ad enjoyed days of unbounded popularity, but now His soul
was filled with reproach to the uttermost; and He could have
appropriated the words of the Psalm, "I am a worm and no man; a
reproach of men and despised of the people."

The reproach of Christ is all turned into glory now; and it is very
difficult to realise how abject the reality was. Nothing perhaps
brings this out so well as the fact that two robbers were sent away to
be executed with Him. This has been regarded as a special insult
offered to the Jews by Pilate, who wished to show how contemptuously he
could treat One whom he affected to believe their king. But more
likely it is an indication of how little more Christ was to the Roman
officials than any one of the prisoners whom they put through their
hands day by day. Pilate, no doubt, had been interested and puzzled
more than usual; but, after all, Jesus was only one of many; His
execution could be made part of the same job with that of the other
prisoners on hand. And so the three, bearing their crosses, issued
from the gates of the palace together and took the Dolorous Way.

II.

Though He bore His own cross out of the palace of Pilate, He was not
able to carry it far. Either He sank beneath it on the road or He was
proceeding with such slow and faltering steps that the soldiers,
impatient of the delay, recognised that the burden must be removed from
His shoulders. The severity of the scourging was in itself sufficient
to account for this breakdown; but, besides, we are to consider the
sleepless night through which He had passed, with its anxiety and
abuse; and before it there had been the agony of Gethsemane. No wonder
His exhaustion had reached a point at which it was absolutely
impossible for Him to proceed farther with such a burden.

One or two of the soldiers might have relieved Him; but, in the spirit
of horseplay and mischief which had characterised their part of the
proceedings from the moment when Christ fell into their hands, they lay
hold of a casual passer-by and requisitioned his services for the
purpose. He was coming in from the region beyond the gate as they were
going out, and they acted under the sanction of military law or custom.

To the man it must have been an extreme annoyance and indignity.
Doubtless he was bent on business of his own, which had to be deferred.
His family or his friends might be waiting for him, but he was turned
the opposite way. To touch the ins