l
appeals. Can you remember when you used to hear Him--when the words of
the Book and the preacher used to move you in church, when the singing
awoke aspiration, when the Sabbath was holy ground, when the Spirit of
God strove with you? And is that all passed of passing away? Does
Christ speak no more? If a man is lying ill, and perceives day by day
everything about him becoming silent--his wife avoiding speech,
visitors sinking their voices to a whisper, footsteps falling and doors
shutting noiselessly--he knows that his illness is becoming critical.
When the traveller, battling with the snow-storm, sinks down at last to
rest, he feels cold and painful and miserable; but, if there steals
over him a soft, sweet sense of slumber and silence, then is the moment
to rouse himself and fight off his peace, if he is ever to stir again.
There is such a spiritual insensibility. It means that the Spirit is
ceasing to strive, and Christ to call. If it is creeping over you, it
is time to be anxious; for it is for your life.

IV.

How far Herod understood the silence of Jesus we cannot tell. It is
too likely that he did not wish to understand. At all events he acted
as if he did not; he treated it as if it were stupidity. He thought
that the reason why Jesus would not work a miracle was because He could
not: a pretender's powers generally forsake him when he falls into the
hands of the police. Jesus, he thought, was discredited; His Messianic
claims were exploded; even His followers must now be disillusioned.

So he thought and so he said; and the satellites round his throne
chimed in; for there is no place where a great man's word is echoed
with more parrot-like precision than in a petty court. And no doubt
they considered it a great stroke of wit, well worthy of applause, when
Herod, before sending Him back to Pilate, cast over His shoulders a
gorgeous robe--probably in imitation of the white robe worn at Rome by
candidates for office. The suggestion was that Jesus was a candidate
for the throne of the country, but one so ridiculous that it would be a
mistake to treat Him with anything but contempt. Thus amidst peals of
laughter was Jesus driven from the presence.

[1] Josephus, "Ant.," XVIII., 3, 1.

[2] It may be questioned whether it was for trial he sent Jesus to
Herod or only for advice, as Festus caused St. Paul's case to be heard
by Agrippa.

[3] Called "die Gaenge des Dulders," in German devotional