ttachment to Christ's person which all the Apostles
had, and mingles in a different form with the discipleship of all
Christians. With this motive, therefore, there probably mingled in the
mind of Judas a desire to be with One who could shield him from evil
influences; he judged that with Jesus he would find continual aid
against his weaker nature. Possibly he wished by one bold abandonment of
the world to get rid for ever of his covetousness. That Judas was
trusted by the other Apostles is manifest from the fact that to him they
committed their common fund,--not to John, whose dreamy and abstracted
nature ill fitted him for minute practical affairs; not to Peter, whose
impulsive nature might often have landed the little company in
difficulties; not even to Matthew, accustomed as he was to accounts; but
to Judas, who had the economical habits, the aptitude for finance, the
love of bargaining, which regularly go hand in hand with the love of
money. This practical faculty for finance and for affairs generally
might, if rightly guided, have become a most serviceable element in the
Apostolate, and might have enabled Judas more successfully than any
other of the Apostles to mediate between the Church and the world. That
Judas in all other respects conducted himself circumspectly is proved by
the fact that, though other Apostles incurred the displeasure of Christ
and were rebuked by Him, Judas committed no glaring fault till this last
week. Even to the end he was unsuspected by his fellow-Apostles; and to
the end he had an active conscience. His last act, were it not so awful,
would inspire us with something like respect for him: he is overwhelmed
with remorse and shame; his sense of guilt is stronger even than the
love of money that had hitherto been his strongest passion: he judges
himself fairly, sees what he has become, and goes to his own place;
recognises as not every man does recognise what is his fit habitation,
and goes to it.

But this man, with his good impulses, his resolute will, his enlightened
conscience, his favouring circumstances, his frequent feelings of
affection towards Christ and desire to serve Him, committed a crime so
unparalleled in wickedness that men practically make very little attempt
to estimate it or measure it with sins of their own. Commonly we think
of it as a special, exceptional wickedness--not so much the natural
product of a heart like our own and what may be reproduced by ourselves,
as