w of the Cross lies still over all
the world. One thinks so seldom of these things, and if occasionally
one hears them spoken of, familiarity with the words has deadened the
hearer to their significance. It was because I listened to him talking
in the lane that his words gripped me. They might have made no
impression if he were in a pulpit.

***

We are accustomed to think of the greatest of all tragedies as an event
consummated in six hours. It is, however, far from consummated, for it
is an age-long tragedy. Its roots lay in self-interest. A degenerate
priesthood in an obscure Syrian town saw nothing in the Greatest of
Teachers but an unbalanced enthusiast, who struck at their ill-gotten
gains, and whose triumph would make an end of them and their system.
So self-interest cried "Crucify." And though the Roman Governor saw
through them and wanted to save Him, self-interest again was brought
into play, and when threatened with an awkward complaint to Rome, he
said "Crucify." And ever since then self-interest on innumerable lips
has cried Crucify, Crucify. Not only cried, but did it.

For this Teacher identified Himself with His followers, saying that He
was the Vine and they the branches. It follows that whatever is done
to the branch is done to the vine. A branch cannot be cut and severed
from the vine without the vine bleeding. He declared it to be so.
"Whosoever receiveth you receiveth Me," and it follows that whosoever
crucifies you crucifies Me. And the history of the centuries is the
history of how the poor and unlearned and the toiling have been
persecuted, harried by war, driven to death and crucified.

Generation after generation have raised the Cross anew, and in the
crucifying of the dumb multitudes have crucified Him. Along with His
own He fought with wild beasts, went through the flames, and suffered
many bloody and diverse persecutions, and He was with His people now.
He confronted to-day the mighty of the earth as He did that blinded
priesthood of old, and He declared that there is only one way of
conquering, and that by love; that gaining the whole world was a
miserable bargain if in exchange a man parted with truth and
righteousness and purity--those things that constitute the soul's very
breath.

But self-interest answered with cold disdain: "What sickly
sentimentalist is this? Let Him be crucified." He faced to-day the
lust of conquest, and declared that the conquering of men's b