ce art Thou?" But those lips refuse
an answer. The time for speech is past. Angered by the silence on the part
of the man he had been moved to help, Pilate hotly says, "Speakest Thou
not to _Me_? Knowest Thou not I have the power to release or to crucify?"
Then this strangely masterful Man speaks in very quiet tones, as though
pitying His judge, "Thou wouldst have no power against Me, except it were
given thee from above: therefore he that delivered Me unto thee hath
greater sin."

Again Pilate comes out to the waiting crowd more determined than ever to
release Jesus. But the leaders of the mob take a new tack. They know the
governor's sensitive nerve. "If thou release this man thou art not
Caesar's friend. Every one that maketh himself a king speaketh
against Caesar." That word "Caesar" was a magic word. Its bur catches
and sticks at once. It was their master-stroke. Yet it cost them
dear. Pilate instantly brings Jesus out and sits down on the
judgment seat. The thing must be settled now once for all. As Jesus
again faces them he says, "_Behold!--your King._" Again the hot shouts,
"Away--Away--Crucify--Crucify." And again the question. "Shall I crucify
your King?"

Now comes the answer, wrung out by the bitterness of their hate, that
throws aside all the traditional hopes of their nation, "_We have no king
but Caesar_." Having forced that word from their lips, Pilate quits the
prolonged duelling.

Yet to appease that inner voice that would not be stilled--maybe, too,
for his wife's sake, he indulges in more dramatics. He washes his hands in
a basin of water, with the words, "I am innocent of the blood of this
righteous man. See ye to it." Back come the terrible words, "His blood be
on us and on our children." Surely it has been! Then Jesus is surrendered
to their will. They have gotten what they asked, but at the sacrifice of
their most fondly cherished national tradition and with an awful heritage.
Pilate has yielded, but held them by the throat in doing it to compel
words that savagely wounded their pride to utter. The savage duel is over.

<u>Victory.</u>

Jesus is turned over to the soldiers for the execution of the sentence.
His own garments are replaced, and once more He is the central figure in a
street procession, this time carrying the cross to which He has been
condemned. His physical strength seems in danger of giving way under the
load, after the terrible strain of that long night. The soldiers s