d, though the purple robe of mockery had been. So this
added to His continued pain. As John looked upon those instruments of
suffering he heard the banter and derision of shame that always
accompanied them.

There followed Jesus "a great multitude of the people," whose morbid
curiosity would be gratified by the coming tragedy. But there were
others--"women who bewailed and lamented Him."

It is surmised that at the moment when Jesus could bear His cross no
longer, and was relieved by Simon, He turned to the weeping "Daughters
of Jerusalem" following Him, and in tenderest sympathy told of the
coming days of sorrow for them and their city, of which He had told John
and his companions on Olivet.

John says that Jesus "went out ... unto the place called the place of a
skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha." The place was also called
Calvary. We do not certainly know the sacred spot, though careful
students think it is north of the city, near the Damascus gate, near the
gardens of the ancient city, and tombs that still remain. We think of
John revisiting it again and again while he remained in Jerusalem, and
then in thought in his distant home where he wrote of it. "There," says
John, "they crucified Jesus, and with Him two others, on either side
one, and Jesus in the midst." How few his words, but how full of
meaning. We long to know more of John's memories of that day--of all
that he saw and felt and did. They were such in kind and number as none
other than he did or could have.

There were two contrasted groups of four each around the cross, to which
John calls special attention. One, the nearest to it, was composed of
Roman soldiers, to whom were committed the details of the
crucifixion--the arrangement of the cross, the driving of the nails, and
the elevation of the victim upon it.

Having stripped Jesus of His clothing, according to custom they divided
it among themselves; the loose upper garment or toga to one, the
head-dress to another, the girdle to another, and the sandals to the
last. John watched the division--"to every soldier a part." But his
interest was chiefly in the under-garment such as Galilean peasants
wore. This must have been a reminder of the region from which he and
Jesus had come. He thinks it worth while to describe it as "without
seam, woven from the top throughout." Perhaps to him another
reminder--of Mary or Salome or other ministering women by whose loving
hands it had been knit. If e