as sin, because there is no
such thing as a human soul ; reason
being but phosphorus, conscience a
nervous structure only, the future life
an illusion, with Heaven for a dream !
If the modern agnostic does not follow
on the heel of the materialist in his
estimate of sin, he will at any rate try
and persuade you that no one knows
much about it, that there can be no
great harm in following the bent of your
23

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
nature, that if there is a God who made
you, He will not blame you for doing
what your neighbour does, what indeed
you cannot well avoid doing, so long as
you are tethered by human ties to the
race, which for the moment disturbs the
surface of this planet.
But besides the materialist and the
agnostic there is the would-be Christian,
who instead of studying sin as it may be
seen in its true light, and in its lurid
colours, in the Garden of Gethsemane,
forms his estimate of it from what he
sees of it in every day life, as it is lived
around him. No doubt he will feel free
to confess that it is sinful to perpetrate
any act which does a deliberate wrong
to your neighbour, but short of that, sin
is no great harm ; it may indeed offend
God while you are in the act of commit
ting it, but it is soon forgiven. God, he
will tell you, is merciful and kind, and
does not expect much of us ; it does not
require a great deal to get to Heaven,
which will be the final goal of all, if not
indeed the immediate reward after pass
ing away from this world, which purifies
by its trials all who pass through it.
I have been reminding you of what
modernity has to say about sin, but al-
24

CHRIST BEFORE HIS FATHER
though the world tries to make it a relic
of barbarous times, or a bad dream, or a
mere " growing pain," it does not under
take to account for a fact which every
honest thinker must recognise and ac
knowledge. This fact to which I refer is one of
which every man in his saner moments,
is terribly aware. Call conscience what
you may, the fact remains that it drags us
before its dread tribunal, and in language
clear and definite as the decision of a
judge it charges the sinner with sin, and
at the same time passes upon him a
verdict of condemnation, the justice of
which he feels bound to recognise. No
matter what may be said to the contrary,
I am as certain as I am of my own ex
istence, that mankind in general is not
only conscious of sin but conscious, too,
that it is an offence against a Law-Giver,
Who will hold every sinner responsible for
his transgressions. The stings of con
science may be intermittent, but they are
worse than any thorns in the flesh. Un
like outrages perpetrated against physi
cal laws, offences against the moral order
come home to every man who is normal,
as deeds done in defiance of God Himself.
The higher one ascends in the moral
25

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
order the clearer and keener becomes the
consciousness of the disorder of sin.
Yes, not only is man aware that he is a
sinner, but furthermore no matter what
excuse he may make for his sin, he can
not escape from that painful something
within him which seems to say that God,
and God only, can absolve him from the
guilt of it, and convert him from the
condemed sinner into the pardoned peni
tent. From Genesis to the Apocalypse
there is heard, like the wail of the wind
and the sob of the sea, a cry on the air
from stricken humanity, pleading with its
God, Whose property is always to have
mercy and to spare, for pity, for mercy,
"for against Thee only have I sinned"
and " My sin is always before me."
It may seem paradoxically strange, but
it is true to say that, in the measure in
which a soul advances on the path to
perfection, so in that measure does it be
come more and more conscious of the
malice of sin. Hence the holy Prophets
and Apostles and the Saints of God
generally, never seem to lose sight of the
fact that once they were sinners, and that
but for the grace of God they would still
be unrepentant and unforgiven. Not
onlyso, but even worldly men and women,
26

CHRIST BEFORE HIS FATHER
who indulge their passions and yield to
every licence, living according to the whim
of the moment or the fashion of the hour,
will tell you in their sober moments how
utterly wrong they are with God, how
absolutely they despise themselves, how
miserable almost to despair they feel,
conscious that it is all their own fault.
" Yes," as one poor unfortunate said to
me not many days ago, " if there was no
hell, there ought to be one opened for me,
for I am worse than a devil incarnate."
As surely as the sun rises, sooner or
later the consequences of sin come home.
For a time the seven deadly sins may be
looked on as amiable weaknesses, and
pandering to the passions regarded as
nothing more than satisfying legitimate
appetites, but in the end there is a
reckoning even here ! Not long ago in
the course of conversation with one who
had at his command everything that
society and riches could procure, he
turned to me and said ; "I think I have
tried every pleasure ; certainly I never
denied myself one, and yet I do not be
lieve you could find in any of the clubs
another man so steeped and drowned in
misery as I am. Yes, you may tell the
would-be Smart Set, this is God's truth."
27

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
Of sin then, if we are honest with
ourselves, we are all conscious. It is
the one and only real evil in this world.
" My people have done two evils — they
have abandoned Me, the fountain of
living waters, and have dug for them
selves cisterns that can hold no water."
It is a terrible thing to offend God, and
worse still to make little of it, "drinking
down iniquity like water." And yet this
is what we see going on in our midst
every day. It is not merely that the
Beatitudes are not appreciated, or that
the Sermon on the Mount remains a dead
letter, but the Commandments them
selves, when not pronounced impractic
able, are ignored. Where is our sense
of honesty as corporations or as indivi
duals ? It is an age of bribery, so much
so that those who, for one reason or
another, do not offer what are regarded
as sufficiently favourable terms to their
clients go under with the bankrupt. In
this low practice smart people in the
West End are even better schooled than
West Ham Guardians. Where is the
sense of justice in women of fashion,
when, if they do not defraud tradespeople
and servants by not paying their bills or
wages, they will have resort to the meanest
28

CHRIST BEFORE HIS FATHER
tricks, to pay less than their real value
for the goods they purchase, or else they
keep those in their employment waiting
for what is justly their own ? Where is
our sense of charity when our neigh
bours' characters are torn to shreds, and
when it is questionable if there be any
foundation at all for the horrible sins
with which they are so freely charged ?
Where is our sense of self-respect when
the literature that we read, and the con
versations that we hold, would have been
regarded as too gross for human con
sumption in the worst days of Paganism ?
Lastly let me ask what ideas can we
have of duty when God's claims are
ignored, when racial rights are denied,
when family ties are not recognised, and
domestic responsibilities are tossed aside ?
There are worse crimes than I have
mentioned. Both as a priest and a
Englishman I do denounce the vile
competition with France for the lowest
birth rate in Europe, and our emula
tion with America to discover excuses
for annulling marriages to enter into
better financial alliances. It may be
said that instances of this kind are rare.
But they should not occur at all. Above
all they should not be sanctioned in a
29

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
Christian country. It is a disgrace — a
blot upon our national escutcheon. If
only this land would imitate France and
America in the characteristics in which
they are worthy of imitation ! Instead,
we seem to borrow from them, as we
take from the beasts that perish, their
lower instincts only — nay, we do not
even imitate the animals which cherish
and suckle their young !
The world to-day, being, as it is, culp
ably ignorant of God, practised in vice,
denying the fact of sin, of the existence of
conscience.and of the hope of immortality,
there is more need for us than for our
fathers of old to observe, with diligence,
the practices of this holy season of Lent,
and to follow during it, all the stages in
Sacred Passion of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ. If there is one season
more than another when we are bound to
take up our cross and follow Him, it is
during the forty days of Lent. Each
scene in the Passion that we are called
on to witness and to follow, has, for its
mission, a specific lesson to teach. From
the Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane,
where we have seen sin wreaking its
vengeance upon Him "Who hath borne
our iniquities and carried our griefs," we
30

CHRIST BEFORE HIS FATHER
must bring home to ourselves sin ; as it is
in itself, and as it is in its effects. What
does it matter what the modern man or
woman has to tell you about sin ? Let
them call it by what euphemistic name
they will, " an amiable weakness," " a
token of growth," "a human develop
ment," or what not. Yet I tell you
there is no hiding from our sight our
Lord's vision of sin. If we are Chris
tians we must take His measure of it.
When we see Him in conflict with it in
Gethsemane, crushed to the ground be
cause of it, sweating blood for tbe guilt
of sin, how can we pretend to make light
of its inherent malice, its appalling con-
quences ? Lastly, remember the word of
the beloved John : " These things I say
to you that you may not sin. But if any
man sin we have an Advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the Just ; and He is
the propitiation for our Sins, and not for
our sins only, but also for those of all the
world." Because of the truth of this
saying of the Apostle, most fervently do
I exhort you to study the nature of sin,
as it is portrayed to us, not in books of
false philosophy, not in current literature,
not in the modern novel, but in that
Agony and Bloody Sweat of Christ our
31

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane ; when,
in His great love for us, He took upon
Himself the role of the Penitent, sweating
blood for the sins of men.
" O, my God, I confess that before
now I have utterly forgotten Thee and
myself. I have acted many a time as
if I were my own master, and turned
from Thee rebelliously. I have acted
according to my own good pleasure, not
according to Thine. And so far have
I hardened myself as not to feel, as I
ought, how evil this is. I do not under
stand how dreadful sin is, and I do not
hate it and fear it as I ought. I have
no horror of it, or loathing. O, my
Jesus, what a great and awful difference
is there between what I am and what I
ought to be ! I have lived long enough
in this unsatisfactory state. I wish to
sin no more. I intend no longer to try
and persuade myself that sin is "an
imperfection " only. If I had not been
a craven coward I should never have
pretended to others that wrong was
right. I wish I had not been so un
truthful about the true character of sin.
I am resolved, with Thy grace, from
this moment, to be Thine, all Thine,
in life and in death." 32

SCENE II
CHRIST BEFORE ANNAS

CHRIST BEFORE ANNAS
"And Jesus answered him: I have spoken openly
to the world : I have always taught in the Synagogue,
and in the Temple, whither all the Jews resort ; and
in secret I have spoken nothing." — St John xviii, 20.
It is more than an hour after the
trumpets have sounded the second watch
in the tower of Antonia when Judas sets
forth with his gang of followers to
apprehend his Master in the garden of
Gethsemane. Glance for a moment, at
the rude mob. It is led by the arch-traitor
himself. Closely upon his heels follows
a detachment of the Roman garrison
from the citadel, under a command of
the tribune; then come the chief
priests, the magistrates of the Temple,
the scribes, and ancients of the Temple ;
while servants of the temple, servants of
the chief priests, and of the Pharisees,
together with loiterers, idlers, and odd
men belonging to the houses of the priests
bring up the rear. Observe they are
armed with weapons, with staves, with
35

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
clubs, and with swords as though they
were going forth to hunt down and to
capture some wild beast. What a dark
forbidding crew they look as they swing
down the steep incline, in the lurid
light of their flaming torches, making
their way south of the Temple to the
bridge flung across the Kedron below.
In the hush of night the tramp of
heavy feet crossing the bridge sends up
a strangely sinister sound through the
valley ; which Judas quickly crosses,
striking for the pathway leading towards
Gethsemane. Within sight of the wicket
gate opening into the garden a halt is
made. Turning round to his followers
Judas has something to say. To prevent
all possibility of any mistake under the
deep shadows flung by the trees in the
light of the Paschal moon, the traitor
thinks it better to arrange beforehand a
signal with them, so, in a hoarse whisper
he says : "Whom I shall kiss that is He,
lay hold of Him, and lead Him away
cautiously. "
Once more onward, up the opposite
bank they go, pausing before passing
through the gate into the garden. Here,
to their surprise the gang is met by the
calm, gentle, majestic figure of Jesus.
36

CHRIST BEFORE ANNAS
He is standing alone in the open, waiting
almost impatiently for them. Judas
immediately going up to Him says, " Hail
Rabbi," and kisses Him. Observe,
Jesus resents it not. Instead of drawing
back with a shudder from the touch of
the traitor's lips upon His sacred cheek,
Our Lords folds the man in His arms
saying to him pleadingly as He does so :
" Friend, whereto art thou come, dost
thou betray the Son of Man with a kiss ?"
Oh what a touch of pity more than hu
man is here ! What a revelation of that
divine Mercy which is above all God's
works ! Alas ! From Judas there is
no response. Jesus, raising Himself
erect, with arms outstretched, advances
towards his murderers, asking "Whom
seek ye? " They cry out: "Jesus of
Nazareth." To this cry Jesus answers :
" I am He." Scarcely has He uttered
the word when the whole troop of them
reel and totter, till falling backward they
drop to the ground each man of them
helpless. O wonder of wonders ! This
terrifying manifestation of divine Power
with which they are confronted, seems in
no way to shake these wicked men from
their murderous intent ; for once again in
answer to His question; "Whom seek
37

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
ye?" they do not hesitate to shout out
louder than before, "Jesus of Nazareth."
Jesus draws nearer to them, saying : " I
have told you that I am He." Then
glancing round and seeing His affrighted
disciples anxious about their own safety,
He adds : " If therefore you seek Me, let
these go their way."
For a moment there is uproar and
tumult, during which the ear of Malchus,
the servant of the High Priest, is cut off
by Peter's sword. Jesus, ever on the out
look for deeds of mercy, bends over the
bleeding man, and having healed the
wound, says to Peter : " Put up thy
sword into the scabbard," adding now,
with no tone of fear or sadness in His
voice, but firmly, resolutely, " The
chalice which My Father hath given Me,
shall I not drink it ? " Then, as He
stands face to face with this mob of
armed men fiercely scowling at Him,
waiting for the word to spring on Him
and to bind Him fast, our Lord says in
a tone of gentle reproof to them : "Are
ye come out as it were against a thief
with swords and staves to apprehend
Me ? When I was daily with you in
the Temple you did not stretch forth
your hands against Me, but this is your
38

CHRIST BEFORE ANNAS
hour and the power of darkness." It is
enough; they leap upon Him, they tie
His hands behind His back, they place
an iron collar with chains attached
around His neck, they put shackles upon
His ankles, draw ropes around His loins,
and in this rough way carry out the
order of the traitor who had said : " Lay
hold of Him and lead Him away
cautiously." The disciples, seeing what
is being done, fearing for their own
safety, take to flight, leaving their
Master to His fate in the hands of His
murderers. Meanwhile, having secured our divine
Lord, their prize, the mob drag Him
down the mount, jostle against Him on
the bridge, and force Him along the
pathway on the opposite side of the
Kedron leading towards the Gate
Beautiful. Avoiding the road before
them, going upward to the Temple, they
turn to the left following a path climbing
obliquely the steep incline, and bending
in the direction of Ophel to the south.
Passing through this poor quarter of the
city, they drag their divine Victim up
the flight of steps opening upon Sion,
the upper town. As they do so our
Lord, bound and manacled with ropes
39

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
and chains, wholly unable to help
Himself, with His hands closely tied
behind Him, falls, bruising to blood His
dear face upon the stone steps. It is an
excuse for further cruelty, for He is drawn
to and fro up the staircase, while in the
still midnight air is heard the echo of the
oaths and curses of this savage mob
which presses rudely about His sacred
person, hemming Him in on every side.
Passing through the fashionable quar
ter of Sion, they now bear off due west,
till nearing the palace of the High
Priests standing south of the cenacle,
where, but a few hours before, the
Master had given His timid disciples
their first Communion, the procession
reaches its destination.
Crossing the courtyard of the palace,
Judas leads our Saviour through the
great doorway of the west wing into a
long, low chamber, at the further end of
which, on a raised dais, seated on a
throne of state, and surrounded by such
retainers as may be gathered together at
this late hour, behold the ex-high priest,
Annas !
Let us pause for a moment that I
may tell you something about the char
acter and the history of this white-
40

CHRIST BEFORE ANNAS
draped, white-haired, white-faced villain.
"No figure," so we are told, " is better
known in contemporary Jewish history
than that of Annas ; no person was
deemed more fortunate and successful,
but none also more execrated than the
late High Priest. He had held the
pontificate for only six or seven years,
but it was filled by not fewer than five of
his sons, and by his son-in-law, Caiaphas,
and by his grandson. And in those
days it was, at least for one of Annas'
disposition, much better to have been,
than to be, High Priest. He enjoyed
the dignity of the office, and all its
influence, since he was able to promote
to it those most closely connected with
him. And while they acted publicly, he
really directed affairs without either the
responsibility or the restraints which the
office imposed. His influence with the
Romans he owed to the religious views
which he professed, to his own partisan
ship of the foreigner, and to his enormous
wealth." Yes, the besetting sin of Annas was
avarice, and in order to satisfy his greed
of money there was no device to which he
was hot ready to stoop. The shops
under the cedars of Olivet, as well as
4*

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
the booths under the porticos of the
Temple were all set up for the money-
seeking Annas and his family. It was
with this shrewd, cruel, worldly Sad-
ducee that Judas made his bargain, and
it was with Judas, no doubt, that he
bargained for the privilege of being the
first to examine Jesus Christ in person.
The High Priest's hatred of our Lord
dated from nearly three years back, but
it had reached its climax on the opening
day of the Paschal Week.
What had kindled and fanned into
flame this unholy fire in the bosom of
Annas ? It was this. When our Lord
had first come up to Jerusalem He had
driven forth from the Court of Gentiles
all those who were engaged selling
beasts of sacrifice, or in changing foreign
money for the shekel. This act had
been resented by Annas as a personal
injury and insult, but the trouble blew
over and men thought the wound had
healed. If so, it was again rudely
re-opened, for soon after our Lord's
triumphal entry into the Holy City, He
again turned away from the porticos of
the Temple the money-changers with
their weights and scales, saying, " My
house is a house of prayer, but you
42

CHRIST BEFORE ANNAS
have made it a den of thieves." This
was more than the Temple priests could
endure ; for it meant the collapse of their
chief means of money making. Besides,
there was the danger of the people
rising against them for their peculation.
Accordingly they stop our divine Lord
as He is walking in the Temple, demand
ing of Him by what authority He has
dared to do these things. But Jesus did
not satisfy their curiosity ; He answered
them by putting to them a question
which they dared not answer. Matters
being so, you can understand how a man
like Annas, with a character at once
masterful, yet shrewd and vindictive,
would be anxious to cross - examine
Jesus Christ. The Chief Priests, ever
since the scene of the cleansing of
the Temple, had sought to destroy
Him ; but they feared the people.
However, the crafty, clever Annas felt
confident that, left in his experienced
hands, he could find a way of succeeding
in a matter in which others had failed.
He was determined to revenge the
cleansing act of Jesus Christ. He would
bring about His death, in spite of His
popularity with the people. Accord
ingly, he sat up on the night of the
43

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
arrest, impatiently pacing his court to
and fro, like a hyena in its cage, waiting
with eager appetite to satisfy his thirst
for blood.
It must have been nearly midnighj^
when our divine Lord stood as a "
prisoner in the dock before His self-
constituted judge, Annas.
For a moment take a look at Annas.
How like a lean and hungry vulture he
looks, his eager features with beak-like
nose, his small, wild, black eyes deeply
set beneath the high white brow, his
long bony neck stretching forth out of a
dark mantle of winter fur, his thin,
sinewy hands clutching, almost gnawing, •
the bench at which he sits. As you
watch him you can almost fancy he
will presently lift strong wings and
swoop down from his rock-like throne to
fasten his claws into the flesh of the
Lamb of God standing below dumb
before His shearers.
Annas opens the examination-in-chief
by asking Jesus about His disciples.
It is not quite clear in the mind of the
High Priest to what party our Lord
belongs. He is not a Pharisee nor a
Sadducee, neither is He an Herodian,
nor a Scribe, nor yet a Zealot or an
44

CHRIST BEFORE ANNAS
Essene. Annas is determined to get
Jesus to commit Himself, if in no other
way, at least through the betrayal of the
character and conduct of His followers.
How little does Annas know of the
character of the divine Prisoner before
him. To say anything to the dis
advantage of His disciples is the very
last thing to be dragged forth from the
sacred lips of Jesus Christ. At the
moment there is, unfortunately, little
which even His ingenious love can dis
cover to say on their behalf. For nearly
three years He has been training them
as never did master school his pupils ; He
has been everything to them ; He has kept
nothing back from them. They are bound
to Him by such ties as never was friend
to friend, and yet in the hour of His
humiliation, they have all left Him,
having fled for their lives. One of them
has actually sold Him for less than was
usually given for a beast of burden, and
now as He is being questioned by the
malevolent ex-high priest, Peter in the
courtyard below is about to deny with
an oath, that he had ever known Him.
And yet for all this our Lord's love
of all of them, save one — even of that
one ! — remains unchanged. He will not
45

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
allow Himself to see them pictured before
His mind in the moment of their falter
ing and shame. No, but on the contrary,
they are present to Him even now, as
they will be when, with the past blotted
out, they will rise in the full strength of
their love and loyalty, ready, with the
one sad exception, each and all to shed
their blood, and die a martyr's death for
His dear sake.
Annas, finding it impossible to per
suade our Lord to say anything touch
ing His disciples, passes over that
question as though it were of small
account, and goes on to question our
Lord about His doctrine. As the event
showed, it is an unfortunate question for
Annas. The story of the High Priest's
own life stands out before the mind of
the divine Prisoner clearer than ever
the shrewd old man is led to suspect.
And so, without directly telling him that
he knows of all his deceitful ways of
drawing money from poor people, of
all his illicit practices, of all his illegal
dealings with the Romans, and of all his
secret plots with the other priests to
compass His death ; Jesus gives Annas
such an answer to the question put, that
so shrewd a judge as he is can scarcely
46

CHRIST BEFORE ANNAS
escape realising that he is standing face
to face with One before Whom every
single detail of his mercenary, cunning,
fox-like life stands out clearly and ac
curately as in a picture.
This, St John tells us, is what our
Lord says in reply to the question put
Him by Annas : "I have spoken openly
to the world, I have always taught in the
Synagogue and in the Temple, whither
all the Jews resort, and in private I
have spoken nothing. Why askest thou
Me ? " and then turning to those around
and about Him, he adds: "Ask them
who have heard what I have spoken to
them ; behold they know what things I
have said."
Never did a judge in answer to an
irrelevant question receive so be
wildering a blow. For the moment
Jesus and Annas seem to have changed
places, and the old Priest of the Temple
is being taught a lesson by the young
Rabbi of Nazareth which he is not likely
soon to forget. Who is the man implied
in antithesis by the personal pronoun " I "
used so repeatedly and emphatically ?
Who is the man who has neither spoken
openly nor acted openly ? Who is the
man who in private has said one thing
47

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
and in public another ? Who is the man
whose measure of principle is expediency,
and whose idea of success is gold ? That
man without any mistake is the ex-high
priest, Annas. Well might the divine
Prisoner put to him the question : " Why
askest thou Me,?" Does not one so
well read in the law as Annas, know that
this midnight hole-and-corner meeting is
illegal ? Does not he know that the
cross-examination of the prisoner is
illegal? Does he not know that to
proceed to trial in absence of counsel
for the defence is illegal ? and does he
not know that to open the case without
the sworn evidence of witnesses is also
illegal ? Does he not know that to bind
Him is illegal ? and does he not know
that the arrest was illegal ? Has this
old, wily, spiteful arch-conspirator in his
unseemly impatience to find Jesus of
Nazareth guilty of crimes, to be expiated
only by crucifixion, lost sight of all these
irregularities, and forgotten all legal
methods of judicial procedure?
To this question, "Why askest thou
Me ? " The judge can find no answer.
No answer. For the first time in his
long and successful career Annas has
met more than his match, and so wild is
48

CHRIST BEFORE ANNAS
he at being caught in the trap he has
laid for another, that for once he loses
self control and can say nothing, turning
ghastly pale. Silence like a shudder is
felt by all the court when, suddenly, a
sharp sickening sound is heard through
out the Hall. The astonished mob looks
up and see before them such a sight as
might make angels weep, Jesus is
staggering under the pain and shock
of a blow. He has been struck across
the face by the servant of the High
Priest, and the precious Blood is actually
running down His cheek and His neck.
There is a dead pause during which no
man, not even the presiding judge,
dares speak. Jesus with difficulty draws
Himself up, and looking into the
face of His assailant asks him calmly
and firmly, " If I have spoken ill give
testimony of the evil, but if well why
strikest thou Me ? " The cruel, cowardly
servant who thought to win the favour
of his master by striking the Prisoner
across the face with a swing from his
open hand, turns insultingly to our Lord,
asking "Answerest Thou the High
Priest so ? " But our Lord demands
justice and insists that, if He has spoken
ill He should be tried for it, not struck ;
v 49

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
if well, He should be praised, not
blamed. And how, let me ask you, does the
self-constituted judge deal with this
dastardly attack in his presence in open
court ? He does not deal with it, he
does not dare to reprove the Culprit, for
he feels himself so shattered under the
lash of the divine Prisoner's rebuke, that
he is powerless to act or to speak. He
had come into court with the idea of
asserting his rights and instead he has
been taught his duty. With a wave of
his long quivering arm he turns to his
guard, and in a voice choked with anger
he orders them to bind the Prisoner as
though He had already been proved
guilty, and to march Him off for trial to
the court of his son - in - law, Joseph
Caiaphas, the official High Priest.
The world has not changed much
since the days of Annas. Like him the
worldly man, whether priest or layman,
is pursuing identically the same ends,
scheming for money and position. The
very people, who try so plausibly to
fasten upon the Society of Jesus the
motto "The end justifies the means,"
are themselves practising it in not a few
of their transactions. It is a motto that
5°

CHRIST BEFORE ANNAS
would not be altogether inappropriate
over the stock exchange, the counting
house, the club room, and the boudoir.
Of course I do not mean to imply that
all Society is unprincipled and without
conscience, but I am not so far out of
my reckoning when I tell you that in the
haste to get rich both men and women
seem to have no time to pause and
examine the character of the means
which they propose to make use of for
its attainment. Like Annas they stretch
forth their hands to grab at the nearest
means within their reach, and provided
they further their designs, with the
prospect and promise of success, they
do not care to investigate too closely the
morality of the situation.
We all know how useless it is to argue
with a man who has become a slave to
the passion, say, of drinking or of
gambling. The drunkard will tell you
of course that the charge against him is
a gross exaggeration, that he never
drinks more than his exceptional case
requires, and the gambler that he never
bets more than he can afford to lose ;
but all the time you know, if you know
anything at all, that you are being told
nothing but lies, and that it would be an
51

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
act of injustice on your part to believe
a single word told you, for the one and
simple reason that the miserable man is
not a free agent, but a slave bound
over hand and foot to his predominant
passion. What is true of the drunkard and the
gambler is true no less of the votary of
pleasure and of the money-grabber.
In a word, to the man who has lost
self-control by playing into the hands of
his passions nothing is sacred or serious,
the very House of God which is "a
house of prayer" will be turned into "a
den of thieves " while God Himself will
be sold for a handful of silver and con
demned to die upon the gallows.
Annas, the vulture, not only feathered
his own nest but, when he was baffled
and baulked by our blessed Lord's line
of action with the money-makers in the
Temple, left no stone unturned to have
his full revenge by bringing about the
murder of Him Who had thwarted him.
With this object in view he thought to en
trap the divine Master by leading Him
to commit Himself about His disciples.
Surely this too is one of the besetting
sins of the day, scandalous conversation
about one's neighbours. Would that
52

CHRIST BEFORE ANNAS
scandal were confined to the racecourse,
the club room, or the market place!
You can tether it nowhere.
Is there any place upon God's earth
where the best man's character is safe ?
I know of none ; even in the cloister and
the sanctuary itself is it liable to be
torn to pieces ; nay, a single word ex
pressed or even implied is sometimes
quite enough to set off a woman in hot
pursuit, hunting down her quarry till
morally she has done her victim to death.
Poor human nature being what it is,
it is necessary, as our Lord says, that
scandal should come, and yet " woe to
the man by whom it cometh."
There is a silence more musical than
any song, more eloquent than any speech,
more impressive than any sermon. It is
the silence of the man who rather than
say anything to the prejudice of another
holds his peace. The silence of the
divine Prisoner when questioned by
Annas, about His disciples is pregnant
with lessons for all of us. What a loyal,
generous and chivalrous Friend He is !
How beautiful and noble does His
character stand out, especially when seen
in contrast with that of" the disingenuous
and avaricious Annas ! Our Lord is so
53

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
straight and simple, so reckless of conse
quences, when principle is at stake. He
is the One whose practice runs level with
His theories, whose deeds reflect per
fectly His words, whose life in public is
what it is in private. So ought our lives
similarly to be ordered.
At every stage in the history of the
Sacred Passion we are taught by our
Lord's example lessons which none of
us can afford to ignore. They are
character - building lessons, and it is
character which matters. Would that
Annas had felt this ! In him you see a
man of rare talents with exceptional
opportunities of doing good. Had he
taken advantage of these gifts, using them
for ends lofty and holy in the position
and world in which God has placed him,
Annas might have built up a character
which for all time would have stood out
on the page of history as a noble example
to his countrymen. " It is example,"
we are reminded by a modern writer,
" which is everything ; it is the School
of mankind, and they will learn in no
other." Alas ! in the history of the
Sacred Passion we are most unfortunately
brought into contact with man after man
who has misdirected his talents and mis^
54

CHRIST BEFORE ANNAS
used his opportunities. In men like
Annas and Caiaphas, Pilate and Herod,
we have forced upon our notice examples
of those who might not have transgressed
and have transgressed, who could have
done good things and have not done
them. And why was it that these gifted
men, in high station, so far forgot all
sense of justice and - equity, nay, of
decency itself, that without a single
exception they one and all bowed to the
sway of passion, vying with each other
in gross miscarriage of justice till Pilate
in spite of his better sense actually signed
the death warrant of the Man whom he
declared to be altogether innocent ?
The explanation of this criminal pro
cedure is obvious. These miserable
characters on the bench, were all of them
men who made expediency their
measure of principle and success, their
interpretation of truth. They tried, like
so many before and since their day, the
impossible ; to compromise between con
science and popularity, to serve both
God and Mammon. Accordingly they
ended with contemning God and loving
Mammon. " You cannot serve God and
Mammon." No, you yourselves cannot
any more than could these murderers of
55

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
Jesus Christ afford to compromise with
principle. Become a money-grabber like
Annas, or a self- worshipper like Caiphas,
or a place-hunter like Pilate, or a
pleasure-seeker like Herod, and you will
end by treating Christ your Lord and
Saviour much as they did.
The fact is, life is a probation, and we
must force ourselves to realise that he
and he only is the happy, the "man"
blessed that hath not gone after gold,
nor put his trust in money nor in
treasures. "Who is he," asks the re
vealed word, " and we will praise him ? "
What is the answer to this question?
Who is this blessed one ? " He that
could have transgressed and hath not
transgressed ; and could do evil things
and hath not done them."
In this world of probation you have to
build up a character fitted for Heaven,
you have to form and fashion it out of
the rude materials that lie before you,
into the individual which shall make you,
yourself, and none other. Character
is what God will demand of you — yes —
and a Christ-like character — for to be a
Christian means to grow into the like
ness of Christ who is the only model for
His followers. 56

CHRIST BEFORE ANNAS
If there be any one here present whose
past makes him disposed to call out ; "For
me, then, it is too late," I will remind him
of the story of Mary Magdalen, of Simon
Peter, of the repentant thief; or if you
will of Saul of Tarsus, of Augustine of
Hippo, or of Ignatius of Loyola. So
long as there is life there is hope even
for the very worst amongst us. To such
a one I say with the poet :
" Move upwards, working out the beast
And let the ape and tiger die."
Let us one and all resolve not only to
be on the side of Christ, but to build up
characters worthy of our calling. This
must be done by meeting our difficulties,
not by shirking them, by facing our trials
and fighting them like brave Christian
men. " Blessed is the man who hath
endured temptation, for when he shall
have been tried, he shall receive the
crown of life, which the Lord hath pro
mised to them that love Him." Love is
service, and service is sacrifice, and sacri
fice is the test of character. A man is
not measured in the last instance by
what he has, nor by what he says, nor
even by what he does, but what he is.
Be a man and observe —
57

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
" Thou hast thy way to go, thou hast thy day
To live, thou hast thy need of thee to make
In the hearts of others : do thy things : yes,
slake
The world's thirst for yet another man 1
And be thou sure of this : no other can
Do for thee that appointed thee by God."

58

SCENE III
CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS

CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS
" He hath blasphemed, what further need have we of
witnesses ? Behold now you have heard the blasphemy.
What think you ? But they answering said " He is
guilty of death." — St Matthew xxvi, 65, 66.
Since the hour of our Lord's arrest in
the Garden by Judas, the Sanhedrist
Priests have been astir, hunting up wit
nesses who, provided it is made worth
their while, are prepared to perjure them
selves. The priests themselves have
been kept well informed in all the stages
of the case since the arrest, and word is
now sent them to hurry to the Court of
Joseph Caiaphas, as Annas, having found
Jesus guilty on two distinct charges, is
sending Him at once for trial.
The full conclave consisting of seventy
one members of the Sanhedrim, was not
permitted by law to assemble in the High
Priest's Palace, but a quorum of twenty-
three was considered sufficient to con
stitute a tribunal with some show of
authority for its decrees. 61

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
Accordingly white, ghost-like figures of
priests are seen flitting across the court
yard of the Palace, to take their places
in the court where Joseph Caiaphas will
preside at the mock trial ecclesiastical.
Picture to yourselves an oblong chamber
at the further end of which you observe
a semi-circular platform supporting a wide
inlaid throne on which is seated the High
Priest, Caiaphas. He is wearing the
tiara, the ephod, and the official richly
embroidered alb with the famous silver
bells tinkling along its fringes. On either
side of the throne sweeps the divan with
mats and cushions, on which sitting cross-
legged you may count, in all, twenty-two
priests. At the extremities places are
provided for the two secretaries, one of
whom is to record everything said against
the accused party, while the business of
the other is to chronicle every item in
His favour. Small need to speak of the
latter's task. It will not be an important
one since the Jewish authorities are de
termined, no matter what the evidence,
to send the case to the Civil Court of
Pilate. Before this grim gathering of hostile
white-robed prelates, Jesus, our Lord
bound, is brought for trial. See Him, as
63

CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS
He stands facing the Nasi, or Council
President, Caiaphas." What a contrast
between the two High Priests! Jesus,
wearing the garments of an ordinary
Jewish peasant, stands with His hands
tied behind Him facing Caiaphas and
his perjured brother judges. What a
look of indescribable sadness steals across
the worn and weary face of our Lord, as
He raises those soul-reading eyes to
survey the scene which the red glimmer
ing light of the oil lamps reveals to Him !
What a calm and quiet dignity possesses
Him !
After something like silence and order
among the motley crowd struggling for
places has been secured, this Ecclesias
tical Court opens proceedings, but not as
it should have done, with a clear and
distinct statement made by the Nasi of
the charges alleged against the Prisoner,
and in the presence of witnesses prepared
to support those charges, and before
counsel and witnesses watching the case
on behalf of the defence. " The spirit
of the Jewish law," it has been well said,
" was merciful in the extreme, and under
no system has there been exhibited a
more anxious desire to guard the rights
of the prisoner, or to allow him oppor-
63

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
tunities of acquittal." For instance, as
regards his own evidence, and the testi
monies of witnesses, and the time of
trial, and the action of the judges, the
accused, if legally and legitimately tried
had every advantage possible offered to
him. His rights were at once recognised
and protected by law. But then, this
trial of our Lord was not a real but a
mock trial — a travesty of justice — nay, it
was a diabolical farce. Follow its various
stages from the opening to the closing
scene, and be satisfied that it is, as I
have said, from start to finish a gross
miscarriage of justice.
Instead of opening the case by inform
ing our Lord of the nature of the crime
with which He is charged, and then
proceeding to call upon witnesses to sub
stantiate it, and finally citing the prisoner
to appear, in case of presumptive guilt,
before the whole Sanhedrim for formal
trial and sentence, Joseph Caiaphas on
the contrary begins the trial by summon
ing false witnesses who are in collusion
with the bench, and who have been bribed
by it to give evidence against Jesus that
it may surely bring about His death.
I repeat, never in the history of
ecclesiastical trials has there been carried
64

CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS
on under cover of the darkness of night
and the semblanceof legality, so deliberate
a plot for the miscarrriage of justice.
The law said, " By the mouth of two
or three witnesses shall he die who is to
be slain." " We must proceed legally in
this trial," ironically exclaim the priests;
" so let us summon to our presence not
two or three but a very host of witnesses,
against the Accused." Accordingly there
troops into the court quite a swarm of
witnesses ; but observe, there is not one
of them who has not been taught his les
son and told by the presiding judges what
line his evidence is to take. It is, I say,
a false trial pushed forward by false wit
nesses giving false evidence in the pre
sence of false judges. Well may our Lord
have exclaimed, "Woe to you, hypocrites,
because you tithe mint and anise and
cummin, and have left the weightier things
of the law." Yes, and among these
weightier things of the law, oh! you brood
of vipers, is the commandment : " Thou
shalt not bear false witness against thy
neighbour," and that other item of the
law which you seem to have lost sight
of, namely, the penalty to be meted out
by it to a false witness ! Does it not run
thus : " Thou shalt not pity him but shall
e 65

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
require life for life, eye for eye, tooth for
tooth, and foot for foot ? " Alas, you are
a generation which strains at a gnat while
swallowing a camel. Yes, you will ob
serve, you hypocritical judges, just so
much of the law as will suit your deadly
purpose, that only, and no more.
Caiaphas and his brother judges do not
dare to proceed according to the Jewish
law. They know well that if they carried
out, irrespective of consequences, the pro
visions of that law, a verdict must be
found in favour of the divine Prisoner,
and they are there not to acquit, but to
condemn Him.
Let me for a moment remind you of a
passage in St Mark's account of the trial.
Does it not run thus ? " And the Chief
Priests and all the Council sought false
witness against Jesus that they might put
Him to death." Is there, then, among
the three and twenty judges presiding at
this awful trial, not one to hold the
scales of justice evenly ? Is there not a
solitary one to respect the claims of jus
tice and the legal rights of the Prisoner
in the dock ?
No, for once in the history of the
supreme ecclesiastical Jewish court of
Justice there sit three and twenty judges
66

CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS
who are unanimous in their determination,
as we have said, no matter how the
evidence goes, to send the Prisoner to the
Civil Court.
Pilate, the Roman Procurator, alone
has power to pass the sentence of death
by crucifixion ; and that is the death
which the Jewish priests have resolved
that Jesus shall die.
See them, this bench of judges, draped
in white, sitting cross-legged, swaying
their bodies to and fro, looking like
white bears waiting impatiently to tear to
pieces the Victim to be flung to them.
And now listen to the several fictitious
charges brought against the divine
Prisoner by the well - drilled perjured
witnesses. Observe ! One swears that
our Lord was in the habit of breaking
the Sabbath day, that He has been
known, on more occasions than one, to
have worked a miracle on the sacred day
of rest. Another attests that he has it
on the authority of the Pharisees them
selves that Jesus of Nazareth has indeed
wrought such miracles as He was credited
with, but He worked them through the
power of Beelzebub ! Another states on
his oath that when a wretched woman
was actually taken in the midst of her
67

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
sins, the Prisoner, before whom she had
been brought, had not only refused to
condemn her, but had even gone out of
His way to cast a slur upon the very
men who, out of respect to their law,
had charged her with adultery, a crime
for which she should have been stoned
to death. Another witness comes for
ward to say that he was present when
Jesus had said to Mary of Magdala, a
public sinner in the city of Nairn : " Thy
sins are forgiven thee." This witness is
followed by yet another who states that
it was known to be the boast of Jesus
Christ that He had power to cure not
only the ills of the body, but even the
ailments of the soul. Then comes in
one who says that the Prisoner was often
heard to call the Pharisees " hypocrites,"
a "brood of vipers," "an adulterous
generation ; " moreover that He had
thrown ridicule on the doctrine of the
Sadducees, and had even dared to rebuke
before the common people the Chief
Priests of the Holy Temple.
Behold here, some samples of the
multitudinous evidence brought by these
suborned witnesses against Jesus Christ
in the court house of Joseph Caiaphas.
Do you suppose that the priests or
68

CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS
any others present care a trumpery
shekel whether the Prisoner has kept
the Sabbath, or has worked miracles, or
forgiven sins, or observed the oral law
or its traditions? About such things
these time - serving, money - grabbing,
place - hunting, sceptical priests care
simply nothing at all ; and they are be
coming not a little uneasy because so
far the evidence which has been ad
vanced against our blessed Lord has
not taken the turn they had anticipated
and looked for. As it at present stands,
the evidence is altogether insufficient to
lead to what they want, and will have :
a death sentence against the Accused.
Turn your eyes to the bench : see how
bitterly do these judges scowl at one
another ; how pale with rage they turn,
looking first at Annas, the Vice-
President, and then at Joseph Caiaphas,
who scowls back at them, giving ex
pression to his biting retort, " You know
nothing." "The whole Council," St
Matthew informs us, " sought false
witness against Jesus that they might
put Him to death, and they found not
what they had wanted, though many
false witnesses had come in."
At last there is a stir in the Court,
69

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
and the rumour goes that two witnesses
have arrived, prepared to give evidence
which will prove to the satisfaction of
the Court, the Prisoner to be guilty of
constructive blasphemy. For a moment
the hopes of the judges revive, and
Caiaphas gives orders to bring in the
witnesses. The first of these pointing
to the divine Saviour takes an oath
saying, " This man said, I am able to
destroy the Temple of God and in three
days to rebuild it." The other swears
before the Court that he heard the
Prisoner say, " I will destroy this Temple
made with hands and within three
days I will build another not made with
hands." To the lay mind this evidence
appears crushing in its effects, but to
the bench of judges it yields a sense
only of uneasiness. They know that
though between the statements of the
two last witnesses there may be found
some partial agreement, yet that the
agreement is not sufficiently close to
satisfy the requirements of their law.
According to the terms of the Jewish
statute, the statements of witnesses to
be conclusive must be not only similar,
but absolutely identical. Besides this,
unfortunately for them, some of the
70

CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS
priests themselves were present in the
portico of the Temple when Jesus had
uttered the sentence referred to. It was
on the day of His first public visit to
their Temple, nearly three years ago,
when He drove from its porches the
buyers and the sellers. On that occasion
they themselves had put Him the
question : " What sign dost Thou show
to us seeing Thou dost these things ? "
In answer Jesus had certainly not said :
" I am able to destroy the Temple," nor
had He said: "I will destroy the
Temple." In fact, He had said nothing
about destroying, but on the contrary
something about rebuilding the Temple.
His words on that memorable occasion,
and they remembered them only too
accurately, implied a defiance flung at
them. He had used the imperative
mood saying : " Destroy you, if you will,
this Temple," as it were challenging
them to destroy it ; and then He had
gone on to say that even if they did so,
He could and would rebuild it. But He
was referring, as we know, to the
Temple of His Body.
The High Priests wax furious as they
think over these things, but while they
are trying to find a way out of the
7i

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
difficulty presented to them, presently
amid a scene of indescribable confusion,
Caiaphas, quivering with anger and
emotion, rises from his throne crying out
to our Lord as he points to the array of
false witnesses, " Answerest Thou nothing
to these things that are laid to Thy charge
by these men?" Jesus with His hands
tied behind Him stands facing the angry
judge, but answers him never a word.
Why does our Lord hold His peace
and make no answer? He makes none,
because He is resolved to throw the
whole responsibility of this awful night
upon the right shoulders, and, if possible,
to force the High Priest, while yet there
is time for repentance, to realise that
upon his own perjured soul lies the ac
cumulated guilt, which arises out of this
miscarriage of justice in the trial under
his presidency.
Yes, Jesus means to bring home to
Caiaphas the illegalities in this night's
proceedings for which he, as the official
High Priest, is chiefly responsible. The
arrest before the trial was illegal, the ex
amination-in-chief before Annas illegal,
the night sitting of the Sanhedrim illegal,
and every successive stage in the pro
ceedings of that night's session has been
72

CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS
illegal. Moreover by the provisions of the
Jewish law which regulates the ecclesi
astical tribunal of Justice, Caiaphas
is obliged to provide counsel for the
defence and he has not done so. He is
also obliged to sift carefully every point
of the evidence of each witness, and he
has not done so. He is further obliged
to protect the rights of the accused party,
to treat the Prisoner as innocent until
proved guilty, and to refrain from asking
incriminating questions ; and on every
point he has failed to comply with what is
required of him. Forthesereasonsamong
others, our Lord refuses to take any formal
part in this so-called ecclesiastical trial,
in which no provision of the law has
been respected and in which every legal
right of the Prisoner has been violated,
while the very first elements of natural
justice itself have been shamefully out
raged. Accordingly Jesus holds His
peace, and to the question put to Him
by Caiaphas answers nothing.
The eloquence of the solemn and
awful silence on the part of our Lord
staggers the judges ; they positively reel
under it, as though struck by some un
seen hand. Caiaphas himself knows not
where to turn from the sight of the wan,
73

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
calm, and majestic face, that seems to
look into his flushed, quivering, and
anxious features, searching them through
and through.
How can he escape from our Saviour's
pleading eyes, which are reading the
story written in letters of fire on the
guilty soul of His judge ? Throwing off
with a supreme effort, the guilty fear
that clings to him, Caiaphas, panting
with rage, is now more determined than
ever to force an answer from Jesus ; he
is not going to be set at naught, and be
treated by the Prisoner with contempt
uous silence in presence of this bench
of judges over which he is officially
presiding as High Priest.
Once more Caiaphas rises from his
seat ; this time to put a question, no doubt
suggested by the observant and crafty
Annas. It is a question which he feels
certain will not fail to draw forth
an answer from the lips of the silent
Prisoner before him ; and it is one
upon the answer to which sentence
of" condemnation or acquittal must
inevitably turn. Accordingly, solemnly
and emphatically it is put : "I adjure
Thee by the living God that Thou tell us
if Thou be the Christ, the Son of theliving
74

CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS
God." Oh, listen with bated breath to
the calm emphatic answer which comes
forth with majestic precision from the
divine Lips of the divine Prisoner. It is
an answer by which He pronounces, seals
and delivers His own death-warrant to
the criminal judge. "And Jesus" the
Evangelist tells us, said to Caiaphas, " I
am. Nevertheless I say to you, here
after you shall see the Son of Man
sitting on the right hand of the power
of God and coming in the clouds of
heaven." It is as though Jesus had
said to the High Priest : " Although now
and here you see Me before you as a
Prisoner, then and there you shall see Me
before you as your Judge ; then you and
I, Caiaphas, shall have changed places ;
for then will it be your turn to answer
the question you have even now put to
Me; "Answerest thou nothing to the
things these witnesses lay to thy charge ?"
For a moment there is a silence that
may almost be felt throughout the Court,
the declaration of the Prisoner having
staggered every man present. Never be
fore in the course of His public ministry
had Jesusof Nazarethsoclearly.distinctly,
so fully, so emphatically, and so solemnly
defined in terms the character of His
75

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
mission and the altitude of His person
ality. In the most critical scene of this
most awful drama, its central figure, even
Jesus Christ the Prisoner, proclaims
before the Priesthood of Israel His
Messianic claims. From this High
Court of Justice the Son of Man sends
forth a message to the whole Jewish
people declaring that the Messiah has
arrived and is actually in their midst;
to the whole Roman world ; nay, to
humanity itself, Jesus witnesses to His
own divine Personality, reminding man
kind, in terms about which there can be
no mistake, that He is the One divine
Person to whom all history converges, or
from whom it radiates, that in Him all
prophecy is fulfilled as from Him all
jurisdiction is derived, and that hereafter
He will come on the right hand of the
power of God in the clouds of heaven to
reward the just with everlasting life, and
the wicked with everlasting punishment.
Never in this world had there been
heard such a proclamation as that.
Having heard this solemn and sacred
answer to his question, the High Priest,
had he acted according to the provision
of the law, should have turned to the
bench of judges, informing them that
76

CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS
after such an avowal as they had heard
from the Prisoner, it was their business
to investigate the matter so as to satisfy
themselves and the people whom they
represented concerning these Messianic
pretensions, to which now in open court
Jesus Christ had laid claim. " Is He or
is He not an impostor ? " The presiding
judge ought to have informed his brother
judges that this was the question before
them, and the only one which they
should have proceeded to try.
As a matter of fact, how did this
bench of perjured judges conduct itself ?
What line did the Nasi, Caiaphas, take ?
Look at him ; he springs up like one
smarting under the sting of a lash, and
rending his garments from hem to hem,
he sends forth a cry, as it were of pain,
throughout the court, exclaiming : " He
hath blasphemed, what further need have
we of witnesses ? Behold now you have
heard the blasphemy, what think you ? "
They answering say, " He is guilty of
death." The reply of our dear and blessed
Lord was regarded by the Sanhedrists
as blasphemous. That we all know ;
but is there not, I ask, a very close
similarity between the attitude of
77

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
Caiaphas and his companions, and the
holders of the so-called New Theology?
Do they not, too, cry out in answer to
the divine claim that it is blasphemous ?
To me it is strange how men who have
studied the twenty-sixth and twenty-
seventh chapters of St Matthew's Gospel
can say there is no Christology in the
Synoptics. I do not see how Jesus
Christ coukl possibly make it clearer to
Jew or Gentile that He claimed to be by
Nature " Son of God," as, by the nature
He assumed, He was " Son of Man."
It was because He dared to proclaim
His divine Personality in all the fulness
and Hteralness of the word that those
priest-judges condemned Him for blas
phemy. Hence, too, the cry of the
people, " We have a law, and according
to the law He ought to die ; because He
made Himself the Son of God." It is
not my purpose this morning to point
out the witness of history and Chris
tianity itself to the Divinity of Christ; but
I do think this, that if Joseph Caiaphas
with his brother judges are to be found
guilty of murder, nay, of Deicide, it will
be difficult indeed to make any defence
for so-called Christians, who deny that
Jesus Christ was anything more than a
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CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS
very good man. If He was not all He
claimed to be, when His confession
actually signed his death warrant, He
was not merely " a very bad man," but
the worst of men : nay, the perjured
blasphemer which His judges called
Him. There never have been wanting, at
any stage in the history of Christianity,
men who have denied the claims of
Christ ; but it has been reserved for our
own epoch to produce those who, while
repudiating the Divinity of Christ, still
venture to style themselves Christians.
It is a matter of common knowledge that
many ministers of religion assert that they
are wholly unable to accept the Virgin
Birth or the Resurrection, and proclaim
their unbelief from their very pulpits. Of
such, I ask, how, in honesty, they can
remain where they are ! In commercial
transactions that line of action would be
styled by a very ugly name indeed !
There is, to my ears, in this Christian
land, a worse ring in the voice that
falters over the divine claims of Jesus,
than in the cry of Caiaphas, uttering
condemnation against Him- Let the
world know, I say, if they are, or if they
are not followers of Christ. The Church
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
of England must look to this, and unless
she speedily rights herself as a champion
of the Divinity of Christ, her raison
d'etre, as a breakwater, against the in
coming tide of infidelity will be gone.
At present it would seem that some of
our Anglican friends hardly know what
to believe. They have revised the
Bible — they are talking of revising the
Prayer Book — and they have come near
to revising themselves out of Christianity
altogether. At this moment I have a
friend under instruction drawn to the
Catholic Church, because he had become
so weary and worn out with contradictory
opinions that he really did not know
what to accept as true, or what to reject
as false. Among prominent clergymen
of the Established Church my friend has
been unable to find any agreement upon
many points of doctrine which seemed
vital to Christianity. It does indeed
seem strange that while the churches
round about are yielding, under the
pressure of "higher criticism" and what
not, both dogmatic and moral tenets, we
Catholics should be charged with adding
to our repertoire. Certainly the Church
has not given up one jot or tittle of her
body of dogma or code of morality since
that day when she started on her mission
80

CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS
from the Pentecostal Chamber. To the
world she is the great enigma. Not
many days ago I was asked by a
scientist how, as an educated man, I
could belong to a Church which did not
allow people to think for themselves.
In reply I told him that I should be only
too grateful, life being what it is, if some
other institution could arise to solve my
scientific difficulties as satisfactorily as
the Church answered my soul questions
respecting revelation. ' ' Scio cui credidi, "
I know whom I trust.
The Catholic Church is slow but sure.
From the first moment of her being she
accepted the divinity of Christ, but it
took her four hundred years to define it
in terms ! With rare exceptions those
men who talk so glibly about "think
ing for themselves," obtain their
knowledge second hand, and unlike
their teachers they often become so
self-centred that they forget even God ;
soon coming to refuse to believe what
they can not label with a scientific name,
or precipitate in a test tube, or dissect
with their scalpel. Meanwhile they
speak of the Catholic Church as " being
at her old business, trying to stop the
movement of the world." There may
be some excuse for what men say
v 81

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
against the Catholic Church because,
as outsiders, it is almost impossible to
understand her, especially where some
modern English histories are made to
tell against her ; but are they not wholly
inexcusable for teaching, as the outcome
of their aggressive ephemeral theories,
that God is non-existent, that Christ
was a visionary, the soul is a myth, and
eternity a dream. What will be the
future of men who proclaim with Haeckel
that " free will is a pure dogma, based
on an illusion with no real existence ? "
When a Christian people slip off the
broad platform of sound Christianity
they are on an inclined plane ; and if
we may judge from the sensual books
read, the loose plays applauded, the
gross superstitions practised, the palmists
consulted, the quacks fee'd, and the
charms worn by Society women to*day,
there seems to be a growing section of
the world already on the down grade.
If Jesus Christ were to come to London
to-day, He would find Himself in an
environment not altogether unlike His
surroundings in the palace of the high
priests, when they charged Him with
blasphemy. Of course there would be
some to stand by Him, but there would
be many more to deny that they could
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CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS
discover any difference in kind between
Him and Moses or Gautama, Zoroaster
or Mahomet, while other leaders of
Society would place Him on a line with
Plato, or Socrates, or Epictetus, or
Marcus Aurelius. One can almost hear
the comments that would be made.
" He is indeed a great man ; maybe a
great philosopher, but He is not God."
Or, as one said to me not long ago :
" I take it that He was as divine as the
most divine among us."
I cannot conceive a greater calamity
befalling a nation than the sin of
apostasy from the God who once so
journed in their midst " in the likeness
of sinful flesh." I greatly fear that a
people which begins to doubt the word
of Jesus Christ as the truth of God, will
before very long come to call into ques
tion the existence itself of a Personal
God. Without a Personal Being to look
to, and to lean upon, religion would soon
become little more than a high-sounding
name ; it would altogether go under and
disappear when confronted by an assault
of passion or an attack of unbelief.
What is happening in our midst to
day ? Are not the foundations of re
ligion being in many instances under
mined by muddy streams of impurity,
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
and are not its flying buttresses and
towers being attacked and shattered by
the artillery of rationalists, till the very
citadel itself would seem to be im
perilled ?
When once the strong tower of re
ligion is gone the nation itself is
doomed. Look at past and ancient
Phoenicia ; remember Athens, remember
Rome ! Nay, remember Jerusalem, the
city of perfect beauty, the city seated
on the hill !
Over against it our Lord was once
seen gazing and weeping, while the
throng pressing about Him was shout
ing itself hoarse with its hosannas and
blessings. But Jesus wept because, as
His eyes were being rivetted on the city
that knew not the day of her visitation,
He foresaw all things that would be —
her own ruin and her people's sin.
Are we, are you, the favoured, the
leisured class of this vast and wealthy
city so much better than were the in
habitants of Jerusalem in our Lord's day,
that you can find no occasion to lament
and weep ? How do you stand ? Con
sult the legal and medical professions, or
question the stock-broker or money
lender, for they, as well as the secre
taries of your clubs, and the clerks in
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GHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS
your banks and the counting-house,
know perfectly well the hopeless con
dition in which some of you are in
volved. But I will pass from these
witnesses, who are external to you, to
question your own selves.
Tell me what is the literature that
interests you, which are the plays that
amuse you, what is the society that en
tertains you ?
When alone, If ever you are alone,
whither do your thoughts wander ;
where are your ambitions, what are your
desires, your hopes, your harbour of
refuge, your perfect peace and rest ?
" How long will ye love vanity, and
seek after lying ? "
For a Christian people outside Christ
there can be no true and lasting peace
and rest. Come back, come back, I say,
to Christ Jesus our Lord. Many of you
have practically given up Christianity,
because you have never really recognised
and embraced Christ.
Before the teaching must come the
teacher. Lay hold of Christ the Master
and the teaching will follow.
Take your lesson from the disciple
blessed Peter, in whom I see three dis
tinct stages in the evolution of Christian
sanctity. First of all comes his profes-
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
sion of faith and loyalty in our Lord's
person. " Thou art Christ, the Son of
the Living God ; " then follows unhesi
tating belief in and acceptance of His
teaching. " Thou hast the words of
eternal life, to whom else shall we go?"
and then there comes the final goal of
all — clinging love. " Thou knowest all
things, Thou knowest that I love Thee."
Behold here your threefold object
lesson in blessed Peter. Repose in
the certitude of the Teacher, repose
in the certitude of His teaching, and
repose in the certitude of His love.
As you love your own immortal souls
I most earnestly exhort you to rest not
satisfied till you have reached this third
stage in spiritual growth — for it is love
only — love personal of Christ our Lord
— which will teach you with blessed
Peter that " Love's service standeth in
love's sacrifice, and whoso suffers most
has most to give " to Him who gave
Himself for you.
" For life with all it yields of joy and woe
And hope and fear — believe the aged friend —
Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,
How love might be, hath been, indeed, and is !
And that we hold thenceforth to the uttermost
Such prize, despite the envy of the world,
And, having gained truth, keep truth — that
is all." 86

SCENE IV
CHRIST BEFORE PILATE

CHRIST BEFORE PILATE
" For this was I born, for this came I into the world
that I should give testimony to the truth. Everyone
that is of the truth heareth My voice." — St John
xviii, 37.
On the north east of the Holy Temple
in menacing attitude stood the great
Herodian Citadel called after Mark
Antony, Turris Antonia. The perpen
dicular sides of the hill on which this
palatial fortress was reared were faced
with polished marble so as to defy all
attempts to scale its walls. On the plat
form immediately above this impreg
nable rampart was planted the square
built Citadel itself. At each angle of it
there shot up a tower, the one to the south
side being conspicuous by a turret from
which the Roman Garrison, much to the
annoyance of the priests, could command
an unbroken view of the of the interior
of the Holy Temple. To render this
marble camp an abode suitable for the
Roman Governor in times of danger,
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
Herod had built, on a lower platform
hewn out of the living rock, a sumptuous
residence, embodying Grecian taste and
Oriental luxury. The praetorium, of
which the Gospel speaks, was approached
on its western side through an open court
or forum, leading to a noble Roman
archway flanked by two others on a
smaller scale than it. This triple archway
opened into an area paved with red flag
stones, called by Greeks, Lithostrotos,
and by Jews, Gabbatha. Here at right
angles with the archway stood the white
marble Tribune or Bema from which the
Governor was wont to administer justice.
Beyond it sprang a grand staircase slop
ing up to the balcony or loggia sweeping
to the right and left of the Governor's
hall. It was perhaps while standing in the
morning sun on this balcony that Pilate's
attention was first arrested by the wild
cries of the mob below, as it came
surging along its way through the wind
ing streets of the city, triumphant in the
capture of the Prisoner, Jesus Christ.
Soon the truculent swelling crowd ap
pears in sight, and as it draws nearer,
all the while shouting and madly gesticu
lating, Pilate with his officers of state
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CHRIST BEFORE PILATE
looks down upon the scene with a glance
in which are blended a Roman's hatred
and contempt.
Between the Governor and the people
of Jerusalem there was nothing in com
mon. On the contrary they disliked one
another intensely. Like most Romans
the Procurator had a sovereign contempt
for all Orientals, and for Jews in par
ticular ; and to this contempt was added
a hatred which recent events had
greatly embittered. On three sepa
rate occasions the Jews had thwarted
Pilate : first when he had set a cohort
with its pagan insignia to garrison An
tonia ; secondly, when he had attempted
to hang upon the walls of his palace some
golden shields dedicated to the genius of
Tiberius ; and thirdly, when he had laid
hands upon the Temple treasure and
seized Corban money with which to re
pair the aqueduct of Etham. On all
these ocasions Pilate had come into
collision with the people of Jerusalem,
and on each of them they had been trium
phant, getting their own way in spite of
him. Naturally, then, there was little
room for love between the Roman
Governor and the citizens of Jerusalem.
Pilate thought he knew them, but they
9i

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
knew him better ; and this they knew
about him, that they could be sure if
only they insisted long_ enough and
strongly enough they would succeed in
wringing out of him, in spite of his
attitude of resolve and menace, the one
and only verdict against Jesus which
they wanted — sentence of death.
Like most weak men, Pilate begins by
taking up what seems to be a strong and
defiant attitude. "What charge," he
carelessly asks them, " do you bring
against the prisoner ? " " What accusa
tion bring you against this man ? "
The chief priests are taken aback ; they
are not prepared to find Pilate in this
testy mood ; they had almost hoped he
would have been cowed by their imposing
numbers, and would have been at any
rate glad during their festival season to
pass over questions regarding the nature
of the specific charges against the
Prisoner. Looking up at him fiercely
they shout back : "If He were not a
malefactor we would not deliver Him up
to you," by which they mean to convey :
" We do not want your law, we ask your
verdict ; we do not need the Prisoner's
trial, we demand His death." Pilate
with folded arms stands on the balcony
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CHRIST BEFORE PILATE
surveying the mob tossed to madness in
the court below. He takes in the
situation, he sees clearly enough what
they want, and he makes up his mind,
so he thinks, how to deal with their
defiant insolence. As they do not seem
disposed to throw into form any clear
and definite charge against our Lord,
Pilate turns upon them, exclaiming as he
moves with a wave of his hand i " Take
Him you, and judge Him according to
your law." The chief priests, the
scribes, and people too, are exasperated
beyond endurance by the sneering,
cynical mood of the Governor who seems
anxious to fling down the gauntlet, and
once again to challenge them. But these
Jews are not to be cowed, nor will they
be put off ; they thirst for the blood of
their Victim, and are resolved to go on
clamouring for it till they have drained
Him of it, to the very last drop. With
the intention of making Pilate believe
that the Prisoner has been already legally
tried by their own law, and found by it
guilty of death, they shout out : *' It is
not lawful for us" to put any man to
death." There is an abrupt pause,
during which, becoming desperate, they
trump up three distinct indictments
93

SOCIETY, SIN ANDTHE SAVIOUR
against our Lord. What they say is
this i " We have found this man per
verting our nation." It is not true, there
never was any such charge adduced
against Him. It is a deliberate lie.
Secondly they says "We have found
this man forbidding us to give tribute to
Caesar." It is not true, and they know
it. It is a deliberate lie. Thirdly, they
exclaim ; " We have found this man say
ing He is Christ the King." Nor is
there any shred of evidence for this
accusation ; it is not true. The charge
against our Lord is not that He pretends
to be a king, but that He claims to be
the Messiah. The accusation against
Him is on the contrary that He refused
to act as a king, nay, that when they
themselves had wished to make Him
their king He had fled away and hid
Himself. If only He had proclaimed
Himself to be a king in their midst, and
had unfurled the banner of revolt against
Rome; if only He had forbidden tribute
to be paid to Caesar, and if only He had
perverted the nation, — had in fact really
done what they had said He had, but
what as a matter of fact He had not
done, the Jewish people would have
rallied round Him, would have fought
94

CHRIST BEFORE PILATE
by His side, and would have strained all
resources and every nerve to support His
claims : nay, they would have died to a
man in order to break the Roman yoke,
and to crush the hated foreigner who
lorded it over them. It is just because
Jesus Christ is a religious and not
a political reformer that the Jews
have risen against Him in whom
they find their hopes were mis
placed, and in whom their highest
expectatiohs were being bitterly disap
pointed. Pilate who knows his audience
only too well, listens to the clumsy
charges which he recognises as being
framed on the spot with the object of
intimidating him. He scowls down upon
them with a look of supreme contempt,
his cold grey eyes glaring like steel at
them, while his pale lips curl up in scorn
of them. Rising from his judgment seat,
the Governor turns abruptly upon his
heel, passes under the arras into the
praetorium, and as he does so, he orders
the Captain of the guard to follow with
the Prisoner.
This is quite an unusual course for the
Governor to take. By it he means to
intimate to the priests and the mob below
that he utterly mistrusts them, that he
95

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
will not be intimidated by them, and that
he intends to get to the bottom of the
ugly business by examining in person the
Prisoner, Jesus Christ.
Priests as well as people realise the
situation. They watch the steel-clad
guard leading away their Victim, taking
Him up the staircase opening into the
Governor's Court, and as He disappears
through the doorway they lift their voices
till the air rings again with groans and
hisses, curses and oaths, imprecations and
blasphemies in wild and horrible discord.
While all is sound and fury among the
massed throng outside the Court, within
is peace and order, the silence broken
only by the fountains playing on the
broad lily leaves mantling the face of the
waters in the snow-white basins that
adorn the centre of the hall. What a
change of scene is here! Behold our
divine Lord standing on the mosaic
floor among the marble columns that
support the famous gilded roof set up
by the Herod who some three and thirty
years ago, when Jesus was a Babe in
Mary's arms, had sought His life. Pilate
now has taken the place of Herod the
Great, and before many hours shall have
passed he will have signed our Lord's
96

CHRIST BEFORE PILATE
death warrant condemning Him to hang
dying, nailed like afelon to the cursed tree.
Pilate dismisses his guard, and mount
ing the steps of his throne bids the divine
Prisoner draw near to him. Jesus and
Pilate are alone, face to face. The
Roman Governor, for the first time in
his varied life feels he is in the presence
of some mysterious Person whose bear
ing and whose appearance seem to belong
to another world. He speaks kindly and
quietly to the Prisoner, and soon passes
from other points to the last of the three
charges alleged against Him. Some
what anxiously as well as inquisitively
he puts the question " Art Thou the King
of the Jews?"
Our Lord lifts His divine counten
ance, and looking into the eyes of His
judge He answers the question put by
asking another : " Sayest thou this of
thyself, or have others told it thee of
Me?" As though Jesus would say to
Pilate : " Do you ask Me this question
out of a wish to know the real truth
about my case, or is it mere idle curiosity
which leads you to put it ? " Pilate feels
not a little embarrassed ; he does not
think it altogether consistent with his
dignity to appear to be personally in-
g 97

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
terested in a matter which he would like
to treat as of small importance. Accord
ingly, drawing himself up he says to our
Lord : " Am I a Jew ? Thy nation and
the chief priests have delivered Thee up
to me." And then turning at once from
the charge of kingship and the other
specific charges, he asks for information
about something which he is really in
terested to know. He asks Jesus Christ
about His life and the motives that have
actuated it, specially about the causes
that have been at work to have thus
stirred up the bitter hatred of the whole
Jewish nation against Him. Leaning
forwards and stretching forth his hands
the judge asks imperatively, almost im
ploringly : " What hast Thou done ? "
Let us for a moment pause to ask our
selves what Jesus has done ? What has
He not done ? Has He not done all
manner of good and no kind of evil?
What a wonderful Personality He is.
What a mystery of love is the Incarna
tion ! The divine becomes human, the
infinite becomes finite, the immortal be
comes mortal, the impassible becomes
passible. He who is great becomes little,
He who is strong becomes weak, He who
is high becomes low, the rich one becomes
98

CHRIST BEFORE PILATE
poor. Do you ask what Jesus has done ?
Why, He has done everything that a
Man-God could do to win human love,
being made like unto us in all things out
side sin. He was made flesh, being
made of a woman, born of a woman.
Yes, the Son of a woman, of a pure
woman, who was a poor woman also ; of
a woman who ministered to Him as our
mothers ministered to us, feeding Him at
her breast, rocking Him to sleep in her
arms, nursing Him, loving Him, caress
ing Him, while He loved, obeyed and
caressed her. What has He done?
Ask the five thousand men whom He
fed on the mountain side ; ask the lepers
whom He restored to health ; ask the
blind man who stood at the gate of
Jericho ; ask Zacchaeus or Jairus ; or the
widow of Nairn. Or, go if you will to
Magdalen, once the sinner, or to the
woman of Samaria who was actually
living in sin, or to that other brought to
Him fresh from her guilty act — they will
one and all tell you what Jesus has done
— how He forgave them, , put new life
into them, and set them on their journey
with such a courage, strength and hope
fulness as they had never before felt.
What has He done ? Ask Peter, James
99

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
and John, and the rest of the Apostles,
and they will tell you that in their case
He had left nothing undone, having
weaned them from the world, having
schooled them into His ways, and having
loaded them with favours and blessings.
Who is there here present that could not
add to all this his own special indebted
ness to Jesus Christ? He has loved
each one of us as though there were no
one else to love, and He has loved all
as He has loved each. Behold, here
you have set before you a chapter out of
the story of all He has done.
What did our Lord Himself answer
to Pilate's question : " What hast Thou
done ? " St John tells us that Jesus
answered : " My Kingdom is not of this
world. If My kingdom were of this
world, My servants would certainly
strive that I should not be delivered to
the Jews ; but now My kingdom is not
from hence."
Pilate leaned back on his throne
baffled and baulked by the simplicity,
the sublimity, the majesty of our Lord's
answer. The judge looked into the
face of the Prisoner before him, feeling,
as he did so, that he was gazing into
the countenance of one who really
ioo

CHRIST BEFORE PILATE
seemed to be what He claimed to be, as
divine as He was human. What would
not Pilate have given to have been able
fully to satisfy himself about the pre
tensions of this strangely wonderful
Personality before him, of one who
claimed to be a King and to rule a
kingdom, whose area and whose frontiers
were not discoverable on the surface of
the earth.
Once more Pilate leaned forward, and
closely scanning the divine Figure
before him he asks : " Art thou a King
then ? " Jesus answered : " Thou sayest
that I am a King. For this was I born,
for this cause came I into the world that
I should give testimony to the truth.
Everyone that is of the truth heareth
My voice." Behold, here in this magni
ficent charge to Pilate our Lord defines
in terms clear and definite the character
of His kingship and of His kingdom.
Elsewhere He proclaimed to the world :
" I am the Truth." Yes, Jesus Christ
is the infallible Truth, the immutable
Truth, eternal Truth, and absolute
Truth. And He came into the world
charged with this mission, deputed to
this work, to give testimony to the
truth, to show men that He was the
101

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
Way to the truth, nay, Truth itself.
He lived for the truth, and now He is
prepared to die for the truth.
Great men when they die, by a figure
of speech are said to live on in their
works. Jesus Christ does actually live
on in His work. He founded a kingdom,
He set up a Church, He established a
rule upon earth. His empire is not to
be measured by area or acres, nor by
physical force, but by its power of pro
claiming the truth. " Go," He said to
His Apostles, His ambassadors and
ministers, "Go, teach all nations." And
what were they to teach ? They were
to teach all truth, all religious truth to
all nations throughout all the world, and
throughout all time. " Everyone that is
of the truth heareth My voice." For,
" He that heareth you heareth Me, and
he that despiseth you despiseth Me. I
am with you all days even to the end of
the world." Here in these few words I
remind you what was the aim and scope
of our divine Lord's mission in this
world. We, as members of His Church,
know this about it, that it, and it alone,
can and does give to its members repose,
absolute repose in the possession of truth.
The world calls us slaves for believing
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CHRIST BEFORE PILATE
on the mere testimony of Christ's Church
what we ourselves cannot prove. Does
it much matter what the world says
about what it does not understand?
The only question which it concerns us
to know is what Jesus Christ says re
specting the teaching of His Church.
He says with no little emphasis that it
is Her mission to teach, and ours to learn.
And He adds, "You shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you
free" — "free with the freedom with
which Christ has set us free." There is
no repose like this repose in the certitude
of Faith.
Pilate sat erect as he listened to the
strangely wonderful language of the
divine Prisoner, which set before the
judge His divine claims to the loyalty
of everyone, who recognises the sover
eignty of truth. " Everyone who is of
the truth heareth My voice,"
What an opportunity was here offered
to Pilate ! What infinite pains does not
our Lord take with each individual
brought face to face with Him in His
sacred passion ! In the Garden of the
Agony He forgets the insult of the
betrayer's kiss in His effort to throw
Judas back upon his conscience, and so
103

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
to save him from the sins of treachery
and deicide : in the court of Annas His
one absorbing thought is to bring back
that crafty man to a sense of his guilt,
so as to win for his poor soul forgiveness.
His one supreme desire in the presence
of Caiaphas is to make the High Priest
realise the sacred character of his office,
and the terrible consequences of his
transgression, should he refuse to repent.
And now once more face to face with
this Roman pagan, Pontius Pilate, our
Lord's one and only thought seems to
be how to woo and win the weak and
worldly judge from the darkening thral
dom of worldliness to the splendour of
the light of truth. " Every one that is
of the truth heareth My voice."
What a responsibility is free - will !
Man is a free agent, and with his
freedom our Lord will not interfere, still
less will He force it. Our Lord did, no
doubt, in some measure bring home to
Judas, to Annas, to Caiaphas and to
Pilate the awful fact that each one of
them was responsible before his own
conscience for the sin which was staining
it, making it a guilty thing before its
Maker, God : He showed to each one
of them that the way to repentance was
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CHRIST BEFORE PILATE
yet open to them, but alas ! they one
and all turned their back upon the open
door, refusing to pass into the light of
truth — "loving darkness better than light,
because their hearts were evil."
How did the sceptic Pilate answer
our Lord's gracious invitation to em
brace the truth? He answered that
invitation as wordly men who are un
prepared to make sacrifices for truth's
sake usually answer it. He answered
with a shrug of his shoulders, and the
exclamation " What is truth ? " As
much as to say, " And who is capable
of answering so speculative a question
as this ? I have no time for speculation.
I am no philosopher, I am a practical
man who has to deal with the logic of
facts, and not with theories in the air.
As for truth, what does it matter ? "
Pilate had seen too much of the world,
and had heard too much of its jargon
amid the pagans of Rome in his youth,
and later on among the Jewish people
themselves in Palestine, to believe much
in the sacred character of truth. Life
was too short to trouble about a theory
which had little to do with practical
politics, and might be better left, so he
thought, to the schools of philosophy
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
with which he as Judge and Governor
had nothing to do. Accordingly, much
as he admired the beautiful theory put
before him by Jesus Christ, he was not
going to discuss its merits. He rose
hastily from his throne, crossed the
spacious hall, and attended by his guard,
descended the marble flight of steps
leading to the bema, where once again
he faced the surging mob that stood
breathlessly impatient to hear the death
sentence which they expected to fall
from his lips. But once more they were
doomed to disappointment. Standing
in defiant attitude with folded arms,
before the sea of uplifted faces that
glared with cruelty and savagery de
picted in every feature, Pilate calmly
and deliberately delivered himself of
this sentence : "I find no fault in this
Man." As he was saying it, our divine
Lord was seen coming forth under
custody from the praetorium balcony.
The sight of Him was the signal for a
simultaneous yell from the massed
throng. Maddened by the gentle bear
ing of the innocent Lamb of God, so
meek, so dumb, the infuriated mob leap
from the ground as they shout them
selves hoarse, swearing they will not be
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CHRIST BEFORE PILATE
robbed of their prey. When something
like order is at length restored, the chief
priests and ancients of the people bring
forward fresh charges against Jesus ;
and they are resolved to keep on heap
ing up fresh charges, no matter how
incredible they may seem, until there has
been wrung from Pilate a favourable
answer to their demand for the blood
and the life itself of the divine Victim.
And where is Jesus all this time ?
He is standing beside His judge. Calm
and dignified and silent He stands, His
sacred head bent as though in prayer
before the storm, before the hail of oaths
and curses which rises up against Him
from the mob below. He is altogether
silent to the many things which priests
and ancients clamour against Him.
Jesus has nothing to say. This painful
silence on the part of the accused was a
novel experience for the judge — he could
not understand it ; to him it seemed un
intelligible. Pilate turns with a look of
wonderment in his eyes to Jesus Christ,
dumb as a lamb before its shearers. He
can detect no trace of passion or anger
upon the calm and strangely beautiful
face of the Prisoner. How is it possible,
thinks Pilate, that a man with a record
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
such as Jesus of Nazareth is known to
have, can remain unmoved, untouched
by the storm of angry passion that
sweeps with unabated fury over Him ?
At length growing impatient with the
patience of our dear Lord, Pilate asks
Him in an angry tone, " Dost Thou
not hear how great testimonies they
allege against Thee ? " " Answerest
Thou nothing ? " " Behold in how many
things they accuse Thee." As though
he would say, " Is there to be no limit
to this endurance ? Defend Thyself and
set the brutal mob at defiance."
The Roman Governor wants to draw
forth from Jesus some line of defence
which he himself may turn to account
on behalf of the Prisoner, Whom he feels
sure to be absolutely innocent of the
volley of charges which they level
against Him. But not even the judge
himself can prevail upon the Man meek
and humble of heart, to make reply.
Jesus stands like one blind, deaf to all
that is taking place. "He answered
him not a word," as St Matthew puts
it, " so that the Governor wondered
exceedingly." Pontius Pilate is puzzled,
how is he to act ? Before him there is
a sea of faces screaming out intimidating
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CHRIST BEFORE PILATE
cries, vomiting forth vile lies against the
Prisoner ; beside him stands the bowed
and silent figure of the Saviour Himself,
who offers no defence, who has nothing
to say ; nay, who treats all that is being
said, as though it were the wail of the
wind which no man heedeth.
Pilate can retain his seat no longer.
He calls for silence, and once more
rising before the people, in clear and
articulate speech he tosses to them,
defiantly, the declaration, " I find no
cause in this Man."
Now is Pilate's opportunity. Were
he a statesman and not a mere politician,
a judge and not a diplomatist, a governor
and not a compromiser, he would order
the soldiers to clear the ground, to dis
miss the rabble, and he would set the
Prisoner, in Whom he finds no cause,
free. Had he so acted, had he thus
risen and responded to the dictates of
his conscience, Pilate's name would have
been carried down the ages greeted all
the way with the acclamations of peoples
paying honour to his great name. We
ourselves should now be holding the
name of at least one Roman Governor in
gratitude and in benediction. Alas, the
name of Pilate, with the names of so many
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
others in exalted positions, is found among
men of lost opportunities. In a word,
like all unprincipled men the Roman
Procurator was a coward and not a man,
and the people knew it. Accordingly,
instead of being cowed to silence by the
statement of the judge, the people rise
up like a flood with a very torrent of
fresh charges against our Lord, whom
the Governor has but now declared to
be innocent.
Pilate grows uneasy ; he casts about
for something to say with a view to
calming, this rising tide which threatens
to overwhelm him. He feels baffled,
baulked, and is at a loss how to act,
when to his intense relief among the
charges which quickly follow one another
he catches the sound of the word : " He
stirreth up the people teaching through
out all Judea beginning from Galilee to
this place." " Galilee " — he turns to an
officer asking quickly as he pointed to
the Prisoner ; " Is this Man a Galilean ? "
Receiving the answer that He is, he
conceives a stroke of opportune policy.
Being a Galilean Jesus belongs to the
jurisdiction of Herod. Pilate has
quarrelled with the miserable princeling,
but what matters that if he can use him
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CHRIST BEFORE PILATE
for his own base purposes. Herod is up
in Jerusalem for the Paschal season. He
has, it is true, no jurisdiction in the city,
but neither does that matter to Pilate,
when it serves his turn to make use of him
as his tool. The Roman Governor's line
of policy then is this ; to send Jesus Christ
under the custody of a guard to the Court
of Herod with the request that he will
try the Prisoner, Who comes from the
province over which Herod rules as
Tetrarch. It is a diplomatic stroke and
well calculated, as Pilate feels, to flatter
Herod's vanity, while it will relieve him
of the difficult position in which he finds
himself. Pilate once more addresses
the people, telling them of his resolve.
Ordering a guard to conduct the Prisoner
for trial to the Court of Herod, he leaves
the bema, crosses the red paved court
to mount the flight of steps leading to
the praetorium, well pleased with himself
for playing what he judges to be so clever
a trick, so astute a stroke of policy.
With the interview between our
blessed Lord and Herod I shall deal
another Sunday. But before we separate
to-day, I want you to concentrate your
attention, on that pronouncement of the
divine Prisoner which for all time defines
ni

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
so clearly man's chief mission in this
world. In the proclamation " For this
was I born, for this came I into the world,
that I should give testimony to the truth,"
the Master has defined, not merely His
own mission but the work also to which
each and every one of His followers is in
his measure deputed, " Everyone that is
of the truth heareth My voice."
How did Pilate accept our Lord's
invitation to embrace the truth ? Instead
of answering it at all, as we have seen,
he evaded it. In the estimation of the
Roman Governor, truth is not possible in
this world. There is no room for it in
the push for place, the grab for riches,
and the rush for honours. As a very
practical people, I should like to ask you
who move in Society, what answer you
would ,have made to Jesus had you
happened to be in Pilate's place ? In a
word I ask you, if you believe you were
born for this ; to know the truth and to
bear witness to the truth ? Many of you
will tell me you do not believe in
objective truth at all. Society proclaims
that truth is what it feels, what it likes,
what it says and what it does. "It is
something entirely subjective, so that
what may be a lie in one, may be truth
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CHRIST BEFORE PILATE
in another. It is a relative matter
only." Look at Society to-day — contrast it
with the past. Half a century ago the
word of an Englishman might have stood
against the world. At that time the
statement of a City merchant was his
bond, and a boy's word of honour his
oath. Alas ! all that in a great measure
is a departed state of things. I am
ashamed to say it, but Society men and
women too often do not even pause to
reckon with truth. They will tell you
life is much too short for attention to
such details. Lately I have been read
ing the onslaught of an Anglican Bishop
against such expressions as "Not at
home " — " Very well, thank you " — " You
are welcome" — "Yours affectionately,"
when these phrases do not really interpret
the exact sentiments of the heart. The
Bishop seems to regard them as sinful
untruths. For my part I should not be
so severe, I should define a lie to be a
statement contrary to what is known to
be true, uttered in order to deceive others,
and accordingly I regard all such con
ventional expressions as " Not at home "
etc., as negligible quantities. They are
mere idioms of speech, and have no more
H 113

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
likelihood of deceiving than has a woman
who, by mistake, gives her wrong age,
or than an advertisement which forgets
to say clearly : "It is your money that
we want ! " If people are to be severely
blamed for using the ordinary language
of civilised beings, I fear a good many of
the Bishop's brothers on the bench will
be found under the same condemnation
as myself. I cannot say that I have any
intention of giving up any of these so-
called evil practices. To do so would
mean spending half one's lifetime in the
Law Courts !
No, it is not what are called white lies
that I care particularly to denounce.
Such things are little more than figures
of speech ; but I do condemn lies black
as the " father of lies " himself.
For instance, I condemn very strongly
indeed a practice growing among Society
women of sometimes making themselves
out to be very much poorer than they
are in reality. Let me give an example
of what I mean. A smart Society lady's
child needing a serious operation, the
mother took her to an oculist, pleading
poverty, her husband, of course, having
had nothing to do since the South
African campaign. With tears, which
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CHRIST BEFORE PILATE
were as fluent as her lies, the poverty-
stricken mother so touched the heart of
my distinguished friend that he under
took to operate without a fee, putting
the case on his list of charities. Person
ally, I was not surprised to hear what
followed. It came to the knowledge of
the specialist that the lady in question,
who had a fine fortune of her own, was
so pleased with her successful acting that
she actually rewarded herself by the
purchase of a new motor car! Now
this woman not only defrauded the
specialist of a very well-earned fee, but,
what was perhaps even worse, she de
frauded some really poor sister of a free
operation, because there is, as there must
be, a limit to the number of cases which
even the most generous man, in that
most generous class of men, physicians
and surgeons, can undertake consistently
with duties to home and family to per
form for nothing. I charge the smart
Society woman in question with telling a
very deliberate lie, because she not only
said what was contrary to what she knew
to be the truth, to a man who had the
clear right to know the whole truth,
but, moreover, she told it with the in
tention of deceiving him. And that
"5

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
woman was born to bear witness to the
truth !
If I shall be told that the case cited is
a very exceptional one, I answer ; let
the objector go to almost any other pro
fessional man, and he will, without diffi
culty, find ample contributions to the
sordid list, from which I have quoted
only a single instance. In other walks
of life there is similar experience repeated.
It is not an uncommon thing to hear in
some fashionable establishments of a
smart lady, when asked to pay long
outstanding accounts, taking an oath
that she has already long since paid
them, or else she perhaps says, " Well,
I will pay, but it will be the second time
I shall have done so, and you may be
sure I will not cross the threshold of
your shop again." These things are of
daily occurrence. I wish I could think
that there exists at this hour the same
fearless love of truth that was once so
distinctive a badge of my countrymen.
Not only do some people moving in
Society tell lies, but they act them, till
it would really seem that the truth was
told only when the other thing was not
ready. We are often enough disposed to
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CHRIST BEFORE PILATE
blame Pilate, the Roman Procurator, as
though he alone stood charged with in
difference to truth. Alas ! His is but
a typical case — Pilate's conduct was not
exceptional. Legion is the name of
those who represent his conduct to-day
in Society.
Expediency, compromise, and similar
shifty subterfuges are now-a-days made
to do duty for truth, which is relegated
to the back benches of the school of
psychology. Few, indeed, are they who
recognise, as applying to themselves, the
word of the Master : " For this was I
born ; for this came I into the world that
I should give testimony to the truth."
The scene between Christ and Pilate
is ever being re-enacted between the
World and the Church, between the
individual and his conscience.
And the end of it all is compromise
with principle, compromise with truth.
Those who are not trying, like Pilate, to
get rid of Jesus Christ, are, at any
rate, attempting, like Caiaphas, to deny
His divine claims, or else, like Annas,
they question His conduct, or perhaps,
even like Judas, they do not even
hesitate to sell Him to His enemies for
gold. 117

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
Never was the love of gold such an
all-absorbing passion as it is to-day. It
is a positive worship, and the higher you
ascend in the social scale, the more
terribly dazzling seems to be the gold
glitter. It is an intoxication, and those
who fall under its spell become indifferent
as does the drunkard to all other charms
— to the ties of home, to the claims of
honour, to the duties of life itself. The
love of gold is of all bewitchments the
most bewitching — it is an adoration.
More people fall by its beauty than by
the loveliness of woman. Hence we are
warned by the Holy Spirit against its
fascination. "He that loveth gold shall not be
justified, and he that followeth after cor
ruption shall be filled with it." Listen
again to this : " Many have been brought
to fall for gold, and the beauty thereof
hath been their ruin." And this : " Gold
is a stumbling block to them that
sacrifice to it ; woe to them that
eagerly follow after it." Lastly, re
member this : " Every fool shall perish
by it."
It matters little by what means you
try to get rid of Jesus Christ, whether it
be by the treachery of Judas or the
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CHRIST BEFORE PILATE
trickery of Annas, or the blasphemy of
Caiaphas or by the diplomacy of Pilate,
the state in which you leave yourself is
much the same. It is a helpless and
hopeless state, as we see only too
plainly in our lessons from the Sacred
Passion. Pilate's case is full of soul-searching
lessons for us. He got rid of Jesus
Christ and of His teaching very de
liberately. It is true that our Lord did
come back to him — Pilate was given yet
another chance of saving the Man in
whom he could find no fault.
Alas, Pilate began with indifference to
Truth, he went on to compromise with
Truth, and finished as presently we shall
see by the condemnation of Truth.
Like Pilate, smart Society of to-day
cares little for truth, and like him too it
is prepared when under provocation to
exclaim : "I find no cause of death in
Him. I will chastise Him therefore and
let Him go." Society makes the fatal
mistake of adopting the Kantian theory
of knowledge with its consequent
teaching about vital and religious
immanence. Hence its false theory of
Revelation and of the origin of dogma
and worship. Hence too its distinction
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SOCIETY, SIN ANDTHE SAVIOUR
between the Church of History and the
Church of Faith ; the Christ of History
and the Christ of Faith. The test of
Truth is not feeling, it is reason.
"Magna est Veritas et prcevalebit,"
Truth is great and is triumphant —
even when nailed to the Cross.

120

SCENE V
CHRIST BEFORE HEROD

CHRIST BEFORE HEROD
" And Herod with his army set Him at naught, and
mocked Him, putting on Him a white garment, and
sent Him back to Pilate." — St Luke xxiii, 2.
Pilate when he found himself freed from
the responsibility of trying Jesus Christ
rose to his feet heaving a sigh of relief.
Our Lord's presence had made so strange
an impression on him, while His conduct
was so utterly unlike anything the Pro
curator had ever met during his experi
ence on the bench as judge, that he felt
it would have been no easy matter to
deal with Him. Pilate stood like one
rivetted to the balcony, his eyes the
while eagerly following the wild tumultu
ous mob that pressed upon the heels of his
soldiers in charge of the most strangely
fascinating of human beings, Jesus of
Nazareth. ' ' What will become of H im ? "
thought Pilate as he closely watched the
procession till it turned westward out of
sight. Little did the Roman Procurator
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
dream that before two hours were passed,
he himself would once more be face to
face with Jesus, declaring Him innocent,
yet treating Him as guilty — finding no
cause in Him, yet condemning Him to
death. Here let me remind you who the
Tetrarch was ? He was a son of Herod
the Great, who, among his other deeds
of blood, had ordered the massacre of
the innocent little ones in the hope
thereby of murdering our Lord Himself.
The Herod Antipas with whom we have
now to deal inherited the Tetrarchy of
Galilee after his father's death. He also
inherited most of his father's vices, being
cruel, crafty and sensual. Voluptuous
ness and sumptuousness summed up his
ideas of happiness. In Antipas Herod,
so we are told, were mingled the worst
features of the Roman, the Greek and the
Oriental. Never did a meaner or more
miserable princeling sit upon a throne.
Much of his youth had been spent in
Rome, where he had developed the
Herodian taste for luxury and splendour.
"Idleness and fulness of bread" gave
him every opportunity of cultivating and
strengthening all his worst passions. It
was while he was in Rome that he made
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CHRIST BEFORE HEROD
love to his brother's wife, Herodias, and
not long afterwards found an excuse — as
easily as they do nowadays — for putting
away his own wife, the daughter of
Aretas, and he lived in adultery and
incest with this scheming, intriguing,
treacherous and vicious sister-in-law.
Herod the Tetrarch cultivated also
another of his father's tastes. Like him
he was a builder of palaces. Near the
southern end of the lake to which the
city lent its name, he created Tiberias,
which we may describe as Rome and
Athens in miniature. In the midst of
those blazing splendours, within a palace
called the Golden House, this semi-pagan
Jew, this wretched, adulterous princeling
Herod, lived with Herodias.
The woman his partner in guilt was
destined to be the Tetrarch 's scourge.
It came about in this wise. The Baptist
was preaching in the neighbourhood
attracting immense crowds. Herod the
restless, always thirsting for some new
excitement, thought it might interest and
amuse him and his Court not a little to
hear the popular preacher whose fame
was in the air. Accordingly he invited
St John to give a discourse at the Golden
House. 125

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
The Baptist was not a man to lose
so splendid an opportunity of bringing
Herod and Herodias face to face with
their guilty consciences. He accepted
without hesitation the royal command ;
he went to the Golden House.
What a strange scene on that occasion
was it which met the eye of the spectator
in that spacious marble hall of the palace !
Was there ever seen such a contrast as
that which presented itself when the
Baptist, rough and shaggy, clad in hair
cloth, stood before the man and woman
living in sin, surrounded by their courtiers
all gay and giddy and gorgeous in brave
attire? How that audience must have
speculated as to what would be the sub
ject of the Prophet's address ! Little did
they conceive what the theme was that
filled the mind of the man of God as
impatient to deliver His message as he
was to turn his heels upon that gilded
den of iniquity.
The burden of the sermon that rang
like a cry of pain in the ears of the
strange congregation assembled in that
great hall to hear the Baptist was this :
"It is not lawful for thee to have thy
brother's wife."
I will not attempt to describe the effect
126

CHRIST BEFORE HEROD
produced by the clear, calm, uncompro
mising attitude of the great preacher as
he drove home his uncompromising
message. Suffice it to say before the
sermon was ended the Baptist was seen
being led away in custody to be cast in
chains into prison. There in the damp
and filthy dungeon the man of God
lingered in woeful want till the woman
who had brought about his imprison
ment asked for his head to be served to
her on a silver dish.
Time does not permit me to tell the
ghastly story at length. Briefly it was
this. Herod was keeping his birthday.
At night when he and his guests were
surfeited with meat and wine, Herodias
called upon her daughter Salome to
dance before the king. As the con
cealed orchestra struck out voluptuous
music, Salome sparingly clad, appeared
amid a blaze of lights on the raised dais
at the further end of the hall. She
danced with a purpose to the drunken
assembly. Before she had done, her
charm and pirouetting had intoxicated
the king even more than the wine.
Maddened with passion, Herod offered
to give the dancing girl, not his daughter,
whatever she might ask, even if it were
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
half his kingdom. The wretched child,
well schooled by her wicked mother,
demanded to have brought to her at
once the head of the Baptist on a dish.
The order was given, the head was
brought to her, and she in turn presented
it to Herodias, exultant in her triumphant
revenge upon the man who had dared to
preach from the text " Non licet," " It is
not lawful."
It was to this man whose hands were
red with the blood of the Bridegroom's
friend, it was to this Herod a murderer
to whom that our divine Lord was sent
by Pilate for trial. Oh, what must his
sweet and blessed mother have thought
when she heard that her only Son and
her God was being dragged into the
presence of this vileness ?
Herod's town residence was not far
from the praetorium. Perched on the
north-east extremity of Sion, it was soon
reached by crossing the bridge spanning
the Tyropcean Valley. The palace was
Grecian in style, square built and heavy
looking, with an interior furnished to suit
the taste of luxury-loving Herod.
The news that Pilate was sending him
Christ the Nazarene for trial put the
prince in exceeding good humour. It
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CHRIST BEFORE HEROD
was an opportunity to be made the most of.
He summoned all his household to meet
him in the great Grecian hall, where,
encircled by a brave show of soldiers, he
intended to try the Galilean Prisoner.
Surrounded by this stately display, Herod,
clad in all his glory and crowned with
freshly-cut roses, reclined in studied ease
upon the silken cushions deftly arranged
upon the divan running at the back of the
stage of the gorgeous Court House.
To judge from the merriment of the
company, from its manner and bearing,
it would seem that some light comedy
were about to begin, although early
morning was scarcely the fitting time for
such entertainments. Alas! It was a
terrible tragedy and no comedy, which
that frivolous company was met to
witness. But stay, a procession of priests and
ancients of the people, followed by Pilate's
guard leading the divine Prisoner and
jostled by an unruly mob of mad Orien
tals thirsting for His blood, is thrusting
its way as best it may across the open
yard leading into the Court House, into
which everyone is trying to insinuate
himself and to find standing room.
Presently on a raised platform where
i 129

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
all Herod's Court may see Him, Jesus
Christ, garbed in the seamless robe dyed
with blood and splashed with mud, stands,
as so often we have imagined Him, ma
jestically, meekly. His sacred Hands are
tied behind His back, His divine Head,
with its wealth of auburn hair all dis
hevelled and unkempt, is bent as though
He were absorbed in prayer. On first
mounting the platform Jesus for once lifts
His eyes, but having surveyed the scene,
He quickly closes them, as though oppres
sed by the revolting sight before Him.
St Luke tells us that " Herod, seeing
Jesus, was very glad, for he was desirous
for a long time to see Him, because he
had heard many things of Him, ahd he
hoped to see some miracle wrought by
Him." Had Herod been what he was
not, a serious or a contrite man, he would
scarcely have relished the thought of
meeting the murdered Baptist's best
Friend. But then Herod was a frivolous,
not a serious, man. He represents to us
the voluptuous giddy world of dissipation,
the world of fashion, if you will, the so-
called Smart Set, for which there is no sin
but that of being dull, for which there is
no occupation but self, yes, gratification
of self. Herod then was the representata-
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CHRIST BEFORE HEROD
tive of that world for which our Lord
would not pray, of that world which loves
darkness better than light, of that world
which is described in the Gospel story as
steeped in the concupiscence of the flesh,
the concupiscence of the eyes, and the
pride of life.
And why was the worldly Herod so
very glad to see the Holy One of Israel ?
In the first place he was glad, because it
offered him a new excitement. Anything
that could stimulate his jaded appetite
was welcome to this foul, flabby, fleshly
man who lived for low pleasures, "grow
ing coarse to sympathize with clay."
He had heard much of the Wonder
worker: well could he remember hearing
when he was a boy in his father's
palace, of the massacre of the Innocents
from which it was commonly reported
the Infant Jesus had escaped by flight
into Egypt. Later, when living at
Tiberias as Tetrarch, Herod had been
kept well posted up in the sayings and
the doings of the young Rabbi whose
fame was in the mouth of all Galilee
where He was said to have wrought
miracles ! Herod's palace had been the
resort of jugglers, actors, dancers and
the like, and he had often wished he
131

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
could have found an excuse for enticing
the Galilean Wonder-Worker to the
Golden House where a performance set
off with miracles would have afforded
goodly sport and entertainment to his
household ; but the opportunity, till it
was offered in this very exceptional way
by Pilate, had never occurred. Now,
however, Herod was in luck's way, for
he felt sure, poor wretch, that our Lord
would put forth His very best efforts to
please and flatter him, so as to secure
His looked-for freedom. Certainly it
did occur to Herod that perhaps the
Nazarene might possibly use the occasion
much in the same way as the Baptist
had used his, but then he thought it
could not be, because, however wishful
the Prisoner might be to drive home
some spiritual lesson, He would hardly
dare to do so with the consequences of
the Baptist's rash and discourteous line
of action fresh in His memory. Besides
He was in the prime of life with a definite
mission before Him.
Accordingly Herod, well pleased with
himself, and with everybody and every
thing, opens proceedings by a long
harangue to the divine Prisoner before
him. He tells Jesus Christ that he is
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CHRIST BEFORE HEROD
favourably disposed to Him, that he has
an open mind free from all sectarian pre
judice and bigotry, and that he is fully
conscious that, although the Prisoner
may not have acted with the circum
spection and prudence befitting their
holy law, yet there was little doubt He
had been generally actuated in His
public life by the very best of motives,
and Herod may even have cited as an
instance the story of the multiplication
of the loaves and fishes which, if it had
been correctly reported to him, he felt
sure was certainly intended as a benevo
lent and merciful act on the part of the
Prisoner. Having gone out of his way
to make it clear to our divine Lord that
He was in the presence of a fair-minded,
not to say an indulgent judge, Herod
began to ply our Lord with many
questions. St Luke says "he questioned
Him with many words," meaning no
doubt that the frivolous, frothy talker
was endeavouring to create the impres
sion that he was a man of versatile genius,
one of wide reading and large sympath
ies. And so the talker went on talking
till he could talk no more. He leaned
back upon his couch of cushions refresh
ing himself with luscious grapes, while
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
waiting impatiently for some answer
from the Prisoner to his many irrelevant
questions. Did our divine Lord hear all or any
thing at all of what Herod had said ? I
know not — all I know is this, He seemed
to those about Him both deaf and dumb.
Though He stood in the midst of that
tinsel world of giddy gaiety and silly
levity, Jesus seemed to be living in quite
another world, to be breathing another
atmosphere, paying absolutely no atten
tion to what was going on, or to what
was being said around Him. Herod's
charge might have been addressed to
some one else; it had no interest for
Jesus Christ. So to all the questions
put to Him by Herod, Jesus answered
nothing. It concerns us very much to know why
Jesus answered nothing. When he was
questioned by Annas, Jesus spoke, when
interrogated by Caiaphas, Jesus spoke ;
when addressed by Pilate, Jesus spoke ;
nay, even when put a question by the
rough, rude servant of the High Priest,
Jesus spoke ; why then would He not
speak to Herod ? From the time of His
entering the Herodian Palace till He
left it He opened not His mouth, He
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CHRIST BEFORE HEROD
spoke not. He remained dumb. Noth
ing perhaps in the whole course of the
Sacred Passion is so striking as this
unbroken silence of Jesus Christ before
Herod. He is silent with a purpose ; it
is a silence that is meant to convey to
the worldly-minded Herod a lesson which
no language could have taught him.
In the first place our Lord wished to
remind Herod that He was not going to
give what is precious to dogs, nor to
throw pearls before swine. Herod's
state of soul was no more a fit receptacle
for the words of the Master than was
the soiled pavement of that court suitable
for the seed of golden corn. Herod's
mind was darkened too deeply by sin,
his heart was fouled too much by sin,
and his will weakened too much by sin,
to be capable of deriving any good, or
of drawing any salutary lesson from such
words as our divine Lord under other
circumstances might have addressed to
him. Besides, our Lord's sympathy for
sinners does not lavish itself upon the
type of sinner represented by Herod.
The Tetrarch was not one who through
frailty, surprise, or passion had lost his
balance and slipped into the mire of sin,
but on the contrary, he had deliberately
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
gone down to the sea of iniquity, he had
waded into it calmly, coldly, cruelly,
reckoning up the cost. Herod is the
type for all time of the smart Society
man whose one and only idea of life is
to think what he pleases, to say what he
pleases, to do what he pleases, living as
though there were no such thing as a con
science, and as though there was no God
to demand an account of his stewardship.
Accordingly our Lord had nothing to
say to Herod. " Tacebat," He was silent.
What a strange contrast is here pre
sented to us between the loquacious
Herod and the silent Jesus ! Herod
apparently is so carried away by his own
ready flow of questions, that he has quite
forgotten the purpose for which our
Lord was sent to him by Pilate. He
has questioned the divine Prisoner upon
every matter except the one bearing on
the case that has been sent him for trial.
Had he asked some question that was
relevant, touching the charges that had
been adduced by the Sanhedrim, our
Lord might have vouchsafed him an
answer. But the whole proceeding that
morning in the court of Herod was so
wanting in the seriousness and dignity
demanded by a tribunal of justice that it
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CHRIST BEFORE HEROD
failed to appeal to our Lord, who seemed
to see in it nothing more than the
reflection of the levity of the frivolous-
minded judge. Jesus therefore, as St
Luke reminds us, answered him nothing.
He had nothing to say.
And what lesson did Herod learn from
this impressive silence of our divine
Lord ? He became too angry to learn
any lesson at all from it. Never before had
he been thus slighted, and in open court
and in presence of such a brave assembly.
Herod for once was put in his right place.
While Herod was growing livid with
rage, turning to and fro upon his throne
of cushions, the chief priests and the
scribes, who stood by, kept up a
continuous tale of charges against our
Lord. We are not told what was the
precise character of these fresh accus
ations invented for Herod's benefit
against Jesus Christ. Doubtless these
false witnesses were careful to remind
the judge that our Saviour had oftener
than once gone out of His way to speak
in the very highest terms of John the
Baptist, while He had been heard to
speak of the Tetrarch himself insultingly,
calling him "that fox." And then there
doubtless followed a long catalogue of
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
such charges as the priests and scribes
thought would carry most weight with a
judge of Herod's type.
Our divine Lord listened with bowed
head to this shocking discord of accus
ations that was being hurled against
Him. His Sacred Heart was pained as
He noticed the gross miscarriage of
justice that was permitted in the sacred
name of law. But He said nothing.
" Tacebat." He remained silent.
And in what sense did Herod and his
Court interpret the silence of Jesus
Christ ? What did they see in this
awful silence, from which the ages have
learnt such terrible lessons ? Well, we
are told by the Evangelist that " Herod
with his soldiers despised Him and
mocked Him." It was perhaps but
natural that a man like Herod, with an
inordinate sense of his own importance
and his own power, should have thought
our divine Lord a mere fool, to have
acted as He had done. If, instead of
holding His peace and saying absolutely
nothing in His defence, our Lord, on
the contrary, had freely met the in
quisitive mood of Herod, had gladly
answered his questions, solved his pro
blems, and gratified generally his idle
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CHRIST BEFORE HEROD
curiosity ; if moreover He had, besides,
condescended to have wrought a miracle
or two for the sake of exciting the gaping
wonderment of Herod and his Court,
why Jesus would, without doubt, have
been acquitted, His mission would have
been applauded, and He would have
been sent back to Pilate by Herod,
loaded with gifts and honours. Herod,
of course, considered that Jesus of
Nazareth had maintained a surly silence,
either because He was unable to meet
the questions put to Him or to work any
miracle at all ; or else, perhaps He was
silent, because He had not wit enough
to recognise the value of the chance of
acquittal offered to Him. In either case,
He was a fool, thought Herod. "The
foolish things of this world has God
chosen to confound the wise, and the
weak things of this world has He chosen
to confound the strong."
And now let us see what we ourselves
may learn from this interview between our
Blessed Lord and Herod. The present
hour of the world's history does not so
much differ in many things from that in
the Grecian hall of Herod's palace, long
ago. If Jesus were to come to London
to-day, Society would be quite as anxious
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SOGIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
to see Him as Herod was, and for no
better reason, namely, because it " had
heard many things of Him " and because
it would expect that in its august
presence He might be almost sure to
work what the vulgar would call a
miracle. At best, Society is but a poor,
petty, paltry show, while at worst it is
a lying, vicious, diabolical intrigue. Its
curse seems to be the way it loves
darkness better than light ; in fact,
treating as vulgarities whatever speaks
of duty, of sin, of death, or the judgment
to come. Accordingly that section of
Society which represents Herod would
pretend it wanted to see Jesus Christ
from motives which in reality had never
crossed the threshold of its feeble mind.
We cannot forget how Society, repre
sented by Herod, treated the Master,
despising Him, mocking Him ! But
what else is to be expeeted from people
who despise and mock one another ?
How intensely Society women seem
on occasions to envy one another ! I
do not know of a more pathetic sight
than that presented by a beautiful
woman, beautifully accoutred, in beauti
ful pose, pouring forth a lava of fiendish
abuse of some other woman, whose chief
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CHRIST BEFORE HEROD
offence in reality is, that her pearls weigh
heavier than her own, or that she
happens to be more popular in Society
than she herself is. She is a rival, and
her life must be made a burden ! Again
how pitiable, not to say how cruelly
wicked it is, for a mother to treat her
debutante daughter as sometimes is done
— dressing her badly, treating her badly,
detracting her badly, and all because
she is younger and prettier than nature
allows her mother to be ! In a former
sermon I said that many women think
more of their pet dogs than of their
children. Since then I have heard that
one lady has declared she could never
come and hear me again ! " The brute
dared call my pug a little beast." Will
not this growing practice of lavish
ing upon animals, love which should be
bestowed on husband and child, bring
some terrible curse with it ? During
the past week a woman, who was taking
her poodle to a " dog-party," began to
speak in French about the little beast
in her arms. When asked why she did
so she answered, " This darling little
child of mine understands every word I
say when I speak in English, and you
know I should not like him to grow up
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
vain like his sister Bertha." And yet
this very woman, who was wearing a
plume torn from some living bird, did
not realise that she was not only making
a melancholy exhibition of herself, bring
ing downright shame upon her sex, but
that she was also giving the only right
explanation of her want of love and care
for her children and her household.
While these degrading practices are on
the increase, the birth-rate, as is inevit
able, is on the decrease, while infant
mortality has already reached one-fourth
of the total number of deaths in the year.
And drinking, if it is less prevalent
among men, is most certainly more
frequent among women. We all know
how mental deficiency is growing in our
midst, and how blindness, and nervous
diseases, such as locomotor ataxy with
general paralysis, are becoming sadly
more and more common. I do not care
to enter into the causes in too many
cases. I read in a work sent to me this
last week that " wealthy business men,
and men of leisure are in the main
impure," and that women of the same
class hold conversations which imply
more than I allow myself to express.
Is it so ? No matter how outspoken I
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CHRIST BEFORE HEROD
may have been in these matters, I have
never made so sweeping a charge as
that. Those who have made the cal
culation inform us that with the excep
tion of some towns in Catholic Ireland,
the large cities of Great Britain are
morally on the down grade. Ireland —
God bless her — still gives the Empire
pure women, brave men, and Ireland,
let it be noted, is the most Catholic
country with the most Catholic capital
in Christendom.
Let us try, before too late, to realise
the state of things in our midst. It
seems to me that England, united with
France in this present entente cordiale
embrace, is on a slimy, slippery incline,
which must end, if we do not look to our
moral standards speedily, where the
Bible tells us it will end — in " the
bottomless pit." Is it not a preacher's
first duty to warn his hearers against the
evils that are in their midst ? Surely
when we hear of any physical disease
about to menace the well-being of the
country, we sound a note of warning.
Yes, but a priest may not warn if the
evil threatened is a moral one only ! I
intend to warn and to sound the rallying
cry, and to call upon all the brave men
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
and pure women of England to save
their country from deserving to be
called on the Continent " Europe's
nursery of vice." Talk of France, of
Spain, of South America; be sure we
can match them. If there were to be
an international prize for vice, I much
fear it would be carried off by the
world's Metropolis — London.
Is there any form of vice that has
ever been heard of or read of, that is
not to be found in this vast city ? It
is the playground of vicious Europe.
The life that was lived by Herod and
Herodias is not without its faithful
copies within this city of Mammon. The
laws of the Golden House still obtain
a sanction in some Society. Worldly
minded Society, of course, resents being
told the truth ; it much prefers going
its own way, making the most of its
hour of unwholesome life, setting at
naught the word of warning, learning
nothing at all from the trial scene before
Herod and his household. Living for
time and sense carries with it its own
punishment !
What miserable, jaded, worn - out
voluptuaries these women 'gone to the
dogs look ! 144

CHRIST BEFORE HEROD
I am told that, whilst I draw atten
tion to the evils in our midst, I do not
prescribe a remedy. If inane women,
who spend more money on the ward
robes and jewel-cases of their pampered
Pomeranian pets than they do upon
their debutante daughters, do not see
for themselves their own wickedness,
no mirror that I could lift up to their
souls would show it them. Is it because
of their silliness or wickedness that
they have no eyes with which to see
the Great Physician in our midst ?
They have but to approach Him, to
consult Him, and to follow out His
prescription, and even they may become
sane. To my fellow Catholics I say, put
your trust in Jesus Christ, be strong in
the Faith, strong in the practice of it,
and lead the way you are expected to
lead ! Yes, though our non-Catholic
friends may smile at our credulity, in
their heart of hearls they know Faith
means living in trust, living on authority
— believing what we ourselves cannot
prove — and they expect us to live up
to our Catholic principles. Live up to
them then, I say, and by word and
example encourage all around you to
K 145

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
 #? 
live up to them. Take warning from
Herod, and most of all take warning
from the silence of our Lord, Who to
the many questions put Him by Herod,
answered him nothing. The worst
thing that can happen to any man is
to be treated by Jesus Christ with
silent contempt. If He treats you now
with silent contempt, it can only mean
that when He does speak it will be in
language which will ring out through the
chambers of your soul for ever and for ever.
There was some slight show of excuse
for Herod's life of sin. Heredity was
against him, evironment was against him,
example was against him — He came from
a tainted source and evil was rampant
within him — what chance had he of
going straight, what help had he for
the cultivation of self-knowledge, self-
reverence, and self-control ? He started
life on the wrong road and it was the
road to ruin — he kept on it, going the
pace, and hence when an opportunity
of putting his soul right with God was
offered to him, instead of embracing it
he resented it as an insult and went on
to murder the very man sent him by
God for his peace and salvation. Nay,
he ended by treating our Lord Himself
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CHRIST BEFORE HEROD
as a fool, mocking Him and setting Him
at naught. Are not dog-worshipping
women doing much the same?
I say it would be easier to find excuse
for Herod and his partner in sin, than it
would to plead the cause of Society, which
has so many opportunities in a Christian
land such as this of living lives worthy of
.the grand traditions of our country. But
we have ceased to appreciate our tradi
tions ; the old codes of honour, and those
unwritten laws that once gave so fine a
character to the English home and made
the name of our countrymen a synonym
for all that was honourable, straight and
manly, have passed away from us. We
are living in a day when nobody who is
anybody seems to care at all for what
his forefathers prized so highly. It is
money that you want, and unless you
possess it you are worthless as a dis
honoured cheque. But if you are backed
up by wealth, then you may buy up a
nobleman's estate, become member for
your adopted county, purchase a place in
the Upper House, and command anything
upon which you have set your ambition.
Is there anywhere a lock in the wards of
which the golden key will not sooner or
later turn easily, readily ?
H7

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
The man with money, I say, is
irresistible in Society in England to-day.
He actually leads it, and vulgarian though
he be, his presence is in request, and
his moods studied as though he were a
Bayard come to life again.
Society, being at present made up
largely of rich vulgarians with no family
traditions, with no inherited code of
honour, with none of those indescribable
somethings that make people sensitive
without being touchy, that put people as
much at their ease with peasant as with
prince, has ceased to have that influence
upon the country which for so many
centuries it exercised.
Society is fast becoming a mere crowd
of rich people competing for the first
prizes in a social show. Even the old
shooting party is now being turned into
a Society function. Take up and read
any account in any family record of the
house parties and their doings in the
grouse season but a generation ago, and
you will very readily see why the stuff
which once went to make up a typical
English gentleman is becoming a thing
difficult to find. We are losing grit, fibre,
nerve, endurance, daring and enterprise.
Where to-day is the Society man who
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CHRIST BEFORE HEROD
wants to ride to the moors and then to
tramp for miles over them in pursuit of
his birds ? He is not to be found. I nstead
you have your would-be sportsman con
veyed in a luxurious motor carwithin easy
access to the butt from which he is to bring
down the birds that will be driven by the
energies of paid beaters across his line of
fire. It would be far too much trouble
for the gentleman himself to reload, and
so there he remains comfortably housed
with nothing to do till luncheon hour but
to lift his gun loaded for him, to mark
his bird and fire. Luncheon like the
rest of the day is a feast in luxurious
idleness, and when the day is done, our
sportsman is motored home well pleased
with the number of brace that has been
placed to his credit, flattering himself
he has had a good day's sport and
proved himself the best shot in the
county. I do not pretend it is a crime to be a
millionaire, though, as it has been said, it
is not easy to become one and play the
game of life fairly, but what I do not
hesitate to denounce and condemn is
the introduction into the social life of
England of so many disturbing and
disintegrating practices which obtain
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
wherever the millionaire is allowed to set
the ordre de jour.
Money is much but it is not every
thing, and where it tends to substitute
effeminacy for manliness, luxury forenter-
prise, idleness for labour, and selfishness
for altruism, it becomes a curse. I do not
hesitate to say that it is money that has
spoiled if not actually ruined what ought
to be our Empire's best Society to-day.
On the fingers of your two hands you
may count the stately homes in England
to which money without other higher
distinction is no introduction. Hold to
your principles, I exclaim, to these
upholders of the old tradition ; fall not
down before the Golden Calf. Better,
nobler far, entertain your poor relations
and your neighbours among whom God
has placed you.
Luxurious living, with all the passions
that it lets loose and the selfishness that
it creates, soon leads its victims into the
ways and pastimes by which Herod
Antipas came to utter moral ruin. The
catastrophe is almost inevitable. Once
you give up self-knowledge, self-combat
will go, and then not self-conquest but
self-ruin will follow inevitably.
Alas, what a lesson we have before us
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CHRIST BEFORE HEROD
in Herod's conduct with his own brother's
wife, Herodias, in his treatment of the
Baptist, in his drunken oath to Salome,
in his murder of St John, and finally
in his arrogance and mad folly before
our blessed Lord Himself. Is Herod still
in our midst, or is it that his spirit has not
departed from that world of folly and
of luxury which, with intellect darkened,
heart sullied, and will weakened by self-
centred indulgence in sin, is even still
laughing to scorn all that is serious and
sacred in life ? Remember the words :
" And the Chief Priests and Scribes stood
by earnestly accusing Him ; " remember
the word : " Herod with his soldiers de
spised Him, putting on Him a white
garment ; " but above all remember the
word: " Jesus answered him nothing."

151

SCENE VI
CHRIST BEFORE THE PEOPLE

CHRIST BEFORE THE PEOPLE
" His Blood be upon us and upon our children."
—St Matt, xxvii, 25.
We read that during our Lord's trial
Pilate's wife sent him word to have
nothing to do with that just Man, Jesus
Christ ; and it is likely enough that
while our Lord was absent in Herod's
Court, Pilate and Claudia were exchanging
their views about the divine Prisoner.
Perhaps it was during this conversation
that Pilate was handed the sealed letter
from the Tetrarch, informing him that
he could come to no conclusion about
the Culprit sent to his Court, and con
sequently that he was sending Him, with
many compliments, back to a Governor
whom he felt sure would make short
shift with Him. Before Pilate realises
the situation, the shouts and the yells of
the returning procession tell him that our
Lord is actually on His way back to the
Praetorium. Yes, sure enough, as Pilate
can see from his balcony, there, on the
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
western steep incline facing his palace,
a veritable mob, a tangle of colour,
comes swinging down like a mountain
torrent let loose and meaning mischief.
Pilate, not a little disconcerted, pulls
himself together, sets his teeth, and
rising from his seat, steps impatiently
upon the balcony where he stands with
folded arms, glancing down upon the
people with defiance expressed in every
feature. When after a time the hissing
mob has exhausted its cries, the judge
makes his proposal. Being the festival
season, he offers to release to them
Barabbas, the murderer, or Jesus, the
Christ. For a moment there is hesita
tion among the people, but after some
parley with the chief priests and ancients,
like a tornado comes the cry, " Not this
Man, but Barabbas." "What then,"
asks the miserable compromiser, " will
you that I do to the King of the Jews ? "
The Jews, having become conscious
that the game is in their own hands, and
that the judge is a coward, at the top of
their voices scream forth exultantly their
verdict, "Crucify Him, crucify Him."
The judge timidly insists that he can
find no cause in Him, but the people
will not have it, declaring they have a
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CHRIST BEFORE THE PEOPLE
law, " arid according to the law He
ought to die, because He made Himself
the Son of God." Once more the un
easy judge holds conversation with the
divine Prisoner, with the result that he
makes a yet more terrible compromise,
saying, " I find no cause of death in
Him. I will chastise Him therefore and
let Him go."
Here for a moment I must ask you to
pause whilst I remind you of what our
dear Lord endures mentally when He
hears that, as no fault can be found in
Him, He is to be condemned to the lash.
It is not so much the thought of being
scourged in public, or even of being
stripped naked in the sight of all, which
is for Jesus so hard to bear, but rather
that a judge, whose mission it is to hold
the scales of justice, should so far forget
the majesty of the law and the rights of
a prisoner, that in one and the same
breath he can pronounce Him to be
innocent and treat Him as though guilty,
inflicting on Him the most cruel and
ignominious of punishments.
What a punishment ! The mere
anticipation of it in the Garden had
forced from His human soul the cry,
" O Father, if it be possible, let it pass."
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
Even as we, the humble followers of the
Crucified, after the lapse of so many
centuries, reverently contemplate the
scene of the scourging, it is difficult to
understand how our divine Lord could
have submitted to the agony and
ignominy of it.
If the Passion can teach us nothing
else, at any rate it tells us this, that none
of us really knows what real love is. Is
it an impulse gone mad ? But come
down to the courtyard of the palace
where each one of you may be forced to
witness the scene about to be enacted.
"Behold the Lamb of God Who
taketh away the sins of the world," in
the midst of a gang of ruffians like a
pack of hounds clamouring for its prey.
See that broken column in the centre of
the courtyard ; the crowd is jostling its
way there, where Jesus is to be stripped
to nakedness in the sight of the surround
ing multitude still crying for His Blood.
And now look closer still. The Sacred
Hands that have so often been raised to
bless and to heal, are being actually
bound by cords, drawing them upward
to an iron ring which holds them rigidly
in such a position that the Sacred Feet
scarcely touch with their toe-tips the
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CHRIST BEFORE THE PEOPLE
white pavement so soon to be dyed red
with blood.
And now there rises a yell and shout
from the people greeting the appear
ance of two strong-built soldiers who,
stripped to the waist, running through
their fingers the knotted cords, presently
lift them to swing through the air, till
down with a thud they come upon the
quivering flesh of the Son of God. On
they go, lash after lash, every stroke
lapping the flesh and drawing blood till
it is seen streaming down the Sacred
Limbs, pouring itself about the ankles,
while the surrounding mob is beside
itself, drunk with delight. How many
moments this most terrible of terrible
scenes lasted I know not ; but this I do
know, that as it was inflicted, not with a
view to punishment, but with the object
of awakening pity for Jesus, the savage
cruelty of it no language can describe.
Perhaps some man in that throng more
merciful than the rest, fearing the worst
results, rushes in, cuts the rope, when
Jesus falls, slipping along the pavement
in a pool of warm blood.
And now, you votaries of pleasure,
who proclaim so loudly that there is no
such thing as sin, will most probably
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
call upon me to have done with this
realistic picture, saying, " You are offend
ing every canon of good taste, you are
forgetting every rule of fine art. Pass
from this scene of blood which blinds
our sight, wounds our hearts, and stings
our conscience." But I tell you I will
not have done with this picture of Jesus
Christ all broken and bruised from the
soles of His feet to the top of His head,
lying half dead, white and ruddy in a
stream of His blood, till you yourselves
come to acknowledge that in the sight
before you, you recognise the handiwork
of your own sin. If you insist that this
flagellation is meant to awaken the pity
of the Jews, I declare to you it is
endured by Jesus Christ to create a
clean heart in you Christians ; these
pains are borne in the body of Christ to
atone for your pleasures of the flesh.
Yes, and that crown of thorns which is
being so rudely pressed upon the Sacred
brow is being worn in contrition for
your sins of pride and vanity. Nay, the
Sacred eyes are blindfolded and that
mock sceptre is being placed in the
gracious hand to make reparation for
those sins of sight and of touch in which
you have so freely indulged.
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CHRIST BEFORE THE PEOPLE
In the scene then before us I see the
divine Penitent offering to Heaven an
act of reparation for your vicious plea'
sures in the concupiscence of the flesh,
in the concupiscence of the eyes, and the
pride of life.
" Then the soldiers of the Governor
taking Jesus into the hall gathered unto
Him the whole band, and stripping Him
they put a scarlet cloak about Him.
And plaiting a crown of thorns they put
it on His Head, and a reed in His right
hand, and bowing the knee before Him
they mocked Him saying, ' Hail, King
of the Jews,' and spitting upon Him,
they took the reed and struck His
Head." Truly it is an evil and a bitter thing
to offend God !
And now the scene changes. Pilate
is once more standing before the people.
He vainly imagines that the condition
of abject misery and shame to which his
cowardice has brought our dear and
blessed Lord will evoke cries of awe
and pity from the mob. Accordingly
he orders the Prisoner under arrest to
be brought forth, where with the full
light of the morning sun flashing on His
symbols of mock royalty all may have a
l 161

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
good view of Him. As Jesus draws
nigh Pilate addresses the mob ; " Behold ! "
he exclaims pleadingly, " I bring Him
forth to you that you may know I find
no cause in Him." " Ecce Homo." " Be
hold the Man."
Alas! no sooner do they catch sight
of our Lord with the purple rag and the
mock sceptre and crown, than there
rings clamorously forth through the
air the people's well - schooled cry,
" Crucify Him, crucify Him."
Here once more we must pause while
I borrow from Pilate the word, " Behold
the Man." Behold Him Who is more
than a man but Whom you have treated
as less than one. Behold the Man once
the most beautiful, in Whom now there
is no beauty nor comeliness ; Whom
your sins have changed into a leper and
as it were one struck by God, the most
abject of men, "a Man of sorrows and
acquainted with infirmity." As you gaze
upon Him, scanning His broken frame,
counting up His wounds, dismayed by
His misery, you may well exclaim : " We
will not have this Man to reign over us.
Truly there is in Him no sightliness, that
we should be desirous of Him."
But once more let us " Behold the
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CHRIST BEFORE THE PEOPLE
Man," remembering that He is " wounded
for our iniquities and is bruised for our
sins ; the chastisement of our peace is
upon Him, and by His bruises we are
healed." Did I not tell you that, in spite
of appearances, He is more than a Man ?
He is God Himself thus disguised in
order to woo and win your love. Behold
Him, He is pleading with you saying,
"If you will not love Me for what I am
in Myself, at least love Me for what I
am to you. Say not ' I am nothing to
You,' when you are so much to Me :
you are to Me more than My life. Love
is self-giving and Love is self-sacrifice.
If you plead for some one to love you,
' Behold the Man,' I am the Man Who
in love as in everything else, is without
an equal. 'Behold the Man' Who,
regardless of consequences, offers Him
self to be lashed and torn to pieces,
reckoning it as nothing at all, if only you
will slake His love- thirst for His creatures
made to His image and likeness, made
to be happy with Him in His Home
everlasting." I will not stay to hear your answer to
this most pathetic appeal from our
divine Saviour. We must pass on to
listen to the poor weak and timid judge
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
who, frightened by the noise of the
people, is exclaiming, " Take Him and
crucify Him, for I find no cause in
Him." But the Jews argue better than
does the timid Roman ; " We have a
law," they reply, " and according to the
law He ought to die, because He made
Himself the Son of God." Why does
not Pilate demand proof of their
assertions? True, Jesus Christ does
claim to be the Only-Begotten Son of
God, He does demand the unswerving
allegiance of His creatures ; He declares
He can take no second place in their
affections, He proclaims His universal
sovereignty. He is King, and Priest,
and Judge, and as He has proclaimed
in the court of Caiaphas, on the Last
Day He will come in the glory of God, to
reward the just with everlasting life, and
the wicked with everlasting punishment.
If Pilate is conscious that these and
nothing less are the claims of Jesus
Christ, let him investigate His claims
and satisfy himself about their worth ; so
that he may have evidence on which
to pronounce a verdict, affirming His
innocence or declaring His guilt.
Is this state trial then, which is being
held in the name of the Roman Law,
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CHRIST BEFORE THE PEOPLE
merely a mock trial like those already
played out in the ecclesiastical Courts ?
Yes, all four trials are mere travesties of
justice, the majesty itself of the great
Roman Law being prostituted to the
basest uses. What happened to our
Lord has been the experience of His
Bride, the Church, for well nigh two
thousand years. Nay, this very week
leading Society journals, the clearest
expression of present-day worldliness,
have spoken of Christ's Vicar, Pius the
Tenth, in terms which might have been
borrowed from Annas or Caiaphas,
Pilate, or even Herod.
These pressmen have gone even
beyond those time-serving judges, for
forgetful of all history and of all false
prophecies in the past, they have pro
phesied to the world the downfall of the
Church, almost promising in their next
issues to publish the date of Her death
and of Her burial.
Unfortunately for the world, repre
sented by the secular press, the Church
cannot die in order to gratify the whims
of false prophets ; Her mission is for
all time as well as for all men. Hence
the words "the gates of hell shall not
prevail " against My Church.
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
The world is ever the same ; her
sight is limited to the things of time and
sense, her judgments, like those of
Pilate, are based on expediency and
compromise. In regard to the things of God, to the
kingdom of grace, the world is in Egyptian
darkness. It reminds us of Pilate, who
wondered how Christ forebore to trust
him and to throw Himself entirely upon
his mercy, saying to the silent Jesus,
" Speakest Thou not to me ? Knowest
Thou not that I have power to crucify
Thee, and I have power to release
Thee?" Poor Pilate, how ignorant he is where
he is most assured! Has rank and
position so obscured with self-woven
clouds the light of heaven, that he
forgets the existence of One in Whose
presence the whole wide world is less
than a dewdrop on the rose-leaf? Our
dear Lord, with a look of pity, turns to
Pilate, reminding him of what he seems
for the moment to have forgotten, that
he is a mere creature wholly dependent
upon God for the very breath of his
life. " Thou shouldst not have any power
against Me, unless it were given thee
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CHRIST BEFORE THE PEOPLE
from above." What volumes might be
unfolded from this pregnant text? In
what abundance of peace the restless
world of fashion might soon find itself,
if it could but bring itself to recognise
that nothing can happen to it without
divine permission. To know that what
is not ordained by God is permitted to
befall us ; because, being infinite in re
sources, He, though none other, knows
how to draw good out of evil. Against
the taunts and threats of tyrannical pagan
judges many a Christian martyr has
possessed his soul in wondrous peace
because of his remembrance of the text :
"Thou shouldst not have any power
against Me, unless it were given thee
from above."
So long as the conscience is clear and
the line of action is clear to the God
fearing man, no matter what may
happen, he feels " It is all right. God
knows, and He will see me through."
How did Pilate receive our Lord's
teaching ? Did he act upon the advice
offered by our divine Master ?
We are told that the judge learnt his
lesson so far that he "henceforth sought
to release Him." There was Pilate's
mistake. Instead of trying, hoping,
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
seeking to release Jesus, he should have
actually cleared the court of the mob
and set the divine Prisoner free. But
Pilate was a man of lost opportunities.
The Jews, quick to recognise the
irresolution of Pilate, try to overrule his
will, and carry their point by the taunt,
"If thou release this Man, thou art not
Caesar's friend, for whosoever maketh
himself a king, speaketh against Caesar."
Pilate, stung by the bitter taunt,
exasperated by the cruel threat, answers
nothing, but, rising to his feet, paces
forward to the judgment seat. There
enthroned on the Gabbatha and pointing
to Jesus Christ, a spectacle to men and
to angels, he exclaims, with a gesture
and look of contempt and derision,
"Behold your King." But the mob,
in no mood for the irony of one whom
they had come to despise, shout back,
" Away with Him, away with Him,
crucify Him." Pilate having lost, to
gether with self-respect, all self-control,
knows not what to answer them. He
can only say for the want of something
better, " Shall I crucify your King ? "
It is the last word ; the time-serving,
place-loving judge has given up the
case. The law is nothing, the mob
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CHRIST BEFORE THE PEOPLE
everything. "And their voices pre
vailed." In triumph the whole people exclaim,
" We have no king but Caesar."
That being so, Pilate has nothing
further to do but to deliver Jesus Christ
to them to be crucified ; and as he does
so he calls for water and washes his
hands before the people, exclaiming, " I
am innocent of the blood of this just
Man, look you to it." The trial scene
closes with the triumphant shout of a
nation proclaiming "His Blood be upon
us, and upon our children."
To us who reverently, after a lapse of
nearly two thousand years, study the
trial of Christ, how terribly real and
actual it seems ! What is so terrible
about it is this, that it is being repeated
over and over again with much the same
result in England, in London ; and,
what more nearly concerns you and me,
in Mayfair where we are living. Smart
Society of to-day is still exclaiming with
their friends the Jews, " We will not have
this Man to reign over us." The threat
held out to their consciences is still the
same as that with which Pilate was
menaced : " If thou release this Man,
thou art not Caesar's friend." And
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
finally, as all the world knows, these
fashionable votaries of pleasure to whom
I refer still proclaim by the lives they
lead, by the pastimes they practise, by
the sensuality in which they indulge, by
the luxuries in which they wallow, by
the blasphemies which they utter, " We
have no king but Caesar." They crucify
the Son of God anew by lives for which
there is less excuse than there was for
those of Annas, Caiaphas, Pilate, and
Herod. And it would seem from the daily
record, given in social organs, of the
doings of smart Society people and from
what we know of the literature in which
they delight, from the plays to which
they resort and from the pleasures in
which they revel, that their cry too is
the cry which swept like a blight from
the children of Israel on the first Good
Friday when they howled, " His blood
be upon us, and upon our children."
And so, as we read, "their voices pre
vailed," and Pilate "delivered Him to
them to be crucified." Then like a
pack of hounds let loose upon their prey,
the mob sprang upon our blessed Lord,
and tearing from His bleeding wounds
the insignia of mock royalty they put
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CHRIST BEFORE THE PEOPLE
His own garments on Him and led Him
out to be crucified.
See Him dumb like a lamb before its
shearers, while the instrument of His
torture, the Cross, is laid upon His
shoulder whereon so often His Mother's
head had found shelter and repose.
What a sight is this ! Our God
Almighty reduced to the ignominy of a
felon, dragging across the city of His
adoption the cursed symbols of" degrad
ation and disgrace ! Can nothing less
than this teach man the value of suffer
ing ? Until he sees before him the
Cross galling the bleeding shoulder of
his Saviour, will he steadfastly refuse
to take up his own and follow Him ?
Do we shrink so instinctively from pain
that, but for this sight seen on the Via
Crucis, we could never bring ourselves
to believe in its healing properties ? It
would seem indeed to be so, for no
sooner does man begin to lose sight of
Jesus Christ bearing His Cross than he
himself begins to grow restless under the
smaller one which he is called to carry
after Him. And yet life itself is a cross,
so that the only choice that man is called
upon to make is whether he will take it
up and bear it onward on the right or on
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
the left of His crucified Saviour. The
choice is between Gestas and Dismas.
If he uses his trials rightly, they will
draw out all that is best in a man, they
will purge him of sin, they will strengthen
him in grace, they will elevate his
thoughts beyond the realms of time and
sense, they will spiritualize his life, and
best of all, they will build up in him the
Christ-like character, with the motto,
" Greater love than this no man hath."
Whereas if he shirks his cross and trials,
if he becomes restless under the yoke, if
he tries by every means in his power to
rid himself of what nature so much dis
likes, then will man become a mere
worldling, a poor and craven creature
without grit or spirit, or enterprise for
Heaven. Remember the word has gone
forth which shall never pass away, " If
any man will come after Me, let him
deny himself, take up his cross and follow
Me." Observe well that the Cross which
our sins laid upon the shoulder of our
blessed Lord was heavier than He
could bear. He, the Almighty, fell
under the crushing burden, and so His
murderers forced one Simon of Cyrene,
who was passing by, to help Him to
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CHRIST BEFORE THE PEOPLE
carry it. Little did the father of
Alexander and Rufus realise the
privilege of his calling.
Sometimes in our better moments we
are disposed to envy the honour con
ferred upon the man of Cyrene, and we
perhaps persuade ourselves that, had we
been in his position, we should have
needed no forcing into that cross-bear
ing service. But let me ask, do our
lives warrant this interpretation which
so freely we put upon them ? Were we
as ready to help our dear and blessed
Lord as we proclaim to be, perhaps we
should make less of our own crosses,
none too heavy for us, and certainly we
should not so easily forget the words —
" Whatsoever you do to the least of My
little ones, you have done it unto Me."
Our mission in this twentieth century
is to help Jesus Christ by offering
service to our less favoured brothers
and sisters, who are struggling under
burdens heavy almost beyond endur
ance, along the dark and lonely lanes
of penury and want. Alas ! alas ! and
woe ! woe ! how blind we are, how
deaf we are to the tragic scenes in our
own immediate environments. Are there
not tens of thousands in this city clam-
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
ouring for bread, are there not thousands
by the score clamouring for work, and
are there not thousands by the hundred
clamouring for sympathy ? If only our
ears were attuned to this chorus of
voices beating in upon us like the wail
of the wind, and the sob of the sea, we
would, I feel sure, open our hands, and
open our hearts, stretching forth the
whole of our being to respond to the cry
of humanity, pleading for help under its
crushing burdens. But we are, I much
fear, too self-centred, and it suits us
better to lose sight of what is wanted
of us here and now, to gaze in gaping
wonderment across a chasm of two
thousand years, marvelling at the short
sightedness of Simon of Cyrene, who
failed to recognise the privilege ac
corded him.
We are not altogether unlike that
great multitude of people and of women
who " bewailed and lamented Jesus
Christ." That mighty throng seeing
His abject misery, His pitiful condition,
all weary, worn, and broken, pressed
about Him, following Him with tears
and cries along the toilsome way to
Calvary. Look up and bend your eyes upon
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CHRIST BEFORE THE PEOPLE
them. Behold ! there is a pause, the
procession halts, and Jesus, the Self-
forgetful, turning to the crowd, so loud
in the piercing cries of its lamentation,
utters a word of warning good for us to
remember : " Daughters of Jerusalem,
weep not over Me, but weep for your
selves and for your children." If only
the people of the city, that knew not the
day of its visitation, had foreseen in pro
phetic vision what so soon was to befall
themselves, their children, and their
country, they would indeed have called
out to the mountains : " Fall upon us,"
and to the hills: "Cover us." But in
stead of being occupied with the thought
of their own personal guilt, and of
lamenting it with purpose of amend
ment, they were thinking of the sin of
others, and were bewailing its venge
ance upon the Person of Jesus the
Nazarene. It is indeed well for us to
follow our Lord through every stage of
His Sacred Passion with tears of sym
pathy and prayers of gratitude, but
there is a duty more pressing still than
this, and it is that of weeping over our
own sins which have needed so great a
redemption, and of resolving so to shun
sin and the occasions of it, that we may
i75

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
in some measure at least make up, as
St Paul puts it, what was wanting in
the Passion of Christ.
If ever there was a period in the
history of our country when there was
occasion for weeping over it, that period
is the one in which we ourselves are
living. Is this England of ours a
Christian land in any real and true
sense ? Is there not some reason for
fearing that we are living in the after
glow of Christianity? Outside the
Catholic Church are not the ties of
Christianity being almost everywhere
loosened ? Is not its dogmatic teaching
being almost universally ridiculed, while
its moral obligations are just tossed to
the winds as though worthless as the
dust in our streets ? Are not congresses
declaring constantly that the educa
tion of our children must be free and
secular, that the Word of Christ must be
banished from the schools, and that not
a penny of the rates and taxes should be
spent on " cramming dogmas down the
throats of children ? " Do we not re
cognise around us a spirit of discontent
with all that is, with Society as at
present constituted, and with religion as
identified with politics, or with the State ?
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CHRIST BEFORE THE PEOPLE
I will not refer to the desecration of
the marriage bond, nor to the destruc
tion of home life, nor to the prevention
of child-bearing, nor to the other social
and domestic horrors, which all go to
prove incontestably that the Christianity
of Christ is ceasing to be the leaven
which alone can spiritualise now, as it
spiritualised in the past, England our
Fatherland. But let me rather emphasise particu
larly, what still more clearly will bring
home to some of you, why we have
reason now more than ever to weep for
ourselves and for our children. I do
not mean the fact merely of the pre
valence of the New Theology, in which
there is little theology and nothing new,
nor the promulgation of the tenets of
Christian Science, in which there is
neither savour of Christianity nor relish
of Science, but I refer rather to the
spirit of Socialism which is threatening
to become in this country a cult, to its
anti-militarism, and to what I must call,
its anti-patriotism. Where there is loss
of the true character of Christianity,
there too must be wanting the true
spirit of patriotism, and where there is
lack of patriotism, there you will look
m 177

>

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
in vain for loyalty to the throne. In
many more senses than one England
would seem to be on the down grade.
It would be well if we took the
warning betimes, before we shall have
reason to cry out to the mountains,
" Fall upon us ; " and to the hills,
" Cover us." There is, I repeat, one
Name, and one only, in which we can
recover ourselves and find salvation
and it is the Name of Jesus. Let us
break from our frivolities and irreligion,
and weeping for our past of which we
have reason enough to be heartily
ashamed, let us follow Him to Calvary,
where, at length about noontide with
the sun beating fiercely upon His gaping
wounds, ourdearLordandSaviour arrives,
weary with the journey, spent from
want of food, athirst from loss of blood.
Give Him not to drink what the soldiers
offer, " wine mingled with myrrh," but
present Him from your hearts the pure
wine of pure love, that it may strengthen
and may comfort Him in His last hours
— dying of a broken heart upon the
cursed tree. As presently we shall see,
our dear and blessed Lord is suffering
from a thirst which nothing but the love-
stream from human hearts can slake.
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CHRIST BEFORE THE PEOPLE
Let us at once respond to His gracious
appeal, and plead for grace to love Him
more and ever more :
Soul of my Saviour, sanctify my breast,
Body of Christ, be Thou my saving guest ;
Blood of my Saviour bathe me in Thy tide,
Wash me, ye waters, gushing from His side.
Strength and protection may His passion be,
O dearest Jesus, hear and answer me.
Within Thy wounds, Lord, hide and shelter me,
That I may never, never part from Thee.
Guard and defend me from the foe malign,
In death's drear moment make me wholly Thine.
Call me and bid me come to Thee on high,
That I may praise Thee with Thy Saints for aye.

179

SCENE VII
JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS

JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
First Word
" Father, forgive them, for they know not what they
do. — St Luke xxiii, 34.
It is mid-day, with a fierce Syrian sun
beating down upon Golgotha, where all
the city is met to witness the closing
scene of the awful drama in which so
many citizens have played a part.
See, what a strangely mixed throng it
is ! Priests and Levites, Pharisees and
Scribes, Sadducees and Herodians, ser
vants and soldiers, young men and
women, and children innumerable, all
come forth to see the end, the crucifixion
and death of Jesus Christ.
Picture for one moment the wild mad
Eastern mob, tossing to and fro, scream
ing and gesticulating in their flowing
garments of every shade — a very mosaic
of colour dazzling in the sunlight.
They are, most of them at any rate,
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
discussing the situation, and congratu
lating one another on the verdict which
rids their nation of another arch impostor.
What gratitude do they owe to the
priests of the Temple for protecting
their interests, and for insisting on
bringing the would - be Prophet and
Miracle- Worker to trial ; and to Pilate
the Governor for passing the sentence
of death !
Some there are, especially among the
young mothers, who venture to take the
part of Jesus. One cherishes the
memory of a little wasted form being re
stored by Him to health ; another with the
clamour of execration sounding in her
ears cannot forget His words of divine
tenderness : " Suffer little children to
come unto Me." But no word of
praise is suffered by the priests, who
remind them that during the four trials
not one solitary witness was found to
come forward to say a single good word
for the Culprit, and that so desperate was
the case that even the most immediate
and intimate friends of the condemned
Prisoner have at last come to see through
Him and have forsaken Him to a man.
Thus is fulfilled the word : " I looked
for one to grieve together with Me and I
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JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
found none, and for one to comfort Me
and there was none."
" Unicus sum." " I am alone."
Meanwhile a little higher up the
gentle slope a patch of ground is ringed
off by the centurion to facilitate the work
of the executioners.
Behold these rude rough Romans, see
with what soldierly method and precision
they do theii murderous work! With
curses and oaths they fling down the
Cross and having prepared its tortures for
the " Victima Amoris," they seize hold of
Jesus, from Whom, helpless from loss of
blood and vitality, they begin to tear off
all His garments. Jesus Christ is stript
now of everything — stript of His friends,
stript of His strength, stript of His clothes
— nay, stript almost of His skin and of
His flesh — "as it were a leper," "one
struck by God," " a worm and no man."
In this humiliatingand shameful condition
our blessed Saviour is tossed off His
feet and dragged along the Cross while
the people cheer and jeer, mock and
deride Him.
No strain of comfort or sympathy
softens the cruel chorus of mockery.
Priests with the soldiers add excruci
ating accompaniments to it, and it has
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
been gaining volume with every step
along the Via Dolorosa.
Even when the Sacrifice is about to
be accomplished there is no pitying
silence, nor any token of the common
compassion of humanity.
I will not harrow your feelings by
describing to you the next stage in the
bloody business. Draw a veil over it.
Why do not the angels leap from their
thrones and drive off the cruel murderers
who spring upon the Sacred Body of Christ
stretching it along the Cross, with savage
glee placing the cruel nails over His
blessed hands and feet, while with
uplifted hammer they drive them home
through the quivering flesh, fastening the
dear sacred limbs to the " cursed tree ! "
" They have dug My hands and My
feet, they have numbered all My bones."
The angels bend in adoration. " He
is offered, because He Himself willed it."
It is while the nails are ploughing the
sacred hands and feet, while the cross is
being clumsily reared and dropped,
leaping into the trench prepared for it,
and while the surging mob is shouting,
hooting and yelling that our dear,
agonising Saviour utters the first word
since His warning to the daughters of
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JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
Jerusalem to weep not over Him, but to
weep for themselves and for their children.
Draw nearer to Him, look up into His
wan and blood-stained face, and drink
in with eagerness the word that He
struggles to utter. It is a prayer ; it is
addressed to our Father in Heaven.
He Who first of all taught us to look
upon the Almighty and Everlasting God
as a Father, as the Father, as our own
Father, " Whose property it is always to
have mercy and to. spare"; He Who
taught us the " Our Father," is now ad
dressing Himself as our Representative,
as our Mediator, as our Brother, as our
Vicarious Victim of Love to our Father.
Oh ! tell me what is the prayer that He
utters, what is the petition that He
makes in the hour of His distress?
" Father, forgive them, for they know
not what they do." What a pathetic,
humane, sublime, nay, divine prayer!
What a self-forgetting, what a self-giving,
self-sacrificing thing is love ! and what a
revelation of it is this prayer !
Long before He utters it, Jesus, our
loving Saviour has forgiven the poor
sinners and has taken upon Himself the
sinner's sins, has become sin, as the
Apostle puts it, and having offered a
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
broken-hearted contrition for sin, He now
turns to His Father, to our Father, to the
sinner's Father, and piteously pleads with
Him for mercy upon the sinner, and for
his restoration to grace and love. May I
say that the ruling passion in Jesus is
love of sinners? Did He not Himself
say : "lam not come to call the just but
sinners?" Was He not known as the
sinners' Friend ? Did He not die for us
while we were as yet sinners ? Yes,
"Jesus Christ came to save sinners." It
is His mission. Now, while they are
actually nailing Him to the Cross, and
thirsting for His blood, His whole Heart
goes out in intercession for them.
Oh ! how strong, stronger than death
itself, Is this unutterable love of the
Saviour for the sinner ! Long before He
took flesh and tarried on earth, God had
said by the mouth of the prophet : " My
people have done two evils ; they have for
saken Me the Fountain of Living Waters,
and have dug for themselves cisterns
that can hold no water." What a wealth
and depth of compassion there is in this
pathetic utterance! It is not our Lord
Who forsakes the sinner, leaving the
soul parched with thirst in a barren
and dry land ; it is the sinner who
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JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
forsakes our Lord, while He goes
forth after him, like a stream from a
gushing fountain to cleanse him of sin
to refresh him with grace. There is no
limit to " that Great Love Divine
Whose Arms to clasp us on the Cross were
spread."
Listen to the word of our dear Lord
when He gazed, weeping the while, upon
the city that knew not the day of its visita
tion. He wept, not because of the
thought of all the tortures of body,
agony of heart, and anguish of spirit
that were soon to shake the very found
ations of His being in that city, but by
reason of the foreknowledge of the doom
awaiting the sinners whom He longed to
gather to His Heart even as a hen doth
gather her chickens about her, but they
would not.
And now from the Cross our Lord is
making His last supreme appeal for
them. " Father, forgive them ; be a
Father, put forth Thy protecting arms
and draw them from the ways of iniquity,
from the precipice of woe, from the
bottomless pit. Extend for My sake a
royal pardon, send forth a flight of angels
laden with stores of grace that may touch
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
their poor sin-burdened hearts ; drive
them not for ever from Thy sight, compel
them to come back from the ways of sin
and misery into the paths of grace and
peace. I die for them."
So He pleaded, as if it were a light
thing to forgive, and yet what a miracle
of love there is in this royal pardon.
When we transgress the physical laws
of nature we must take the inevitable
consequences, and when we set at de
fiance the social or the national laws we
must pay the penalty. How comes it
then that we can expect forgiveness,
hope for it, be sure of it, if only we
repent of having broken the moral laws ?
Listen : "If any man sin, we have an
Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the Just. He is the Propitiation for our
sins, "and not for our sins only, but for
the sins of the whole world." For
Christ's sake we are forgiven. But let
us consider the divine ingenuity, which
urges in extenuation of our guilt the plea
of ignorance, "forgive them, for they
know not what they do."
The world calls sin a mistake, a stage
in evolution, a token of growth, a law of
life, a thing no more to be sanely re
gretted than the non-attainment of some
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JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
ideal standard of physical stature or
natural beauty.
Surely Society that can reason thus,
while its atmosphere is being poisoned
by the baneful influence of sin, knows
not what it says, knows not what it
does. What a rebuke to it, with all its
vaunted wisdom and progress, is this
estimate of it by Jesus Christ. We are
living in an age which worships intellect.
We love clever people, clever books,
clever talk. The great sin before Smart
Society is to be stupid, to be dull. We
want to be amused and entertained by
clever men and clever women, clever
books, clever plays. Our dear Lord from
His lofty death-bed surveys the social
world. He sees its sinful ways, its sin
ful doings, and He declares it to be an
ignorant and foolishly silly world — a
world that has not as yet learned its first
lesson — a world that sins, a world that
crucifies its God, that closes Heaven
against itself and opens Hell, and yet
knows not what it is doing. It is indeed a
world that "multiplied! words without
knowledge." It may have discovered the
key to some of the secrets of nature, but
what it needs is the golden key to the
Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ.
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
The longer the Christian man lives
the more mysterious become to him
both the hidden things in the kingdom
of nature, and in the realms of grace,
What a poor, puny, paltry breed is man ;
most ignorant of what he is most assured.
Well may the poet compare him to —
" An infant crying in the night :
An infant crying for the light
And with no language but a cry."
What ignorant children we all are!
What have we really learned, in spite of
the gigantic strides that have been made
in the fields of knowledge once closed to
us ? What do our men of light and lead
ing know about life, about death, about
the union of soul and body ; about light,
electricity, or even about the ultimate
component parts of matter? Nothing
at all. We label all these things with
learned names, but they are little more
to the educated, than fossils catalogued
in our museums are to the unlettered.
However there is one thing we all
know now — better to-day than last Good
Friday — and it is this, that there is some
thing in the world greater, better than
all knowledge, and it is love. Look up,
and on the Cross see what real love
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JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
really is. It is the greatest thing in
Heaven, the grandest thing on earth.
Let this be our knowledge and this our
love, to know and to love "Christ, and
Him crucified." Come, come and say
to Him :
" We come to Thee Sweet Jesus,
Thou wilt not ask us why ;
We cannot live without Thee,
Still less without Thee die."

193

Second Word
" This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise."
— St Luke, xxiii, 43.
Judged by this world's standard our
Lord's life upon earth was a splendid
failure, because it ended in shame and
ignominy on the cursecl tree. Barely
three years before the world when He
was hunted down by His fellow country
men, seized by them, then rushed through
four mock trials and condemned to die a
felon's death. And what is even more
strangely extraordinary still, there was
no one to raise a voice, to utter a word
in His defence. Where was Zacchaeus,
where Nicodemus, Lazarus and the
countless others who were pledged to
Him by the vows of friendship ? What
had become of those lepers made whole,
of the sick made well, of the dead brought
to life ? Why did not they rally round
Him and speak in His behalf? And why
not they too who had been fed and taught
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JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
in their thousands through His gracious
bounty ? At any rate, why did not some
at least among His most intimate followers
and friends, say, Peter, James or John,
leap forward to bear witness to the in
tegrity and sinlessness of His character ?
Observe well, the trial of Jesus is the
only trial on record in which a prisoner
has been condemned to death without a
word being set up in His defence, and it
is the only state trial on record in which
miscarriage of justice regulated every
detail in its varied proceedings from its
opening scene in the house of Annas, to
its close with Pilate washing his hands.
It was indeed to be expected that the
two trials before Annas and Caiaphas
would be conducted on the lines they
were, but in the hands of Pilate, the re
presentative of Roman Law and Roman
Justice, there was at least the presumption
that the outward forms of procedure in a
criminal case would be observed. But
no, our Lord was to be an exception to
every rule. " Jesus of Nazareth " a
modern writer has truly said, " was not
condemned, but He was slain. His mar
tyrdom was not miscarriage of justice,
it was murder." Yes, and Pilate, knew
it, and so " taking water he washed his
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
hands before the pec pie saying, I am
innocent of the blood of this just Man,"
and then, having scourged Jesus, he
delivered Him unto them to be crucified.
As we pause to meditate on our Lord's
trial, how ashamed ought we to feel of re
senting so bitterly the treatment of friends
in whom we put all our trust, who seemed
ready to die for us and have yet, perhaps,
condemned us on hearsay without giving
us an opportunity of self-defence. How
can we harbour for one instant any un
forgiving or resentful thought when there
rings out to-day a bugle call bidding us
rally round our Chief, beset on every
side by cruel foes, and deserted in His
most dire extremity by all whom He loved
and trusted. "
And now let me proceed to remind
you of what is more strangely wonderful
in our Lord's trial even than the lack of
any defence, and it is this : the lack o
any conversion.
In the menology of the Saints, in
narratives dealing with their martyrdoms,
we are consoled by the numberless souls
whom their constancy, patience and hero
ism have won to God ; but our dear and
blessed Lord is an exception in this too.
Follow Him from the hour of His arrest
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JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
to the hour of His condemnation, and can
you give me the name of one convert
won, of one friend made ? "I have
trodden the wine-press alone and there
is not a man with Me." " I looked about
and there was none to help," " I sought
and there was none to give aid." " They
laughed Him to scorn."
You will tell me this is indeed so, but
when He shall be lifted up, yes, now that
He is preaching and praying from the
pulpit of the Cross He must needs find
a way into every heart made of penetrable
stuff. Why, His prayer for His mur
derers will convert the whole hill-side
till they sink to their knees in the agonies
of contrition. Come, see what it is that
really does happen. Our dear and bles
sed Lord's hallowed and gracious prayer
instead of softening does but harden the
hearts of the throng pressing round the
gallows. His pathetic pleadings serve
but to evoke hideous blasphemies.
Listen and be satisfied : The chief
priests with the scribes and ancients
mocking him said : " He saved others ;
Himself He cannot save." "If He be
the King of Israel let Him come down
from the Cross and we will believe in
Him." And the people and the rulers
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
with them derided Him saying: "He
saved others ; let Him save Himself, if
He be the Christ, the elect of God !"
Aye, "and the soldiers also mocked
Him, coming to Him, and offering Him
vinegar and saying : 'If Thou be King
of the Jews, save Thyself! ' "
Nay, even they that passed by blas
phemed Him, wagging their heads and
saying, " Vah ! Thou that destroyest the
Temple of God and in three days build-
est it up again, save Thyself, coming down
from the Cross." Nor was this all, for St
Mark tells us that " they even who were
crucified with Him reviled Him."
Did ever vilest criminal die a mur
derer's death on the scaffold amid such
terrible surroundings? Well may the
Victim of Love exclaim by the lips of
the prophets "There is no one with
Me." But, stay, there is a rift in the clouds,
there is a note of sweet music amid the
crash of blasphemy and rage. Listen, it
comes from a quarter least expected. It
is Dismas, the poor robber on our Lord's
right, who utters the first kind word yet
heard since the Last Supper. Something
has touched the heart of Dismas, and all
the man is broken with remorse, con-
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JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
trition and pity. Why, he is actually
rebuking his fellow thief. No one un
acquainted with the criminal classes can
have the faintest idea what courage this
implies — it is bravery almost super
human. What does he say to Gestas ?
" Neither dost thou fear God, seeing
thou art under the same condemnation,
and we indeed justly, for we receive the
due reward of our deeds : but this Man
hath done no evil." There is, perhaps,
no body of men so keenly sensitive
about justice as the criminal classes —
nothing will they resent so much as in
justice. Dismas recognises the gross
miscarriage of justice in our Lord's case,
and he realises that one who can face and
meet it with our Lord's patience, peace
and prayer, must be more than a man.
Accordingly he turns his eyes from
Gestas to Jesus, and says to Him in the
hearing of that multitudinous mob :
" Lord, remember me when Thou shalt
come into Thy kingdom." It was just
the prayer to please our Lord, to melt
His Sacred Heart. How He does love
us to trust Him : indeed, He would be
less than a man if He did not love it.
Trust is such a fine expression of love.
It is like a golden chain binding heart to
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
heart. Not to trust, is not to love >
while to trust Him is to throw one's
whole person on Him. It is to give up
one's whole self to Jesus confident that all
will be well even when all looks ill, in
the present and in the future. Dismas
did not misplace his trust. He placed it
where alone the mind, heart and will can
find repose — in the Heart of Jesus
Christ, our Rest. " This day thou shalt
be with Me in Paradise." Behold here
the answer to the repentant thiefs
petition ! To be for ever with our Lord,
to be with Him in Paradise, that is
Heaven. How little our divine Master
has told us about the other side, about
the world beyond. He has told us little
more than this — that He Himself will be
our reward exceeding great ; that we
shall be for ever with Him.
Clearly this is enough for those that
really love Him to know. And if we do
love Him as we ought, I do not well see
what more we want to know. It is not
the loyal friends of Jesus Christ who are
inquisitive to learn more, for in His
friendship is the essence of all peace and
joy here and hereafter :
" Sole comfort in our banishment,
Oh 1 what when face to face ? "
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JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
But we are living in an age when in
stead of trusting loyally to Jesus Christ,
and patiently waiting for the vision of
home to satisfy the cravings of our being
for life, and light and love, Society turns
from the revelations of our Lord to seek
at the hand of the spiritualist, the palmist,
the clairvoyant, what it does not behoove
it, in this life of probation and trust,
to know. And with what result ? With
the inevitable result that men become
restless and superstitious. Peace and
patience and Christian trust fly from them.
God always leaves the soul that trusts
Him in the repose of peace, while the
spirit that is not of God imparts the
restlessness of fever.
Let us learn from Dismas the lesson
of trust, and in the meantime let us like
him bear patiently our present troubles
of heart and trials of mind — all our
sufferings — seeing that "we receive the
due reward of our deeds," while we ask
as we gaze into the Face of the Cruci
fied : " What evil hath He done ? "
Oh, Gestas ! Oh, misery past pictur
ing ! Only to think of it ! Dying
nearest of all to the Heart of Love and
not to feel the warmth of that furnace !
What a hardening process is sin. It acts
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
on the heart as the sun acts on clay. O
Jesus, here cut, here burn, here punish
me, but in my death call me and bic! me
come to Thee. O Dismas : I have been
a thief too. I have robbed God of His
glory, I have taken His grace and flung
it aside, I have fed on His flesh and
His blood, and they have not sanctified
me. I have sold Him like Judas, denied
Him like Peter, scorned Him like Herod,
condemned Him like Pilate, yet I am
not afraid. For I know His mercy as
well as I do my sin. Lord, I will repent
the past ; Lord, I will use the present ;
Lord, with Thy grace I will carry my
cross after Thee, never looking back.
What is this life ? What is it ?
" Life is a burden, bear it ;
Life is a duty, dare it ;
Life is a crown of thorns, wear it ;
Life is the pledge of love, swear it."

202

Third Word.
" Woman, behold thy Son : . . . behold thy Mother."—
St John, xix, 26, 27.
" Now, there stood by the Cross of
Jesus, His Mother." Under what a
burden of gratitude has not the be
loved disciple placed the Church for
these brief, pregnant words ! They are
the only reference in the history of the
Sacred Passion to our dear and blessed
Lord's Mother. But for St John we
should have had nothing but conjecture
to fall back upon for our Lady's place
during those last hours in agony on the
Cross. Until she met her blessed Son
bearing the instrument of His torture to
Calvary, where had this afflicted Mother
been ? Most likely she had sought
some desolate shade wherein to pour
forth her dear soul in prayer for strength
to stand beside His death-bed, strong
as a square-built fortress against armed
besiegers. What an endless eternity
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
those hours of waiting seemed to her.
What a flood of thoughts swept across
her mind as she knelt with bowed head
waiting for her cousin John to take her
to Golgotha. There was the Annuncia
tion with the prayer : " Thy will be
done ; " there was the prophecy of
Simeon, and the sword transfixing her
very soul ; then, too, soon followed the
loss of Him for three days, and after
that those years of peace and sweetness
in their home at Nazareth.
Oh, that most dear and lovely Mother,
as she knelt absorbed in thought
during the awful Thursday night, kept
recalling once more to her heart those
days of infancy when Jesus fed at her
breast ; when with His little pink and
pearly hands folded He slumbered while
she rocked His cradle bed ; when she
stood Him on her lap and He smothered
her with His baby kisses ; when with
the growth of years He gladly ran her
errands, drew water for her from the
well, brought her home wild strawberries
and honey, and great nosegays of
flowers plucked from the mountain
side. Perhaps her mind reverted to the time
when she had occasionally ventured to
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JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
draw from His Heart more details of
His Sacred Passion, and He, unable to
bear her tears, would pass it by to speak
of Heaven when tears should flow no
more. " O quam tristis et affiicta
Fuit ilia benedicta
Mater Unigeniti ! ''
Then, as she " kept all these words
pondering them in her heart," some one
or other of the disciples would break in
upon her tears to tell her the last tidings
about the cruel trial of her Son. She
heard how splendidly loyal He had
been to His followers when questioned
about them by Annas ; how patient and
gentle when struck across the face by a
brutal servant ; with what divine dignity
He had borne Himself when false
charges were brought against Him by
perjured witnesses ; how He had
brought home to Caiaphas the judgment
that awaited him, and how Herod had
been treated with silence, in spite of his
"questions in many words," because he
was an unclean worldling and a murderer.
She heard of the gross miscarriage
of justice in all four courts ; of Pilate
declaring Him blameless and yet scourg-
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
ing Him, and finally how that same
Pilate pronounced the verdict of death
upon Him, while calling for water and
protesting himself innocent of the blood
of the Innocent One.
" Quis est homo, qui non fleret,
Matrem Christi si videret
In tanto supplicio."
And now the beloved disciple, all
broken with trouble and distress, comes
to her with the agonizing news that her
only - begotten Son and Saviour is
actually on His way to Calvary : on His
way to die. Leaning upon the arm of
her virgin cousin and followed soon by
her sister Mary of Cleophas, and Mary
the Magdalen, our blessed Lady goes
forth with the ejaculation on her lips:
"Be it done unto me according to Thy
word ; " nor does she stay till the yells
and shouts of the maddened mob pro
claim to her broken heart : " He is
coming ; He is coming ; my Saviour and
my Son."
Who can pretend to describe that
interview, the like of which, thank God,
never again shall be seen on earth!
That meeting between Mother and Son
is too pathetically sad, too unutterably
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JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
sacred for us to intrude upon. We will
bow our heads in adoration and follow
the Cross in spirit till we stand by the
Mother's side beneath it, remaining to
the end.
The blessed Mother has heard His
first prayer, " so like Him," she says to
herself, to offer it for afflicted sinners ; she
has caught the promise made to the
repentant thief dying so near to her;
but as yet that most blessed and beloved
Son has uttered no word, has sent no
burning message of love into her heart,
all melting with tenderness. Observe,
there is no promise of immediate Paradise
for her who of all on earth most of all
deserves to be the first to pass into
the beatific joys of Heaven! What
a lesson is this ! What an essential
lesson for those who are studying
sanctity in the school of suffering!
Look up at this valiant woman once
more ; see her with her upturned
countenance, her gaze fixed upon the
mangled body of her blessed Jesus. She
heaves no sigh, she utters no word, she
sheds no tear. Her sorrow has passed
into an agony of grief ; she stands erect,
transfixed to the Cross by the sword
of which holy Simeon had spoken to her.
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
See, her dear and blessed Son is bending
His eyes towards her ; He speaks,
" Woman, Woman ever-blessed ; Woman
blessed among all women ; Woman brav
est of the brave, dearest of the dear,
kindest of the kind, purest of the pure, and
holiest of the holy — Woman ! behold
thy Son." Then addressing the beloved
John, He adds : " Son ! behold thy
Mother." Never shall we know what was the
soul communication between Mother and
Son accompanying this message from
the Cross. The word is full of mystery ;
almost sacramental, all but creative.
" Behold in John the whole human
race. Become a Mother to humanity ;
bring forth afresh the redeemed race in
the throes of motherhood at the foot of
the Cross ; be to all My redeemed ones
what you have been to Me, what you
will ever be to Me — the best of Mothers."
Stretching forth her whole soul,
putting her supreme will-strength to
accept this mission to which she is
deputed, with which she is charged, this
sweetest but strongest of women takes
into her bosom the race redeemed, and
folds them to her maternal heart.
Let the repentant thief breathe forth
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JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
his last sigh in peace and so enter into
eternal bliss ; let the holy souls in Limbo
swell the triumphant procession heaven
wards, while she who feels she could fall
down dead under the Cross, will hold up,
will live on a life of prolonged agony,
doing for the Infant Church what she
had done with ecstatic delight for her
Jesus, her Saviour and her Son.
She will remain behind, no matter,
cost her what it may, loyal to her mission
as nursing Mother to the mystical body
of Jesus, till she shall be called hence to
the everlasting embrace of her only Son
in her only Home — Heaven.
" O Paradise, O Paradise.
'Tis weary waiting here,
I long to be where Jesus is,
To see and hold Him near."
Oh, the mystery of God's will ! What
a discipline, what a school, what an
education it is ! When I look around
me, when I look into the varied ex
pressions of unutterable woe, seen on the
faces of many near and dear to me, and
on the countenances of so many
thousands of others, I cannot help
exclaiming to myself; "What is all
suffering and sorrow, agony and anguish
put together, compared with the sea of
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
grief, of bitter grief in which the
Mother of my Saviour is plunged at the
foot of the Cross ! " Well may our dear
and blessed Lord remind us all, but
especially those who are overwhelmed
with sorrow, to behold their Mother.
Behold her, dive down if you can into
the depths of her sorrow, and tell me what
is the measure of it. We shall never
be able to sound the depth of her grief,
because we can never hope to gauge the
height of her love.
Like John, take her tenderly, lovingly,
devoutly to your home, to your own
heart. Make much of her ; ask her to
be a Mother to you, to help you to be
true to your mission in life, no matter
how disappointing it may be ; ask her
to teach you to do the Holy Will, and to
bear it, to follow the Crucified, to stand
up bravely in all trials under the Cross
on Calvary ; ask her to make you love
her daily more and more. How wonder
ful, how beautiful, how precious she is !
Each one of us tries to love her most.
"How do I love Thee, O my Mother blest ?
I love Thee with a love no words of men
Nor passionate strain of melody can touch ;
With all that in my own poor self is best,
With all I give my dearest one, and then
Ten thousand times ten thousand times as
much." 210

Fourth Word.
" My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ? " —
St Mark xv, 34.
A strangely weird gloom is gathering
around and over Calvary ; birds of ill
omen are sweeping across the sky, while
swarms of flies obscure the view like
banks of thick cloud torn from the angry
heavens. It is a preternatural darkness,
which, coming one knows not whence,
settles like a pall over the scene of the
Crucifixion. " Behold," said the prophet,
" darkness shall cover the earth, and
a mist the people." " And it was almost
the sixth hour, and there was darkness,"
says St Luke, " over all the earth until
the ninth hour. And the sun was
darkened." What can be the meaning
of this worse than Egyptian darkness,
"of this day of clouds and of thick
darkness ? " of this hour of blackness
and gloominess ? ' ' This is your hour and
the power of darkness," saith the Lord.
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
It is the evil one's supreme and final
struggle to thwart or arrest the triumph
of the Cross. " The people that walked
in darkness have seen a great light,"
they have looked into the face of Him
Who " enlighteneth every man coming
into the world."
Satan, the prince of this world, is
being driven back to hell, " the place
of eternal misery, confusion, horror, and
of outer darkness," and his dark wings
with those of his dark legions, as they
sweep across the sky, obscure the face
of the noon-day sun, forming an impene
trable cloud in the eye of earth and
heaven. The motley throng on the slopes of
Calvary break up into little groups, all
huddled together and speechless with
fear. It is during this felt silence,
while men are trembling, fearful to
move lest the earth should open its
jaws and hell devour them, that the
fourth word is spoken from the- Cross.
Oh ! what a ringing and piteous cry it
is ! Almost like a wail of despair, as
though some broken-hearted hero, before
falling back in death, were yielding up
his soul in an agony of pain.
" My God, my God, why hast Thou
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JESUS DYING ON THE GROSS
forsaken Me?" Forsaken Me ! " For
saken." There is no word in human
language so pregnant of blank despair
as this.
" Forsaken," it means so terribly
much, while it implies so much more.
" Forsaken," you think of the derelict
and shattered bark, with torn sails, adrift
on the open sea, or of the haunted house
on lonely moor where the rain wrestles
with the wind.
" Forsaken." Is it an infant left on
the Thames embankment ; or a child
abandoned in a garret by its drunken
mother ; or is it a poor girl cast by crime
and want upon the streets ; or else, is it
some criminal shadowed by the police,
a recruit to swell the ranks of the foes
of Society ?
" Forsaken." Perhaps some among us
gathered here around the Cross can say
that we ourselves have tasted of this
most bitter chalice, and have felt what
it is to be forsaken by fortune, or by
health, or by wife, or husband, child, or
friend. Then perhaps we have wandered
lonely as a cloud, imagining there never
was a case to mate our own in sadness.
To be forsaken by friends who are all
in all to you, to whom you have opened
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
your soul, to whom you have perhaps
committed what no one else but God
ever knew, to whom you have been as a
child in clinging trust, from whom you
sought advice, and whose every possible,
as well as actual, wish you have made it
a life-long privilege and duty to fulfil.
Ah ! no one can pretend to understand
what I mean, who has not felt these
agonies in his own soul !
Look up, once more ; open your eyes
to see ; open your mind to understand ;
open your heart to feel — realise, if you
can, something of the situation before
you. Who is this hanging on the
accursed tree ? What is this that Jesus
is suffering? Oh, why is it that He
must needs be thus tried and proved ?
Is it from His own Sacred Lips we
hear this most piteous appeal ? "My
God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken
Me?" "Quiscredidit?" Can we believe
our ears ? O blessed Mother, what can
this mean ?
Yes, ask her, if you will, what depth
of mystery, what gold-mine of wonder
ful love lies in the midst of this saddest
of all sad words. And what does the
Mater Dolorosa tell us ? Why, she bids
us remember that her adorable Son is
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JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
being offered, because He Himself has
willed it ; that He is there nailed by His
Hands and Feet to the tree because He
Himself has chosen it — for His death
bed. He is suffering for our sake — " propter
nos homines," He is bearing our infir
mities, He is carrying our griefs ; He is
as it were a leper and one struck by
God ; He is wounded for our iniquities,
He is bruised for our sins. " The Lord
hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all."
Behold here, in this sacred text of Isaias,
we have the only explanation of this
awful drama, the one and only true in
terpretation of this wail of woe ! It is
sin which is wringing from our tortured
Lord and Saviour this cry of the for
saken. Jesus has undertaken to atone for, to
repair each and every sin, and He in
vites sin to come and fasten its penalties
on Him, to wreak its chastisements on
His flesh, and to breakthrough into His
Sacred Heart, and cause it to utter the
expression of its loneliness without God.
It is because our expiring Saviour is
the Victim on the Cross, the Victim of
love, if you will, but the Victim, too, of
sin that He permits this sense of aliena-
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
tion from God, this feeling of being
thrust aside and forsaken by God to
take possession of Him. "My God,
my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ? "
Dark, murky sin-clouds seem to rise
up from the four quarters of the earth,
and as they roll over Calvary they burst
and discharge their load of revolting
horrors over the Crucified. Jesus feels
the benumbing touch of sin, the blight
ing effects of its presence, the pressure
of its dead weight upon His pure soul.
It is more than He can bear. It well
nigh crushes Him, it seems to drag Him
down into the bottomless pit — the clouds
envelop Him, the miasma of Hell is
about Him ; Heaven is receding, Cal
vary is fading away ; is He Himself —
is He the penitent or is He the sinner ?
As He lifts His sacred Eyes and nothing
sees for the thick darkness, He permits
Himself to utter this cry, to express
this awful feeling of being forsaken by
God. Let us thank our dear and blessed
Lord for this fourth word from the
pulpit of the Cross. What a sermon
it is, what a vital lesson it drives home
to our hearts ! This agonizing cry from
the Crucified is our Lord's assurance to
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JESUS DYING ON THE GROSS
us that we are never, and can never
be forsaken by God. No matter how
far we may have wandered from our
Father, no matter how riotously we
have lived, no matter to what lengths
we may have gone, or to what depth
of misery and degradation we ourselves
may have fallen or have even dragged
others, yet even then, when our country
may have cast us off, and our kith and
kill forsaken us, our Father in Heaven
will follow us, pity us, and if we will
seek His face will forgive us ; forsake
us never.
Ask the woman of Samaria, who was
living in sin ; ask Mary the Magdalen,
who had sounded the depths of sin ;
ask the unfortunate one taken in the
midst of her sin. Ask Peter who
denied, and the rest who forsook Him,
their loving Saviour Jesus Christ ; ask
them, and they will tell you our dear
Lord does not wait to hear the act of
sorrow ; He, like His Eternal Father,
goes to meet the sinner to give recon
ciliation, pardon, union.
There is no limit to His mercy.
Listen —
" Kind hearts are here, yet would the tenderest one
Have limits to its mercy ; God has none
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
Yes, man's forgiveness may be true and sweet
But yet he stoops to give it. More complete
Is love than lays forgiveness at thy feet,
And pleads with thee to raise it. Only Heaven
Means crowned, not vanquished, when it says —
' Forgiven.' "
The lesson to be learned from this
fourth word is " Trust." Is there any
soul present here, who feels it is no
use trying ? Is there perhaps another
who is saying in his heart : " I have
tried so often, but it is always the same
relapse — I cannot break the chains
forged by years of habitual sin ? " And
there may be others also who fancy no one
cares for them, that God has long ceased
to hear their prayers :
" Kind hearts are here, yet would the tenderest
one
Have limits to its mercy ; God has none."
God's mercy is limitless, as His sway
is boundless, and His power fathomless.
Trust Him ; He appreciates nothing
more than trust. Say with David :
" though I should walk in the midst of
the shadow of death I will fear no evil,
for Thou art with me." With Job :
" Although He should slay me, I will
trust in Him ; " and with Jeremias :
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JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
" The Lord is with me as a strong
warrior, He is my Portion and my
Salvation." Arise, and let us say to Him, as He
gazes down upon us so pathetically from
the Cross : —
" O Jesus, my name is Pride, Covet
ousness, Lust, Anger, Gluttony, Envy,
Sloth. I am called Might-have been,
Forsaken, Misery, Despair, but though
I walk in the midst of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil, for Thou — my
Dying Saviour — art with me."
" Cast sin aside, lean on thy Guide,
His boundless mercy will provide ;
Trust, and thy trusting soul shall prove,
Christ is thy life, and Christ thy love."

219

Fifth Word
" I thirst."— St John xix, 28.
Of all mysteries the most mysterious is
the mystery of divine Love. At one
time we fancy we know so much about it,
while at another we discover we know so
little ; sometimes we flatter ourselves we
are beginning to sound its depths, but too
soon we find there is no plummet to
measure it ; or else we fondly hope we
are gaining upon it and may presently
reach its highest point, when suddenly we
see a vast range of hills before us hiding
its beauty still further from our sight.
Till we pass from this arid, pathless,
desert land to slake our soul's thirst at the
fountain-head of divine Love we must
be content just to taste, and by tasting
see that the Lord is sweet.
Love's Home is Heaven ; outside of
Heaven, Love is in disguise, as a Babe
laid in a crib at Bethlehem, or as a felon
hanging crucified on Calvary; or else
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JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
Love is hidden behind the veils of
wheaten bread in the tabernacle.
Yes, here outside the City of perfect
beauty, here in a land sin-stained and
care- burdened, Love is bathed in tears,
scourged at a pillar, crowned with thorns,
nailed to a Cross. For a moment look at
some of the effects of Love.
In the divine Infant folded in sleep
upon its Mother's bosom, I see Love
emptying Himself of Himself that He
may give Himself to me. And here on
the Cross I see Love sacrificing Himself
and offering Himself that He Himself
may die instead of me ; while if I turn to
the tabernacle on the altar, I find Love
annihilating Himself and turned to the
semblance of bread that He Himself may
nourish me. Oh, the height and the
depth, the length and the breadth of
divine Love ! If Thou art so ravishingly
attractive seen as a Babe, as a Slave, as
Sin, as Bread :
" Oh ! what when face to face ! "
To whom then are we indebted for
our more intimate knowledge of divine
Love ? To Jesus Christ.
Until He came and translated divine
Love into human symbols, and expressed
divine Love in human language, and
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
divine service in human sacrifice, what
did man know of Love, of God ? For
God is Love.
It is when I look up at the crucifix,
that I begin to realise " Amor meus
crucifixus," that I learn my first very
real lesson in Love. " Respice in faciem
Christi tui" Look into the face of Jesus
Christ, peruse His wounds, number His
bones, listen to His deep sighs, hear
His words of love. What is this great
sight? This is Love, self-giving, ex
pressed in terms of self-sacrifice. Pause
for a moment, and hear Him : " Greater
love than this no man hath that he
lay down his life for his friend."
But I am the friend ; He Joves me
and giveth Himself for me. Is it not
true what I said a moment ago ; Love is
of all mysteries the great mystery ?
O my Lord and Saviour, Jesus
Christ : " Quid est homo " — what can
you find to love in man so intensely,
so ardently, so enthusiastically, so ex
travagantly that, not content to agonize
for him, you must needs call out to him
in the supreme moment of excruciating
pain— "Sitio," "I thirst."
Yes, there on the cross, our Lord is
tortured by a raging thirst which nothing
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JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
can slake while there is a human soul to
save. His dear, precious, mangled Body
drained of Its blood, all on fire with pain,
is in an agony for water. " My Body is
athirst. I thirst as never did ship
wrecked mariner, or galley slave, or
martyr flung into flames. I thirst more
than Dives crying out for one drop of
water to cool his burning tongue. I
thirst for water, but this thirst in My
Body is nothing compared with My soul
thirst. ' Da mihi animas : ' bring me,
give me souls, and I will gladly bleed
and die for them."
"Quae utilitas in sanguine meo?
Why shed My Blood, to what purpose
this waste, why toss aside My Life, if the
sacrifice will not woo and win for My
poor, broken Heart the souls of men."
What is divine Love translated into
human? What is divine self-giving,
expressed in terms of human self-
sacrifice ? It is a thirst for souls.
Is there in this congregation some
sorrow-stricken soul asking : " And why
does He care for me ? " Before answering
that let me put a question : And pray,
why do children so love the things they
make, that they will sit down and cry
inconsolable when they are snatched or
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
stolen away ; or, why did the artist so
highly prize the marble sculptured by his
hand that he stood wondering why it did
not speak ; or, tell me why will the hen
fight for her brood, and rest not till she
hath gathered them in shelter under her
wings ; or lastly, why will a mother hang
over the bed of her child fading, drooping,
dying, plucked too soon from her breast, in
an agony of woe because she may not take
its place and die that it may live ?
There is but one explanation of these
revelations of natural love : all these
phases, tokens of love, are shadowings
forth, beggarly outline drawings of God's
love of souls, created by Him out of
nothing, formed and fashioned to His
own image and likeness, and made to
partake of the duration of His Eternal
life, to enjoy the raptures of His bliss,
the wealth of His love, the strength of
His being, its sweetness, kindness,
loveliness, goodness, for evermore.
God created man for Eternal love :
and love — not knowledge, not morality,
not faith, not hope — is man's everlasting
destiny. Yes, union with God, which is
nothing else but love of God, in the face-
to-face possession of Him, is the grand
end for which we have been created.
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JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
It is because our blessed Lord saw
this destiny wrecked, this end lost, and
lost for ever; lost by man's own fault,
lost for so poor, paltry, petty a trifle — a
bauble — that He leapt from His Great
White Throne into the little dark chamber
of Mary's bosom, there took flesh, became
man, and travelled from Bethlehem to
Calvary, from the crib to the cross, on
which we now see Him dying more of a
broken heart than from physical suffering,
struggling with parched tongue and
fevered lips to say; "Sitio," "I thirst."
Does anyone here present know what
it is to thirst for a friend torn away from
his life, robbed from his heart all bleed
ing with pain, gone, and gone for ever ?
It is a foretaste of hell.
Or is there here a sad widowed mother
whose only child, on whom she lavished
all her heart's blood, has been enticed
away from her, and gone, a prodigal, into
a far country, wasting his substance
living riotously ? Oh the agony and
raging thirst to see her son and once
again to fold him in her arms !
But what are these but weak examples
of devouring thirst when set beside the
thirst of Christ our Lord for souls. He
and He only knows what thirst awaits
p 225

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
the sinner in the fiery pools of hell. He
Himself is bleeding, dying to save such
a one from the consequences of his mad
folly. " Come, come to Me, come repent,
and slake My thirst."
" My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for Thy love
Or cordial in the searching cold :
Cast in the fire the perished thing :
Melt and re-mould it till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King
O Jesus, drink of me."
Come to Him not with the sour vinegar
of distrust and fear, but with the sweet
wine of love and trust.
"If thou didst know the gift of God,
and Who He is that saith to thee : ' Give
Me to drink,' thou perhaps wouldst have
asked of Him, and He would have given
thee living water. He that shall drink
of the water that I will give him shall
not thirst for ever." Oh, that you
members of Society, who vainly attempt
to slake your thirst at cisterns that can
hold no water, would give heed to this.
Remember that our dear and blessed
Lord knows us, and knows our wants,
and thus He knows that there is one
fountain, and one only at which we can
quench our heart's thirst. He sees you,
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JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
Society men and women, drinking of every
fountain, and trying the waters of every
tainted stream ; but He knows you might
as well try to appease your thirst with the
waters of the wide, deep sea. " My
people," He cries out by the mouth of
His prophet: "have done two great
evils ; they have forsaken me, the fountain
of living waters, and have dug for them
selves cisterns that can hold no water."
There is nothing that can quench man's
thirst but love, and let me repeat it there
is no love outside the Heart of Jesus that
will slake it. I ask you who have tried
to satisfy your cravings with creatures,
have you found rest, refreshment?
" Whosoever drinketh of this water shall
thirst again : " and, perhaps it will be in
hell, and then the thirst will be for God !
But it will be too late — too late ! Oh
take heed, and listen to this sad story —
" Then died away
That voice, in silence as of sorrow :
Then footsteps echoing Uke a sigh
Pass us by,
Lingering footsteps, slow to pass.
On the morrow
I saw the grass,
Each footprint marked in blood, and on
the door
The mark of blood for evermore."
227

Sixth Word
" It is finished." — St John xix, 30.
To the chosen three, to the Magdalen, _
to John and to the Blessed Mother what
an agony was that noon-day darkness
that hid away from their eyes the face
of their beloved Jesus ! The moments
lengthened into hours, till they felt that
a life-time had been lived during the
distressing impenetrable darkness.
Do you not fancy you can hear " the
woman that had been a sinner," as she
turns beseechingly first to John and then
to our dear Lady, asking ; " Will this
mid-day night ever lift ; will this torture
ever come to an end ? "
Presently the black pall is torn by the
winds, and the silver lining of the sable
clouds as they roll past tells that the
sun still is shining, and that the hour of
the power of darkness is fast passing
away. With the dispersing of the clouds
the divine Love- Victim once more up-
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JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
lifts His dear Head, exclaiming as He turns
His eyes to Heaven : " It is finished."
O dear Lord, what is finished? He
seems to say : "A very history is
finished. First of all the cruel work of
sin is finished. Look upon Me and you
will see even in the ravages sin has
wrought on My Body how finished is its
work of destruction. Ask those who tell
you sin is but "an impropriety" or "a want
of taste," nay,"atoken of life and growth,"
to gaze upon its handiwork graven on
My mangled, torn and bleeding frame
stretched on this Cross, to which sin has
so closely nailed it. Ask the pleasure-
seeker, the scoffer, and the gambler
to come from their well-lit lounges of
vice and count up, if they can, the
number of lashes and gashes their lives
have inflicted upon My Body hanging
on this tree. Bid the woman of fashion,
equipped in gowns for which she will
not pay, to look for a moment on Me
covered with blood, and dust, and spittle ;
tell the realist, who prides himself on
describing fleshly horrors as they truly
are, to depict the hideousness of sin
which has made of Me ' the most beauti
ful among the sons of men ' ' as it were
a leper,' ' in whom there is no beauty and
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
no comeliness.' Invite all those votaries
of pleasure in Society who drink down
iniquity like water, who fill themselves
with costly wine, who crown themselves
with roses, who riot in every meadow,
whose strength is their law of justice,
and who say there is no sin except
being dull, and no remorse except being
found out, to come forth from their
whited sepulchres, their lairs of unclean-
ness and dens of iniquity, and stand,
forcing themselves to gaze upon My Body
mangled through their deeds of shame."
Let them behold in Calvary sin's
finished picture, its framed masterpiece.
" Is it nothing to you ? Look upon
Me — open your eyes and see, open your
ears and hear — read the inscription :
'Consummatum est.' Your life of in
dulgence in sin has triumphed. With
your soft and delicate hand you have
stabbed Me in the Heart, and I am
dying. Sin has triumphed ! Which of
you who boasts of your social distinctions
dare stand under the Cross and ask,
'Is it I, Lord?*"
" If any man say he has not sinned, he
deceiveth himself, " says the Apostle, ' ' and
the truth is not in him." In the measure
in which you have sinned, in that measure
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JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
you have taken part in the Passion and
Death of Jesus Christ. For once in
your lives, torday at least, force your
selves to read in the scene before
you not a desultory historical fact, not
even the story only of one put to death
through the envy of the Jews, and in
consequence of the weakness of a time
serving Roman Governor, but in the
sight before your eyes, see what you
Society people have done. Bring home
to your own hearts what "having a
good time ; " what " being natural and
happy;" what "yielding to Nature;"
" the sanctity of sense " really means.
It means taking up a whip and with it
lacerating the body of Jesus Christ, it
means seizing hold of iron nails and
driving them into the Hands and Feet of
Him Who wants us to be brave and pure,
it means fastening a thorny crown upon
that Head which is the seat of wisdom,
and thrusting an iron spear into that
Heart which is the throne of Love.
" Consummatum est." " It is finished."
Behold your own handiwork ; it is written
with blood on the flesh itself of Him who
is actually hanging on the tree before us.
How say : " there is no possible wrong
in pleasing each other as we like best ! "
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
Besides reading in the word "It is
finished" the history of a single wilful
deliberate mortal sin, I read also another
story : it is a love story, the great, the
greatest love story. It is entitled, " He
loved them to the end." Just as sin is
the only real evil, so love is the only
real good. In fact love is everything,
nothing else matters.
There is absolutely no substitute for
love, for "all gold in comparison of her
is as a little sand, and silver in respect
of her shall be counted as clay," better
than health and beauty, her light cannot
be put out. " She is an infinite treasure
to man." To die without love is
to be lost, to die with love is to be
saved. Love, then, is man's perfect beauty,
love is man's final destiny. I repeat
then what I have already said ; nothing
else really matters. To teach us this
first lesson in the spiritual life, to help
us to realise what it means, our divine
Lord willingly submitted to all the in
dignities, the injuries, the insults, the
torments of body and the tortures of
soul involved in His Sacred Passion and
Death. Nothing short of the scenes of
Holy Week was calculated to bring right
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JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
home to frivolous Society the true nature
of Love.
Our Lord knew that (had He not
suffered for man) wayward man, always
on the look out for excuses, would have
argued that it was true, indeed, God had
shown a sort of love in creating him, had
proved still more His love by coming on
earth and living for him ; but what of
that? Where had been the self-giving
which was ready to express itself in self-
sacrifice ? Our dear and blessed Lord
would not give to man the opportunity
of thus belittling His great love. So,
"having loved His own, "says the Apostle,
" He loved them to the end."
The love of the Saviour for the sinner
is a perfect love. It is a finished love.
Can you not imagine that you actually
hear Him as He reads the story of the
sins of Society exclaiming from the Cross,
"Greater love than this no man hath."
The Cross is the measure of love — the
measure of our Lord's love for us. " He
loved me, and gave Himself for me," is
the exclamation that must spring from
the heart of each of you with the same
intensity as it leapt from the soul of the
Apostle St Paul.
You then are something more than so
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
many political votes, so much social
influence, so many shares in a company,
so much gold in the bank. Whatever
you may be in Society, before Jesus
Christ you are so much love. If you
have none for Him, you are nothing ; and
when you shall knock at the Golden
Gate, to your cry, "Let me in," you
shall hear the answer, " I know you
not." Here calculate, if you can, the price
paid, reckon the cost, tell me in terms of
toil and sweat, of jeers and blows, of in
sults and injuries, in loss of friends, of
reputation, of blood and of life, what
Jesus has laid down that He may win
and take up your love which foolishly
you lavish "on loveliness which every
moment dies." Surely, " you are bought
at a great price" — verily, your love is
no longer your own !
If anyone has a right to the first place
in your heart it is Jesus Christ. " Come
to me," is still His cry, " Love Me,"
"Give Me thy heart," "Abide in My
love." Yes, I hear someone saying :
" Ah, that I could be sure of myself, if
only I could not merely be in His dear
love, but abide, and abide in it for ever."
You may become morally sure of the
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JESUS DYING ON THE CROSS
accomplishment of your wish, if only, like
His friends loyal and true, you take the
means. " Consummatum est." " It is
finished." Our Lord's mission is ac
complished, His work is done. " I have
finished the work Thou gavest Me to
do." What was our Lord's work and
mission ? Not merely to show the
malignity of sin, to prove the sanctity of
love, but to furnish means for the endur
ance, persistence, final perseverance of
love. The Church is a finished work. In it
you will find all that is needed to ensure
your love against the shipwreck of faith,
or the loss of hope ; which are sail and
rudder of that frail vessel, whose cargo is
love. You who are Catholics frequent
the Sacraments ; make your religion a
reality, and you will abide in God's love.
Love can only feed on love. "He that
eateth my flesh and drinketh My blood
abideth in Me, and I in him." However
and wherever others may compete for
your heart's best treasure, hear always
and everywhere the piteously pleading
Voice calling to you from the Cross :
"Abide in My love."
Be thorough-hearted Catholics ; think
the mind of the Church, do the bidding
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
of the Church, promote the interests of
the Church, and you will abide now and
for ever and evermore in the love of God
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. For
you nothing else really matters. You
who are with us, though not of us,
remember these words of the Sculptor-
Poet :
" That is not love whose tyranny is held
In loveliness which every moment dies.
Which, like the face it worships fades away ;
True love is that which the pure heart hath known,
Which alters not with time or death's decay,
Yielding on earth earnest of Paradise."

236

Seventh Word.
" Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit." —
St Luke xxiii, 46.
Our dear and blessed Lord, St Paul
reminds us, was like us in all things with
the exception of sin. Readily we may
realise how, like us, He suffered from
the heat and the cold, from hunger and
thirst, from fatigue and weariness ; how
keenly His fine nature suffered from the
slights, insults, the misunderstandings
and misinterpretations of the people
among whom "He went about doing
good." There is no difficulty in picturing to
our minds all these mental tortures and
heart-aches to which Jesus was subject
as man, but what is most difficult to bring
home to ourselves is that He could have
shared in that terrible loneliness, that
state of utter alienation, separation,
apartness from everybody and every
thing which people feel who have lost,
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SOICETY.SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
and lost for all time a child, a husband,
a friend. I refer to that agony which I
can only compare with what a child
experiences when, having incurred the
displeasure of its mother, it is sent away,
and then hides itself in some dark room,
where sitting with head buried in its lap
it sobs itself sick. I have known strong
and resolute men in the agony of a
great grief, thus play the child. " And
David sobbed," and Peter too.
But what is the cry of lamentation
piercing the very clouds of heaven that
comes from one who feels he is aban
doned by God ! May we be spared this
paralysing agony! It is the torture of
the damned. No words can describe the
mere facial expression of one who is
thus beside himself, and yet not insane.
A poor half-witted orphan boy whom
I had known in the North, lost his
situation, and when there seemed no
hope of securing one there, he walked to
London, being helped along the road by
fellow tramps. He came to me, and
when shall I forget the tears in his eyes,
the tears in his voice, the look of blank
despair and the vacant stare as kneeling
he clutched hold of me to save him from
he knew not what. 238

CHRIST DYING ON THE CROSS
Our Lord went through the most
terrible desolation ; we heard His cry to
His God when undergoing it, asking ;
" Why hast Thou forsaken Me ? " With
that piteous cry ringing like an alarm
bell in the towers of our souls, we learn
to bear all lesser griefs, knowing Him.
For, alas !
" Deep grief is not a past event,
It is a life, a state.
Which habit makes more terrible,
And age more desolate.
But am I comfortless ? Oh, no 1
Jesus this pathway trod,
And deeper in my soul than grief
Art thou, my Lord, my God.
Dear Lord, in all our loneliest pain
Thou hast the largest share,
And that which is unbearable
'Tis Thine, not ours to bear."
No word taken from any other scene
in the life of three and thirty years tells
us so forcibly as the cry on the Cross
what our Lord's manhood meant, what
it brought to Him as the Man of Sorrows,
the Victim of sin.
Had this cry of Christ forsaken been
our Lord's last spoken word from the
Cross, then some troubled souls perhaps,
might have been at a loss as to how to
account for it. But the fourth word
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
must be interpreted by the seventh and
last word. The strong prayer ; "Father
into Thy hands I commend My spirit " is
the complement, the co-relative of that
agonizing cry which, apart from the con
text and torn from the scene where it was
uttered, might puzzle or shock some
souls. " Father, into Thy hands I commend
My spirit." Oh the comfort of it, the
consolation of it ! Our Lord began his
sermon of seven words by addressing
His Father, and He closes His discourse,
which ends only with His death, by
again speaking, praying so confidingly
to His Father. Although Jesus our
Lord went through the agony of feeling
what it is to be forsaken of God, yet He
did not lose conscious hold of His ab
solute reliance on His Father's perfect
knowledge and perfect love of Him.
And so when the end comes, and He
knows His mission to be fulfilled, Jesus
lifts His eyes to Heaven, and with a loud
voice proclaims that now He is going
Home, to His Father, to whose loving
care He commits His human soul uncon
ditionally. In this seventh and last word spoken
by our dying Saviour we have epito-
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CHRIST DYING ON THE CROSS
mised all that our dear Master wants to
teach us. It supplies us with a motto, a
text which sums up every previous ser-
mon.warning.exhortation. It bids us yield
childlike, clinging trust to God — so that
whenever and wheresoever death shall
find us, it shall find us giving up our
whole being with unconditional surrender
into the hands of Him who made us,
Who saves us, because He knows and
loves us.
" For thou hast made this wondrous soul
All for Thyself alone ;
Oh, send Thy sweet, transforming grace,
And make it all Thy own."
What did the perfect Man want most
of all from His fellow men ; what did
He most eloquently plead for, and what
does He still continue to beseech even
you and me to give Him ? It is an
intelligent love, a love based on our
knowledge of Him ; a knowledge which
again is fed on our love of Him. To be
understood by men, and to be loved by
them, this is our Lord's urgent entreaty.
Some men there are now who profess
to want Christianity without Christ, who
want to tear from their context choice
passages from the Sermon on the Mount,
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
but they do not want any introduction to
Christ's teaching about the Incarnation,
the Atonement, or the Resurrection.
" We want no dogma, but a Christianity
freed of all such stuff; dogma is not
religion : we want, we need a Christian
ity which teaches us what to do. It is
conduct that the world asks for." Well,
you cannot start Christianity properly
so-called without the most tremendous
dogma — belief in Divinity of Christ ; and
before thinking of what you ought to do,
find out what you must be. Man before
God is not what he does but what he is ;
character first and conduct will follow.
Know what to be and you will soon learn
what to do, and how to do it. Become
Christ-like by your knowledge and love
of Him, and then your conduct and doing
will be Christ-like. To be Christ-like is to
be a Christian — for Christianity is Christ,
and Christ is Christianity! " Know
Christ and Him Crucified," and you will
have no more difficulty than St Paul
had in believing all the teaching of Christ.
If all men really knew Christ, they
would all inevitably become Catholics.
And now, after this digression, let me
come back to our main issue. I want
you to lay hold of this vital and vitalising
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truth, that the great need of every human
being is to love someone who knows him
and loves him completely. The child
finds this cry of its soul answered in,
and satisfied by, its mother. The child
believes that its mother is all knowledge,
all power, and all love. Let the rain
patter against the window panes, let the
wind scream like a wounded thing, let the
thunder crash and the lightning flash and
all nature rise up to shatter the home to
ruins, yet will the child feel quite safe so
long as its head is smothered in its
mother's lap, and her dear hands are
sheltering it from all danger. Alas !
when the child grows into a man, then
comes the cruel change. He begins to
find there is perhaps no human being who
completely understands him. Occasions
occur when even those most closely allied
to each other are forced to confess they
have been misunderstood. How often
is not this dialogue heard between those
bound by love-ties to each other s " If
you only knew me better, you would love
me more : " " But you can't sympathise
because you can't understand : " " If only
you had more insight you would know
what I mean : " "If you knew what I
suffer you would not say so j " "If you
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
really loved me you could never have
said, have done so."
There is not one in a million who finds
in another human being the key to the
wards in the lock of his heart. When
that discovery is made, if ever it is, then
you have a soul-union between friends
which I can describe only by calling it a
soul-marriage. It is an indissoluble, un
changing, and indestructible friendship,
which no power can tear asunder. "It
is for ever."
I say rarely indeed is such a friend
ship as I have described to be found on
this fickle planet. However, let this be
your supreme comfort that there is One,
just One Who does both know and love
each one of you with a perfect insight
and a perfect affection. It was the union
of these two talents that created and
constituted the influence and the charm
of Jesus Christ. It was the recognition
of this two-fold magic power in our Lord
that drew the publican and the sinner,
the rich and the poor, the strong and the
sick, the young and the old to Him.
Only to see Him is to realise that there
at last, is one Who knows all, and Who
cares for me in spite of my past, Who
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CHRIST DYING ON THE CROSS
Was it not something like this that
made " the whole world," as our Lord's
enemies said, "go after Him."
Do you think Magdalen would have
found her soul's centre at His Blessed
Feet but for the sense that He understood
all about her, and could love her in spite
of it ?
Or do you suppose the penitent thief
would have turned with all his heart to
our Lord if he had not felt sure ? " He
knows and He will pity me."
Take one scene more ; perhaps the
most touching as it is one of the most
instructive in the whole Gospel story. It
is after that meal prepared by our Lord's
own hands for the dear fishermen who
had laboured all the night and caught
nothing. Peter was most likely think
ing : " Oh how wonderful He is ! I do
wish I had not been so weak and
cowardly as to have denied Him." Just
then our divine Lord comes near to Peter,
and putting His arm about him, draws
him aside. See with what tenderness
He looks inquiringly into the penitent's
face, and as He does so He softly asks
him : " Simon, son of John, lovest thou
Me ? " Three times does our Lord
repeat the question, and as many times
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
does Blessed Peter repeat the answer :
"Yea, Lord, Thou knowest all things,
Thou knowest that I love Thee."
Watch : big hot tears are coursing down
the furrowed cheeks of the penitent man,
but yet he feels this to be thevery happiest
moment in all his life. How grateful he
is for this precious opportunity of telling
his beloved Master that he must have
been mad when he denied Him, that it
was not his real self: "Oh Thou
knowest, because Thou knowest all
things : Thou knowest then this that I
do love Thee." Poor Peter would not
perhaps have ventured to make this pro
fession of love of his Master before the
other disciples, for they with their shallow
knowledge and partial judgments might
have taunted him, and tossed back into
his choking throat the story of the awful
night ; but now that he has our Lord all
to himself, he can just weep his sad
bosom empty, and give his sorrow and
love, and trust, living words, because " He
knows, He knows, He knows all things."
Some one among you may ask me :
" Seeing that our dear Lord knew of the
love in Simon Peter's heart, why did He
keep on asking him for the external pro
fession of it ? " Jesus asks Peter to tell
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CHRIST DYING ON THE CROSS
Him again and again in so many words
of his love for Him because He is human
as well as divine ; in other words because
Jesus Christ is all Heart, and the heart
loves to hear the love once uttered
expressed again and again.
Trust, then, trust in our Lord's love of
us, is what alone can satisfy Jesus Christ,
and it alone can satisfy the disciples of
Jesus Christ. It is the last lesson taught
from the Cross. Let us learn this lesson
and never forget it. Never again say:
" I am tortured by all my past sins, and
I feel sure they can't be forgiven." Con
fide, trust, and do not say : " I dare not
go to Holy Communion, because I am
not sure whether the priest realised the
actual state of my soul." Confide, trust,
nor must you say : " I am so troubled
about my faith that I am not sure that I
believe at all." Confide, trust. When
times are worst, say not : " It is no use
my going to confession, for I am almost
sure to fall back again." Confide, trust.
Above all things say not : " I can't believe
in hell, for if there is a hell I am sure to
be lost." Confide. Trust.
Like Magdalen, like Dismas, like
Peter, trust in Him Who knoweth all
things, Who knows that in spite of many
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
weaknesses and follies we really do wish
to love and to please Him.
And now, my Catholic brethren, do not
be so wholly preoccupied with your own
spiritual concerns as to forget your duty
and your mission to others who are
fighting the battle of faith and loyalty.
Observe, Jesus did not say to Simon
Peter : " Spend the remainder of your
life in seclusion, weeping over the past."
But what he said came to this : " If you
do really love Me, go forth and tell
others of this love, feed them on it, both
lambs and sheep, begin in your own
home, and go thence into all the land
about and let all mankind know that they
may put their trust in Me — yes, in life
and in death."
Look up, He is dying and over the
Cross in letters of gold and blood see :
"Greater love than this no man hath."
And now one word to you who live
for this world, to you who all your lives
have shirked the story of the Passion,
who have avoided Calvary and have
echoed Peter's words (yet not Peter's
love) on Thabor ; " It is good for us
to be here," let me ask, is this terrible
drama, that we have been witnessing
during the past Three Hours, nothing
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CHRIST DYING ON THE CROSS
to you ? Nay, I will ask you, has
it not been enacted more especially
for you who have drunk down sin like
water, and have trampled on the Blood
of the Innocent One? " It is good for
you to be here." You have listened too
long to the voice of the charmer and to
the cry of the sophist bidding you to toss
aside the thought of your sins, assuring
you that there is no harm in what is called
sin, that no one can help committing sin,
that the pain which springs from it is in no
sense the penalty of sin, that the remorse
which sickens you is not the guilt attaching
to sin, but only a pain which with health
you will outgrow or at worst a ghost
which with resolution may be laid to rest.
These views about sin and its con
sequences may find their way into the
club-room, the boudoir, may sound very
well in the salon and drawing-room, but
they are out of place in Gethsemane and
on Calvary. Here, as on the battlefield,
we seldom meet the agnostic and the
secularist. Standing beside the Crucified
you are in the presence of One about
Whom you cannot be indifferent ; you
are beside the death-bed of One Whom
you must be for or against. He hath
said it, " Who is not with Me is against
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
Me. He that soweth not, scattereth."
Fall into your right place ; come, I say,
take up your stand beside Gestas on the
left of your Saviour, or draw nigh to the
Blessed Mother on His right near
Dismas. I charge you to proclaim here
and now either your treachery or
loyalty. I care not what may have been
your past, whether as bad as the repent
ant or worse than the unrepentant thief,
what I do demand is that you shall
declare before the Sacred Head is bowed
in death what you are going to be from
henceforth and for ever. Oh ! do not for
a moment hesitate, but to our knees let
us sink with hearts humbled and contrite
praying, " Lord, remember me." " Re
member me, but forget my sins.
Pardon me, and blot out my iniquities.
Create a clean and humble heart within
me." " Remember me, and send into my
soul the stream of Thy love, that I may
never part from Thee."
Oh ! when the knees stumble on the
mountain, and the dew is drunk up by the
sun, " before the silver cord is broken,
and the golden fillet shrink back, and the
pitcher be crushed at the fountain, and
the wheel be broken at the the cistern,"
then " Remember me." Yes, in that last
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CHRIST DYING ON THE CROSS
tremendous moment when the mind
darkens and the will grows feeble and the
heart is faint ; when the weak hands
clutch at airy nothings, when the ashy
lips are parted and the glassy eyes are
dim, and the cold sweat stands out upon
the stricken frame, and the ears are deaf
to the voice that had once been music
to the heart ; Oh ! then when this world
with its many ties and many lies is pass
ing away like a tale nearly told, when
the life of shadows is too quickly chang
ing into the life of realities, when my
past excuses for indulgence in sin shall,
in the fierce light of divine truth, shrivel
up into nothingness, and I shall be left
tossing on a bed of pain, being forced
to gaze into the face of my real self and
my real past ; O Jesus, Saviour, " Re
member me." Cast me not away, but
bid me come to Thee in Paradise. O
Father Eternal, look not on me with
such a record to my past, but " look
upon the Face of Thy Christ : "
" Look, Father, look on His anointed Face,
And only look on me as found in Him ;
Look not on my misusings of Thy grace,
My prayers so languid, my faith so dim ;
For lo ! between my sins and their reward
I set the Passion of Thy Son, our Lord."
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SCENE VIII
CHRIST RISEN FROM THE
DEAD

CHRIST RISEN FROM THE
DEAD.
"If ye be risen with Christ, seek the things that are
above, where Christ is." — Epistle of St Paul to the
Colossians iii, i.
We are living in a strangely contra
dictory age — an age in which some
would-be Christians seem to have no
more difficulty than have politicians in
making statements that are destructive
of one another. For instance we all
know of those who, while professing to
be followers of our Lord, deny His
Virgin Birth as well as His Resurrec
tion. With the Apostles' Creed proclaiming
that our Lord suffered under Pontius
Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried,
and that on the third day He rose again
from the dead, it does seem a little in
consistent in those who claim Apostolic
Succession to deny Articles of Faith
which the Apostles themselves publicly
professed. For many hundreds of years
the physical Resurrection of our Lord
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
has been taken to account for the moral
resurrection of Society.
But now we have reached a stage on
life's journey when not a few persons
outside the Catholic Church argue that
if Christ did rise from the grave, clearly
He never died on the Cross ; whereas if
He did actually die on the Cross, then of
course He never rose from the grave.
And they add as if speaking of a fact
about which there could be no dispute.
" Miracles, you know, do not happen."
Starting enquiry with the denial of the
miraculous, it is hardly likely that our
friends could hope to arrive at any argu
ment that would satisfy them of the ob
jective reality of our Blessed Lord's
risen life. These higher critics, after in
vestigating the historical evidence found
in the Gospels, in the Acts, and in the
Epistles of St Paul, for the reality of the
Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ,
contend they have arrived at the con
clusion that there is no objective evi
dence at all, for what all right-minded
Christians accept as shown satisfactorily
at once by historical and by traditional
evidence. I too find myself compelled
to differ from these Biblical critics, for
unlike them I have discovered few facts
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CHRIST RISEN FROM THE DEAD
of history so completely and so abund
antly proved as the Death and Resurrec
tion of our Lord.
Christianity, or the religion established
by Jesus Christ, has come down to us
through the ages, and has appealed to
the sixty generations that have come
and gone during that period, with such
singular force and efficacy, just because
it is the religion of our Crucified and
Glorified Saviour risen from the dead.
Not for a moment do I contend that
these great facts are the solitary proofs
of the Divinity of Christ, but they are
the historical facts to which He Himself
pointed as to the last links in a long
chain of evidence, by which He wished
the truth of His tremendous claims to
be finally tested.
Hence His Apostle could write to the
Corinthians : "If Christ be not risen
from the dead, then is our preaching
vain, and your faith is also vain."
In other words, I take it, if Christ did
not really die on the Cross and rise
again from the grave, then Christianity
with all its matchless achievements in
all departments of life during the past
two thousand years, must be set down
as the outcome not of fact, but of fraud,
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
not of supernatural truth, but of a
diabolical lie. Pause for a moment and
ask yourselves, what was the moral state
of Society before the Church was planted
by our risen Saviour ? Never perhaps
in the history of our race was there such
a dark chapter to record. Poets I know
called it the Golden Age. If it was
golden at all it was so only because
men more than ever fell down in worship
before the Golden Calf, and all that
ministers to the mammon of unrighteous
ness. It was a time when the human
heart was like a dried-up spring, with no
pure stream of love to flow forth from
it for the regeneration of mankind ; it
was a time when, as the Apostle reminds
us, men and women were without natural
affections, when such children as did
happen to be born to them were " dis
obedient with their hearts darkened."
This we are assured by historians and
satirists was the state of things in Society
when our Lord moved to and fro in the
cradle-land of Christianity, "going about
doing good."
Is it an exaggeration to say that
Society was expiring of moral suicide
when there appeared beside her death
bed, the Risen Saviour ? He and none
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CHRIST RISEN FROM THE DEAD
other stood over against her, and at the
sound of His Voice new life seemed to
thrill through her entire being. Presently
Europe rose to her feet, the films fell
from her eyes, she gazed into the Face
of Him Who had died and risen again,
and recognising Him to be her divine
Saviour, she exclaimed, " Too late have
I known Thee, O Ancient Truth, too
late have I loved Thee, O Thou Supreme
Beauty." I scarcely need remind you who live in
a land covered with Cathedrals, Minsters
and Abbeys, of what Christianity did
for more than a thousand years in our
Fatherland and in Western Europe.
With no halting feet she made progress
along the many ways of life, scattering
the largesse not merely of her heavenly
smile, of her encouraging word, but in
spiring the whole wide world about her
with the enthusiasm of a people, who
with Christ were risen from the dead.
I cannot pretend, within the limits of
an Easter day discourse, to do more
than remind you of what Europe was
before, and what she became afterwards.
because of her belief in the reality of
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
We are told that there are none who
are so blind as those who will not see.
I fear that those who say they cannot
accept the Resurrection would be nearer
the truth were they to say " We will not
accept it." Anyhow, what they set down
as accounting for our belief in it is pas
sing strange.
For a moment bear with me while I
remind you on the one hand of the non-
Death Theory, and on the other of the
Vision Theory, which men have trumped
up to account for Europe's belief in our
Risen Saviour. The non- Death Theory,
which Schleiermacher, Paul of Heidel
berg, Huxley, ahd others have made
their own, contends that, as some men
of sound and temperate habits of life
have been known to survive the pains
of crucifixion, so as a matter of fact our
Lord did not really die but only swooned
away, gradually recovering, till finally He
was able to get away to Galilee among
His disciples, who put about the story
that He had actually risen from the dead.
That this really happened in the case
of Jesus Christ was, we are told by these
critics, absolutely clear, for did not Pilate
himself express surprise when he was
asked for the Sacred Body of our Lord ?
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CHRIST RISEN FROM THE DEAD
The supporters of this theory choose
to forget to add that the Roman Governor
according to St Mark, in whom they put
such absolute reliance, refused to allow
the body of Christ to be taken for burial,
until he himself was satisfied by the cen
turion about the reality of His death.
That men have been known in past
history to recover from the effects of
crucifixion is certain enough, but then
they had been spared tortures such
as were inflicted on our Lord before
He reached Calvary ; besides this, their
wounds were attended to, they were
properly nursed and cared for, most
assuredly they were not buried, nor suffo
cated in a sepulchre by the fumes of a
hundred pounds weight of aloes and other
spices, nor are we asked to believe that
they walked a three day's journey on
feet that had been pierced by great rough
nails. Besides these negative proofs of
the reality of our Lord's death, let me
remind you of some of those positive
proofs of it ; for instance, St Mark states
categorically that "He gave up the
Ghost." Then there is the testimony
of the soldier who pierced His Side, not
to mention the testimony of Joseph of
Arimathea, of the Chief Priests who set
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
their seal upon the grave, of the soldiers
who mounted guard, of His friends, nay
of his Mother herself. If further wit
nesses are needed, there is St Paul, whom,
for reasons best known to himself, Pro
fessor Huxley called "a strange man."
Surely I have put enough of the non-
Death Theory before you to make it clear
that I am justified in calling it a ridiculous
and monstrous theory, a libel on history,
and an outrage on common sense.
Let us now give a moment's consider
ation to the so-called Vision Theory which
allows that Jesus Christ really died and
was buried, but denies that He really
rose from the dead. Strauss, Renan
and many others have stood sponsors to
this theory, in order to account for the
world-wide belief in the Resurrection of
our Divine Lord. The scoffing French
infidel has told his readers that there was
indeed a subjective but not an objective
resurrection. He assures us that the
fervent and impetuous Magdalen mis
taking the gardener for Christ at once
yielded to him her love and adoration,
and that she then went forth to the
disciples and succeeded in persuading
them to believe in the reality of the
event, which they themselves were so
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CHRIST RISEN FROM THE DEAD
anxious to preach before the world — the
Resurrection. It seems to me a little unfortunate that
the French maker of history should so
entirely have forgotten that in the Sacred
Record we are told that which did happen
is not what he asserts, but in other words
that instead of mistaking the gardener
for Jesus the Magdalen took Jesus for
the gardener.
Perhaps the explanation of the matter
is that the French romancer reads his
Bible as witches are said to read the
" Our Father," backwards. Also if my
memory serves me right I think we are
told in the Sacred page that the disciples
instead of being persuaded by the Mag
dalen of the Resurrection treated her
account of it as " an idle tale."
Furthermore we are reminded in the
New Testament not of the credulity, but
on the contrary of the want of real faith,
of slowness on the part of the Apostles
to believe in their Master's Resurrection.
Need I recall to your memory our
Lord's gentle reprimand to the two dis
ciples at Emmaus, and to the rest of the
Apostles, notably to Thomas Didymus,
who, not content with disbelieving it, so
far forgot himself as to lay down the
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
conditions upon the fulfilment of which
he would consent to yield assent to the
reality of it ?
Doubtless some higher critics will tell
me that what is written by Matthew,
Luke and John is not worth the paper
on which the story is told. Let it be as
they sayj but even with these three shut
out of court as unworthy witnesses, there
still remain Mark and Paul who insist
upon having a hearing. These two last
witnesses vouch for the reality of our
Lord's Resurrection in language quite as
clear and definite as do the other three.
To my thinking the only satisfactory
way of showing there was no real Resur
rection of our Lord from the dead will
be to close the book of the Four Gospels,
to put aside the four Pauline Epistles,
and to ignore all history. Thank God,
some of us can still proclaim with holy
Job " I know that my Redeemer liveth,
and in the last day I shall rise out of the
earth, and I shall be clothed again with
my skin, and in my flesh I shall see my
God." If you will study the Vision Theory
you will discover it to be a contention
not less ridiculous and monstrous than
the non- Death Theory itself.
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CHRIST RISEN FROM THE DEAD
And now let me remind you that, what
our Risen Lord did for moribund Society
in a day gone by, He is prepared to do
even now. But before He can become
the Saviour of Modern Society it must
correct a good many of its prevailing
ideas. For instance, the idea that by
becoming more cultured a man will be
come necessarily better or, in other words,
that in proportion as he advances in
culture he will make progress in virtue, is
nonsense. In these brave words we find
formulated one of the most specious
maxims of the present day; it is the
special product of" a century which boasts
that it is nothing if not scientific.
Without any hesitation at all I readily
grant that we are living in an age of
scientific culture. The scientist with his
magic wand has struck the rock of know
ledge and the waters of truth have poured
forth so freely, that even the shoeless
child in the street may slake its thirst
to know the mysteries of nature for the
asking. But while willing enough to allow that
not a little has been done to make the
present generation wiser in many things
than people were, say a century ago, I
am not disposed to proclaim that the
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SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
present generation has become in the
same proportion morally better.
Between knowledge and virtue there
is not only no indissoluble union, but not
even any necessary contact. On the
contrary, between knowing and doing I
seem to see yawning before me a deep
and awful chasm, so that to the Know
ledge School which so loudly proclaims
that by becoming scientifically wiser, the
present generation must become morally
better, I fling back the retort of one of
the profoundest thinkers of our time
and I declare that maxim to be one of
the veriest pretences that ever Sophist
or Mountebank presented to a gaping
auditory. What I want this morning to bring
home to you, is the very important
truth that there are two kinds t»f know
ledge which we must be careful to dis
tinguish from each other, when we are
speaking of knowledge in relation to
human culture and moral progress.
There is the knowledge of things and
there is the knowledge of persons. Let
us for a moment pause to note their
distinctive attributes. The knowledge
of things, phenomena, and of their laws
teaches a man, if only he will make use
266

CHRIST RISEN FROM THE DEAD
of nature's output to do better physically,
materially ; whereas the knowledge of
persons, of their thoughts and actions
helps us, if we have good will to become
better morally, spiritually. Hence know
ledge of things, if well used contributes
in no small degree to promote the
material and social well-being of the
community ; whereas the knowledge of
persons when turned to good account
advances its religious and spiritual wel
fare. This being so, what I want to
point out to the Knowledge School is
this, that the triumphs which it has to
record, and the victories which it pro
claims are triumphs and victories over
matter and not over man. It is a triumph
to be able to seize hold of the spirit of
water, yoke it to our chariot wheels,
forcing it like a captive to carry our
ventures and even our persons to the
uttermost parts of the earth ; it is a
marvel that without difficulty we may
lasso the viewless electricity, tame it to our
bidding, and train it to fetch and carry
like a thing endowed with life : it is
astounding that easily as said we can lay
hold of impalpable light itself, imprison it
in a dark and lonely cell, and compel
its mysterious hand not only to draw
267

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
but even to paint and fix, with per
manence, whatever our trivial fancy may
set before it as a model.
These indeed are some of the wonder
ful achievements of our wonderful day of
life, and if you will, they show that we
have discovered the key to some of the
secrets of nature, but they do not prove
that we have found the way into the
hidden places of the heart of man.
Between things and persons keep the
essential distinction. I tell you that in
the laboratory I can find nothing to
neutralize the poison of human passion,
in the observatory nothing to correct the
aberrations of the soul's light, in the
surgery nothing to heal the wounds or
even to mitigate the pains of an aching
or a broken heart. Scientific culture is
without moral sense. The key which
she holds in her hand is one which will
turn as readily in the wards of a lock,
shutting from view a chamber of horrors,
as it will unfasten the gate leading to a
sanctuary of prayer. In a word, know
ledge is like a two-edged sword which
depends entirely, for the noble or ignoble
uses to which it will be put, upon the
character of him who wields it.
Someone here present may feel dis-
268

CHRIST RISEN FROM THE DEAD
posed to object that true knowledge of
nature ought to lead to a knowledge of
nature's God. I grant you that that is
its sublime mission.
" And not alone the fairest flower ;
The merest grass
Along the roadside where you pass,
The lichen and moss and sturdy weed,
Tell of His love Who sends the dew,
The rain and sunshine too,
To nourish one small seed."
This is all true and beautiful and it
ought to make us feel very much ashamed
of ourselves for not having learnt from
the mirror of nature, in which God reflects
Himself, more about God Himself. But
I still maintain that, were we to learn
from nature not some but all the lessons
in her repertoire, our lives would not even
then necessarily be improved spiritually.
No, as men are not changed from
viciousness to virtue by examining shells
under a glass case, nor by trying acids in
test tubes, nor by labelling butterflies stuck
on pins, so neither are they made humble
and contrite by cultivating orchids or
discovering stars, or inventing machinery.
And now, after having told you what
knowledge of Things cannot, let me
remind you what knowledge of Persons
269

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
can do. If it is not from the microscope,
nor from the magnet, not from the
telescope, nor from any other scientific
instrument that man learns how to
change his heart and to stimulate the
pulsations of his spiritual life, it is in the
Crucifix that he reads in letters of blood
written on Human Flesh the one great
Love Story which ought to convert him
from a sinner into a saint. " Example "
as has been remarked by a modern
writer "is the school of mankind, and
they will learn in no other." Men and
women may go to your Academies, to
your Universities, to your Schools of
Science, you may teach them all the arts
of peace and war, and if they are
industrious as well as capable they will
most probably succeed in making a name
and taking their right place as citizens
of this world, but they may quite possibly
make no name at all and find no
place whatever in the world to come.
Knowledge of things, as I have already
said, being a weapon as easily wielded by
a bad as by a good man. Hence the
prayer of the poet.
" Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell."
It is not knowledge then of even the
270

CHRIST RISEN FROM THE DEAD
highest things that is going to save
Society, but the knowledge of the
Highest Person, Jesus Christ, Who came
not to teach us to love His things, but
to love Himself.
There is no other name under heaven
but His whereby man must be saved.
He not only can, but will save us, if only
we will believe in Him and trust Him,
nothing doubting.
For a Christian community living in a
Christian land, if Christ be not the
Exemplar, there is none at all for them.
Other leaders may capture the mind,
man's seat of thought, or subjugate the
will, his seat of action, but Jesus Christ,
and Jesus Christ only can captivate the
heart, man's seat of love, and until His
love is taken and held, man is in reality
without a leader, like a planet without a
pathway or a centre to control its orbit
and lend it light and heat.
If Society to-day is, as we see it is, on the
down grade, may not the real reason of
it be that in its haste to get rich, to pluck
at every forbidden fruit, and to drink of
every poisoned well, it has well-nigh lost
sight of the " most beautiful of the sons of
men," Jesus Christ, God in the Flesh?
May it not be that Modern Society has
271

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
fallen in love with our Lord's things
instead of His Person, that in its short
sightedness it has mistaken the gifts of
the Giver for the Giver of the gifts.
One thing is certain and it is this, that
"a new theology" is being offered to a
Christian people, which in reality is no
theology at all, and I say that the very
fact of its being possible, to propound
such doctrine in a land which for centuries
upon centuries has had no Leader, no
Exemplar but Jesus Christ, is itself an
undeniable proof of England's want at this
moment of belief in the objective reality of
the Resurrection of Christ.
Return, I say, to your true Teacher,
to your first Leader, to your only
Exemplar. Once more study Him — the
beauty of His Person, the beauty of His
mind and of His teaching, the beauty of
His Heart and of His Love, the beauty of
His will and of His action, in other words
the beauty of His character, and you will
be forced to acknowledge with St Peter
that He is the Christ, the Son of God,
that He has the words of eternal life;
while with St Paul you' will once more
proclaim your profession of faith, to know
nothing but Christ Who suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was dead and buried, and

CHRIST RISEN FROM THE DEAD
on the third day rose from the dead. He
and He alone, Who is our Liberator, shall
be our Exemplar. Let us renew all
things in Christ Jesus our Lord, saying
each one of us from the heart : " I am
persuaded that neither death nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor
things to come, nor height nor depth, nor
any other creature shall be able to separ
ate me from the love of God, which is in
Christ Jesus our Lord." Until we have
renewed our baptismal vows and have
given our Lord His right place in our
hearts, making his Will our supreme
pleasure, we can never be altogether sure
in times of trial of our loyalty to His
claims. We are living in a day when
those claims are being called in question,
and when the fundamental doctrines of
Christianity are being regarded as
anachronisms. We are told that " during the last
thirty years the presentation of religious
truth has had to meet new needs, to
explain new problems, to deal with new
difficulties. This indeed is the case, and
it may be truly said that the Protestant
Churches have in a great measure proved
unequal to this demand. The advance
of criticism during these days has doubt-
§ 273

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
less dethroned the Bible from the position
it held at the Reformation. The docu
ments of which it is composed are held
to be of very different degrees of authen
ticity, and to have no connexion among
themselves beyond that which belongs
to any common literature. In one sense
Biblical study has been greatly aided by
this decomposition of one book into many,
but its authoritative character as an in
fallible guide of human belief and human
conduct has disappeared in the process.
In England, indeed, this revolution has
met with far more vigorous resistance
than elsewhere. Here 'Orthodox' Non-
comformity is still a living force, and it
is greatly busying itself with the discovery
of a new foundation on which to rebuild
the old truths in their old security.
But in Germany and in America, the
two chief seats of Protestant Theology,
neither the need nor the possibility of
any such discovery seems to be
recognised." From what we read and from what we
hear, and indeed from what we see going
on around us, it would appear that the
Bible and the Bible only as a Rule of
Faith is not altogether equal to the task
of holding its own in presence of adverse
m

CHRIST RISEN FROM THE DEAD
criticism. But then the Master never
told Us to make any such book our Rule
of Faith ; on the contrary He has set up
a Living Organism, which is an infallible
guide in matters theological for all His
followers. He Himself is as intimately
with us now as He was with His Apostles
in a day gone by. He is —
" Closer to us than breathing,
Nearer than hands and feet."
From the Church and from none other
we receive the Books of Revelation, and
it is her province and hers only to in
terpret their meaning.
We, who are her children, fear no
revelations of Biblical critics. We know
that truth can never contradict truth, and
consequently we welcome true knowledge
no matter from what source it may be
drawn. Others may consider Christianity to
be a mere passing phase in the history
of evolution, but we know that we have
heard the last word of Revelation, and
that the Church of Christ will continue
till the end of time to unfold its meaning
more explicitly, defining her dogmatic
definitions in terms precise, clear and
unmistakable. She has nothing to re-
275

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SAVIOUR
state ; she stands by all her previous
utterances, and she has said the last
word about the Virgin Birth as well as
about the Resurrection of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ.
In the written word of the Gospel and
in the living word of the Church, we
find all that we need know about our
Lord and His teaching, to make it clear
to us what we must be, and what we
must do, to make our lives in His sight
a splendid success.
What more, in the name of heaven, let
me ask, can we want ? Why I was
going to say that so close has been our
intimacy with Him from very childhood
that, if the Gospel narrative with the
Church herself were by any impossibility
to cease to be, we should still know "the
mind of Christ," and what to do to please
Him. Can there be any higher mission
than this for the most ambitious
among us ? It is the vocation itself
of the heroes and heroines of Christi
anity — the Saints.
Tell me, how did they come to fight
against flesh and blood, conquering
themselves, robbing no man of his Faith,
and no woman of her Morals, but on the
276

CHRIST RISEN FROM THE DEAD
contrary drawing, or else driving all
coming under their influence to the
embraces of our dear and blessed Lord ?
The victory over themselves and others
was due, as our Lord reminds us, to their
Faith. " This is the Victory which over-
cometh the world, your Faith." If we
want, like them, to leave this world
somewhat better for having passed
through it, then, like them, we must
cultivate a child-like, closely-clinging,
cheerful faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Here to-day not only is Society losing
its Faith with its Morals, but we are
assured by those who know that "there
is no country in the world which at the
present moment presents in the same
degree the features of unrest, longing
for change, impecuniosity and enconomic
wastefulness among all classes " as our
own. It is not the God of Hegel, or of
Kant, or of Eddy, nor is it the Christ
of the Christian Scientists or the New
Theologists who can cure Society of the
sickness which is actually sapping its
strength, ruining its life.
There is one God only Who can
answer the inquisitive mind, and calm
the stormy heart of man, and His Name
277

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIOUR
is Jesus Christ, the Man- God, Who
born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified
under Pontius Pilate, and rose again
from the dead.
What in a day now long fled this
Heavenly Physician did for this dear,
dear land, even England, He can do
again. What He did in Alban our
Martyr, in Edward our King, in Fisher
our Bishop, in More our Chancellor,
given the like dispositions, He can do no
less in us, their fellow-countrymen.
It is not, I repeat, our Lord God Who
is changed, but we ourselves. " Jesus
Christ is yesterday, to-day, and the same
for ever." Modernity has nothing new
to teach us about Him. Let it keep its
self-evolved Gospel to itself. We need
none of it. The advice it offers to
Christ's Bride, the Church, is borrowed
from those who insulted Christ Himself
when bleeding, dying on the Cross.
Let these uncertificated teachers break
their idols to pieces, and come, cap in
hand, to the Church not with the view of
teaching her, but on the contrary of
learning from her the mind of the
Master. I invite them to come, without delay,
to the feet of the Master Himself and to
278

CHRIST RISEN FROM THE DEAD
cry out to Him, in the dust beneath
their feet ; " Lord, what wilt Thou have
us to do ? "
Let Modernity, I say, have done with
posing as the intellectual giant in His
presence ; let it shake off the cap and
bells of its fool-like self-conceit, and
acknowledge itself to be but a child with
its lessons to learn in the School of
Christ. Let us one and all remem
ber the word: "unless you become as
little children." For God's sake let
us be childlike in the Church or else
quit it.
Here and now, as the "very least of
His little ones," we ourselves will sink to
our knees around our blessed Mother, on
whose open hands, resting on her lap, are
the little dimpled feet of the divine Child,
Whose arms are fastened round her
neck as He smothers her lovely face with
His baby kisses.
Let our ambition be to worship this
Child, and our privilege be to do His
bidding, running His errands like
love slaves, " bought at a great
price." Servants, we are told, sometimes for
get their position. Let us not forget
ours. Be keener to learn than to teach,
279

SOCIETY, SIN AND THE SA VIO UR
readier to obey than to command,
prompter to take than to give advice.
Whatever be the mission of others,
let our work be not to teach the Church
but to put ourselves right — to say our
prayers ; to go to the Sacraments ; to
check our appetites ; to pursue good
works ; to be gentle at home and cheer
ful abroad ; to be hurtful to none and
helpful to all ; to be humble and pure,
brave and true. Behold here some of
the characteristics of the servants of
Christ! Be it our ambition, as "good
and faithful servants," to excel in these
humbler duties, leaving the guidance
of the Church herself in the hands of the
Master of the Household.
So let us struggle to live on as serving
men, strong in Faith, and stronger still
in Love, till the Master Himself, in His
own good time, shall ring us up from
this land of work and worry to His
Home beyond the stars :
" Where the wicked cease from troubling
And the weary are at rest."

PRINTED BV T. AND A. CONSTABLE, PRINTERS TO HIS MAJESTY
AT THE EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS.

Kegan Paul, Trench, TrUbner & Co., Ltd.

BV THE SAME AUTHOR
The
Sins of Society
Words spoken in the Church of the Immaculate
Conception, Farm Street, with a special
introduction by the Author, and
a Photogravure Portrait of
the Author.

The ioth Edition Now Ready,

Crown 8vo. .-. Cloth. .*. Price 5/-

Dryden House, 43 Gerrard Street, W.

By the Same Author

The Sins of Society
Tenth Edition
 • 
Some Opinions of the Home Press—
MORNING LEADER—
"Father Vaughan is rilled with a burning sincerity, and
his words — bitter epigram, glowing apostrophe, and stem
denunciation alike — have a terrible force."
FREE LANCE—
" Father Vaughan's sermons were good, but their reprint
in book form is even better. His book has impressed me
mightily."
WESTERN DAILY PRESS—
" Father Vaughan speaks out with a directness and fervid
courage which compel attention and respect. They deserve
to be widely read."
SCOTSMAN— " They are better sermons than appeared from the news
paper reports of them."
MANCHESTER COURIER—
"The work of an earnest and eloquent priest."
THE QUEEN—
" The sermons are rich in personality and common sense.
They are so wholesome from beginning to end. It is
'rotters' he assails with burning eloquence, sparkling
humour, and scathing invective."
EASTERN DAILY EXPRESS—
" In trenchant and almost daring style he attacks Mammon-
worship and materialism. The sermons deserve to be widely
read."

Some Opinions of the Press— continued

THE TABLET—
' ' We can confidently recommend a remarkable, interesting
— well, an eminently readable book."
THE NEW AGE—
" Father Bernard writes with genuine emotion and a note
of deep sincerity."
THE WORLD—
" A book that should receive serious attention from every
living English patriot, be he Catholic, Protestant, or
Agnostic."PALL MALL GAZETTE—
" Eminently characteristic of an honest, fearless, and
outspoken man anxious to do his best to rouse his fellow
men and women to a sense of better things. There
can be no two minds about the eloquence with which he
does it."
CATHOLIC TIMES—
" It is. well that men have hearkened to his vigorous and
eloquent periods, breathing of heartfelt conviction."
VANITY FAIR—
" A work that should be perused with care by all thinking
and patriotic Englishmen. Alas ! as we read his scathing
diatribes, can we deny that all he says is true?"
THE CROWN—
"It is against Riches and Pretension and Fast Living
that Father Vaughan hurls himself, not against the Elect."
THE TRIBUNE—
" Father Vaughan's indictment of the sins of fashionable
life will probably appeal to an even wider audience than
those crowds, who flocked to hear him during the London
season."

Some Opinions of the Press — continued
NOTTINGHAM GUARDIAN—
"The combative note is very strong throughout tlie
volume, beginning with the dedication."
DAILY GRAPHIC—
"It is the office of the Church to tell the truth, to speak
plainly, and to show no respect to persons. This is the aim
Father Vaughan has set about to compass. He has not
exaggerated the evils he deplores, the waste of time, the
luxury, the selfishness and the gambling."
LADY'S PICTORIAL—
"His views are distinctly wholesome, by virtue of their
essential common sense and conspicuous moderation."

NEWCASTLE MAIL—
" He reasons on the ethics, the morality of gambling
closely and moderately. He is sincere and earnest."
IRISH TIMES—
" We welcome the publication of these discourses.
Whether the pictures are too vividly coloured or not, they
are well calculated to give pause to many who hve useless or
selfish lives."
DAILY TELEGRAPH—
"No one can read these energetic and fiery appeals
without feeling that the preacher set before himself a higher
aim than to make a momentary effect. The earnestness
and sincerity of the preacher glow in every line."
DUNDEE ADVERTISER—
"These sermons ought to be studied by every philan
thropist, who sincerely desires to reform society."
THE SHEFFIELD TELEGRAPH—
"Few modern sermons can vie with these for outspoken
utterance and burning eloquence."

Some Opinions of the Press — continued

THE BOOKSELLER—
" In permanent form the discourses lose none of theii
emphasis and force, and we may hope that the men and
women with whom they are mainly concerned, may carefully
read and digest the grave warning, and wise counsel with
which they are charged."
WESTERN MORNING NEWS—
" We cannot think that the sermons have been preached
in vain ; they deserve the wide circulation which the Press
affords." THE DUBLIN REVIEW—
"The true note of burning zeal, the love of good and
the hatred of evil are still alive in these pages ; they have
not died with the utterance."
THE MONTH—
" The account given by the preacher of the evil ways and
habits ... is not unjust, and quite needed to be given and
emphasized." DAILY CHRONICLE—
" Father Vaughan's elegant protests against the habit of
regarding lightly the most sacred of all human ties is in
harmony with the best traditions of his Church."
MANCHESTER GUARDIAN—
" Father Vaughan's style seems to lack nothing in the way
of emphasis and directness."
EVENING STANDARD—
" Uttered with the sincerity and outspokenness of a
Savonarola."METHODIST TIMES—
" Like a Savonarola this Roman Priest has with merciless
candour assailed the ruling vices of high Society."
FREE METHODIST—
" Reminds us of a Chrysotum, or a Bernard, or a Masilkm"

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