of his days and made the American people anew his debtor, by writing the Life of the Father of his Country.

In the middle of the nineteenth century a young Japanese, as his country was emerging into the light of modern civilization after Commodore Perry's visit, became impressed with the vanity of idols and of Buddhism and was seized with a quenchless thirst to gain a knowledge of the living God and to obtain an education among the people from which Commodore Perry had come. At that time it was at the risk of his life for a Japanese to leave his own land. But an American captain took the Japanese young man by the hand, allowed him aboard his ship, gave him employment on the voyage, and upon his arrival in the United States a Boston merchant took the stranger from Japan by the hand and assisted him through a liberal course of study in our higher institutions of learning. Upon completing his studies he returned to his own people. He was the first native of Japan ordained to the Christian ministry. He became a strong helper in the most wonderful and successful mission of the nineteenth century. He was the founder of the Doshisha university, which has become a great institution for the diffusion of knowledge in the Orient. In the annals of advancing Christianity the names of Joseph Neesima and Alpheus Hardy, the Boston merchant who took him by the hand, are associated in everlasting remembrance.

And now, if our merciful Saviour has taken us by the hand and lifted us up from our sins and sorrows to faith and hope and the love divine, let us in return give our hands to his service, and in the morning sow our seed and in the evening withhold not our hand, doing what our hands find to do until that day when they shall lose their cunning in the paralysis of death, and the freed spirit shall soar away into His presence where there is fulness of joy and to His right hand where there are pleasures for evermore.

XIII

ECCE HOMO

And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man!

THE

HE public life of Jesus commenced at his baptism, when the conviction came to him that he was called of God to a divine mission in the land of Israel. Immediately temptations came to doubt and unbelief on the one hand and to ambition and presumption on the other. The kingdoms of the world were shown him and the evil one said, “All this authority and glory I will give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." The temptation was to make ambition his god and become another Alexander or Julius Cæsar. At once Jesus denies the temptation, and he avows his devotion to the worship and service of God. This devotion was the guiding principle and rule of his public life. He went about, not seeking promotion or aggrandizement, but doing good; not to be ministered unto, but to minister; not to destroy men's lives, but to save them. He spoke often of a kingdom, but it was always a kingdom of righteousness, a heavenly kingdom in which the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. We have this record of his public life by those who either companied with him or were his immediate disciples. Were it not that there was such a man as Jesus, and such a life as Jesus lived, and such teachings as Jesus taught, it were impossible for human wit or wisdom or skill to have conceived them. The miracle of the preservation of the New Testament in our churches and in our homes could not exist had there not previously existed the miracle of the holy life of Jesus and of his divine love. His works

from day to day were miracles of mercy and grace to mankind.

It is impossible to think of any virtue which Jesus did not exemplify, of any high quality of character which he did not possess. And yet, though he made friends, and won at times the hosannas of multitudes, he at last fell a victim to malice and hate, to treachery, ignominy, and scorn, and was foully accused and basely maligned before the Roman governor of the time, who had the fate of Jesus in his hands.

The close of his life had come. He had begun his public career with the disavowal of worldly ambition, and from year to year he had lived an unselfish and disinterested life. He never gave countenance to a faction, or uttered a syllable against the authority of Rome, but told men to render to Cæsar the things that were Cæsar's. Jealously and hate, however, are always given to misrepresentation and falsehood. The Roman governor was familiar with the facts of the case. He knew the pride and arrogance of the Jewish rulers and that it was for envy that they had delivered Jesus. It was the great crisis in our Saviour's life. He was never in a more important or more momentous situation. He was to assert his true character and vindicate and defend himself, and be vindicated and exculpated by the Roman governor, or be convicted of the crime with which he was charged, and be put to shame and death.

The charge was that he claimed to be a king, and king of the Jews, that he sought temporal dominion and rule, that he spake against Cæsar and forbade paying tribute to the Roman government. Pilate clearly understood that this was the accusation, and that it was the object of the Jewish rulers in making the accusation to prevail upon him to give sentence against Jesus and put him to death. Those rulers in their frenzy and hate had the effrontery to say to the governor, "If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend." Pilate's mind was thrown into

perturbation. In this dilemma his wife sends to him her counsel, "Have thou nothing to do with that just person; for I have suffered many things in a dream because of him." This is the record in the Gospel according to Matthew, the only one of the four Gospels which mentions dreams. In these circumstances the governor holds a conference with Jesus, and, in the language of the Gospel according to Luke, "examines" him. The fullest account of the examination is in the fourth Gospel: "Art thou the king of the Jews?" said the governor; "What hast thou done?" And Jesus answered in explicit and unmistakable words, "My kingdom is not of this world." The answer is a negative one. It is the testimony of Jesus to himself. It gives a plain and decisive testimony as to what he himself and his mission and work and religion are not. An unequivocal denial, a direct contradiction is the best answer to falsehood and hate, the best attestation to innocence and virtue. "My kingdom is not of this world." My accusers are false witnesses against me. They have perverted my words and actions. They have maligned me. I never stirred up the people against Cæsar, but have respected and acknowledged and supported his authority. My kingdom is a kingdom of righteousness and truth, of peace and love, without war or violence. I have told my disciples that while earthly rulers seek dominion over others, it should not be so with them, but they should make themselves servants of all. I have charged them to love their enemies and not call down fire upon those who followed not us, but imitate the benignity of the heavenly Father, who maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. Jesus might have cited many other of his teachings as to the nature of the kingdom which he preached,that it was spiritual, a kingdom of the mind, a worship of the holy and righteous Father, an empire of brotherly love, a divine charity for all mankind.

Pilate had known of these things and he was favorably im

pressed towards Jesus, as was his wife. But Pilate had his skeptical moods. He distrusted higher ideals as idle fantasies and hallucinations. When, therefore, Jesus spoke of himself as a minister of truth, Pilate asked him, "What is truth?" This was said after Jesus had borne testimony to the object and mission of his life in those pregnant and wonderful words, that still come sounding through the centuries: "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth; every one that is of the truth heareth my voice." What simple, what sublime words! None like them ever before or since fell from human lips. What a consciousness and assurance of his heavenly nature, that he came from God! It was a renewal and re-echo of the voice that came to him at the beginning of his public life, "Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased." More than three years had passed since he heard those words, but they inspired his public life, and now, at the close of that life, he affirms the truth before the Roman governor. Thirty years afterward, Paul calls it "a good confession," and makes it an example for a young minister (1 Tim. 6: 13).

Pilate was convinced. He took the part of Jesus. He proclaimed him innocent. As he said to the Jews, "Ecce Homo," he told them, "I find no fault in this man," and he would fain let him go. But hatred and malignity knew no bounds, and the rabble joined in the cry, "Crucify him! crucify him!" Pilate, alas, weakened and vacillated. Fear of the Jews prevailed over his judgment and conscience, and he gave sentence that it should be as they required; not, however, without taking water and washing his hands before the multitude, saying, "I am innocent of the blood of this just person; see ye to it." Such was Pilate's testimony to Jesus and his effort to relieve himself of responsibility and put the blame upon the Jews. But he could not exculpate himself in his own conscience, much less before the world. Ancient legends represent him washing his hands on a desert moun