poor Man up the noble flight of stairs.

The Roman knight scowled as they approached, and darted at them a look
of bitterest resentment.

What faces they had! Did ever any one see features so distorted by
wicked passions? How he would have liked to drive them all away! But he
must not. They were evidently in a fury; and what might they not do, if
he opposed them?

He turned to look at their prisoner, expecting to see some
murderous-looking fellow, who had been taken in some act of wicked
outrage. But what a different sight met his view!

Instead of a defiant thief or murderer, a pale and weary Man stood
before him. A world of suffering was in His sorrowful eyes; but there
was no trace of violence there. He had the purest, noblest, most open
countenance that Pilate had ever beheld; and the governor's attention
was arrested. In the face of that poor, worn-out sufferer were expressed
the meekness and gentleness of a lamb, the deepest tenderness and pity,
the most ineffable sweetness and perfect calmness, the majesty of a
king, the perfection of a god. Who could He be? Was He really only
human? Or had the spirit of some of the Roman gods come down and taken
up its abode in Him? Pilate could not tell; but he was amazed and
confounded; and in his contemplation of that wondrous countenance he
forgot for a while his trouble and vexation.

All too soon, however, he was recalled to the business before him. The
Jews were clamouring outside the Hall to have sentence of death passed
upon their Victim.

But it was not so easy to gain their point as they had expected. The
Roman knight, who had not hesitated to order his soldiers to fall upon
the ignoble Jews, could not condemn, without trial, that Man who was
undoubtedly the one perfect type of the human race. And he sternly
demanded, "What accusation bring ye against this Man?"

Then came a storm of bitter invective and false accusations. He had been
stirring up the people against the Roman government, they said. He had
been forbidding them to pay tribute to Caesar; and proclaiming Himself a
King.

As Pilate looked upon Jesus, he felt that there was no sedition in Him.
_They_ were rioters, he knew too well; but as for that Man--well, there
might be some truth in His kingship, there was something so noble, so
majestic about Him. And entering the hall, into which Jesus had been
led, he asked, "Art _Thou_ the King of the Jews?"

"I am a king," Jesus, acknowledged, as He thou