, there was added to
them the intolerable pang of a burning and raging thirst; and all these
physical complications caused an internal excitement and anxiety which
made the prospect of death itself--of death, the awful unknown enemy, at
whose approach man usually shudders most--bear the aspect of a delicious
and exquisite release.

Such was the death to which Christ was doomed; and though for him it was
happily shortened by all that he had previously endured, yet he hung
from soon after noon until nearly sunset before "he gave up his soul to
death."

When the cross was uplifted the leading Jews, for the first time,
prominently noticed the deadly insult in which Pilate had vented his
indignation. Before, in their blind rage, they had imagined that the
manner of his crucifixion was an insult aimed at _Jesus_; but now that
they saw him hanging between the two robbers, on a cross yet loftier, it
suddenly flashed upon them that it was a public scorn inflicted upon
_them_. For on the white wooden tablet smeared with gypsum, which was to
be seen so conspicuously over the head of Jesus on the cross, ran, in
black letters, an inscription in the three civilized languages of the
ancient world--the three languages of which _one_ at least was certain
to be known by every single man in that assembled multitude--in the
official Latin, in the current Greek, in the vernacular
Aramaic--informing all that this Man who was thus enduring a shameful,
servile death--this Man thus crucified between two _sicarii_ in the
sight of the world, was "THE KING OF THE JEWS."

To him who was crucified the poor malice seemed to have in it nothing of
derision. Even on his cross he reigned; even there he seemed divinely
elevated above the priests who had brought about his death, and the
coarse, idle, vulgar multitude who had flocked to feed their greedy eyes
upon his sufferings. The malice was quite impotent against One whose
spiritual and moral nobleness struck awe into dying malefactors and
heathen executioners, even in the lowest abyss of his physical
degradation. With the passionate ill-humor of the Roman governor there
probably blended a vein of seriousness. While he was delighted to
revenge himself on his detested subjects by an act of public insolence,
he probably meant, or half meant, to imply that this _was_, in one
sense, the King of the Jews--the greatest, the noblest, the truest of
his race, whom therefore his race had crucified. The King wa