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My Dearest Father:—I now resume the narrative of
the condemnation, or rather sentence, of Jesus, after
he had been brought a second time before Pilate. The
Procurator, finding that the Jews would have the Prophet's
life, and that, if he resisted further, he himself would be
reported to Cæsar, as protecting a revolutionist and usurper,
vacillated, and showed an indecision that became not
a Roman Governor. His sense of justice revolted at
sacrificing, to the hatred of the people, an innocent man,
against whom no accusation had been proven; and he
feared for his own name and fame, should Tiberius, who
is always jealous of his Oriental Governors, believe their
statement of the case.

Jesus, as I stated in my last, had, from weakness, sunk
upon the steps of the throne of the Hall of Judgment.
John knelt by him, bathing the wounds in his temples,
from which he had boldly taken the crown of thorns.
When Pilate, after giving the order to release the robber-chief,
Barabbas, came again where Jesus was, he stopped,
and regarded him attentively, and with an expression of
sorrow and admiration. The youthful beauty, the dignity,
even in his humiliation, the patience, and air of innocence,
that enveloped him, deeply impressed him. At
length he spoke:

“If thou be indeed a god, O heroic young man, as thy
patience would seem to prove thee to be, thou needest not
to fear these blood-hounds, that bay so fiercely for thy

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blood. If thou art an impostor and a seditionist, thou
verily meritest death. I regard thee but as a youthful enthusiast,
and would let thee go free; but I cannot protect
thee. My soldiers are reduced, by sending them to garrison
Jericho and Gaza, to less than three hundred men; and
of these enraged Jews there are half a million in the city.
It is only by moral force, and show of power, that I keep
them in subjection. If I release thee, not only thou, but
all my troops, will be massacred; for we are but a handful
in their grasp. Tell me truly, art thou the son of
Jupiter!”

When Jesus, instead of replying, remained silent, the
Procurator said, sternly:

“What, speakest thou not unto me? Knowest thou
not that I have power to crucify thee as a malefactor, and
power, if I choose to meet the risk, to release thee?”

Jesus looked up, and calmly said:

“Thou couldst have no power against me except it
were given thee from above. Therefore, he that delivered
me into thy hand hath the greater sin!”

And as Jesus said these words in an impressive tone,
he glanced fixedly at Caiaphas, who was looking in at the
door, as if designating the High-Priest. Upon this Pilate
pressed his hands against his forehead, and paced several
times, to and fro, before the Judgment-seat, as if greatly
troubled. Caiaphas seeing his irresolution, cried, harshly:

“If thou let this self-styled king go, O Governor, thou
art not Cæsar's friend! Our whole nation charges him,
before you, with setting himself up to be our king over
us, when Tiberius is the only king to whom we can owe
allegiance. Release the Usurper, if thou darest, and I
would not give two brass mites for thy head!”

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Pilate's brow grew dark. He took Jesus by the hand,
and leading him to the portal, and pointing to him, said
aloud:

“Behold your king! What will you that I should do
with him! Looks he like a man to be feared?”

“We have no king but Cæsar!”

“Crucify him!”

“To the Cross with the false Prophet!”

“Death to the Usurper! Long live Cæsar! Long live
Tiberius! Death to the Nazarine! To the Cross!—to
the Cross with him! Let him be crucified!”

These were the various cries from ten thousand throats,
that responded to the Procurator's address. Impressed,
as he has since said, with the innocence of Jesus, and remembering
the warning message sent him by his young
and beautiful wife, who held great influence over him, he
trembled with indecision.

“Why will you compel me to crucify an innocent man?
What evil hath he done?”

“Crucify him! Crucify him!” was the deafening
response.

“I will chastise him, and let him go!”

“At your peril, release him, O Roman!” exclaimed
Caiaphas, in a menacing tone. “Either he or you must
die this day for the people. Blood must flow to appease
this tempest!”

The tumult was now appalling. The voices of the
chief priests and people kept up a ceaseless uproar, calling
for his crucifixion; and in vain Pilate appealed to their
humanity and justice. They drowned his voice with their
own; and his gesticulations for silence only increased the
roar of the human whirlwind.

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When the Procurator saw that he could prevail nothing,
but that rather the tumult increased, he called for water,
which was brought to him in a basin, by his page; and,
in the presence of the whole multitude, he washed his
hands, saying:

“I am innocent of the blood of this just person. See
ye to it, oh Jews, ye and your High-Priest!”

“His blood be upon us, and on our children,” answered
Caiaphas; and all the people re-echoed his language:

“Aye! on us and on our children, rest the guilt of his
blood!”

“Be it so,” answered the Procurator, with a dark brow,
and face pale as the dead. “Take ye him and crucify
him, and may the God he worships judge you, not me,
for this day's deeds.”

Pilate then turned away from them, and said to Jesus,
who stood unmoved, with the same heroic and celestial
serenity which he had manifested throughout the storm
raging about him:

“Thou art, I feel, an innocent man; but thou seest
that I cannot save thee! I know thou wilt forgive me,
and that death can have no terrors for one of fortitude
like thine!”

Jesus made him no answer; and Pilate, turning from
him, with a sad countenance, walked slowly away, and
left the Judgment-Hall. As he did so, one of his captains
said to him:

“Shall I scourge him, according to the Roman law,
which commands all who are sentenced to die to be
scourged?”

“Do as the law commands,” answered the weak-minded
Roman.

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His disappearance was the signal for a general rush
towards Jesus, chiefly of the rabble, who, indifferent about
Gentile defilement, crossed the threshold into the hall,
which Caiaphas and the chief priests had refrained from
doing. These base fellows seized Jesus, and, aided by
the men-at-arms, dragged him forth into the outer or common
hall. Here they stripped him, and, by order of the
chief captain, scourged him with forty stripes, save one.
They then re-arrayed his lacerated and bleeding form in
the torn, kingly robe, which John had removed when he
had taken off his crown; but now they replaced both the
crown and the robe, and once more went through the
mockery of homage, kneeling, and hailing him, “King of
the Jews.”

All this Jesus still bore with godlike majesty. Not a
murmur escaped his lips; not a glance of resentment
kindled the holy depths of his eyes, which, from time to
time, were uplifted to Heaven, as if he sought for help
and strength from thence.

Not only Æmilius, but John, was now separated from
him; but my uncle, the Rabbi, stood near, in order to
see what would follow; and to use his influence, if possible,
to induce the chief priests to abandon the idea of killing
him.

“Good Rabbi,” said Jesus to him, “let them do with
me what they list! My Father hath given me into their
hands. I die, but not for myself; I can keep or yield up
my life, as I will.”

“Oh, then, dear Master!” cried my uncle, “why not
save thyself? Why shouldst thou suffer all this, and
death also, if thou hast the power over thy life?”

“If I die not, then were ye all dead! The Scripture

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must be fulfilled, which spoke of me: `He was led like a
lamb to the slaughter.”'

Here Rabbi Amos could speak no more to him, for the
crowd dragged him off out of the court of Gabbatha, and
so down the steep street, in the direction of the gate of
the kings, that leads to the Hill of Calvary, the public
place of execution, where the Romans, since they have
been masters of Jerusalem, have executed criminals by
their cruel mode of crucifying. At the gate, a Roman
Centurion took him into custody, under arms, and escorted
him, followed by the vast multitude.

Rabbi Amos accompanied the multitude, keeping as
nigh to Jesus as the Roman soldiers, who marched on each
side of him, would let him. On the way, as they crossed
the open space where once stood the palace and statue of
Antiochus Seleucus, the eyes of the Rabbi were attracted
by the cries and pointed fingers of many of the people, to
the body of a man lying dead at the foot of a withered
fig-tree. Upon drawing nearer, he recognized the features
of Judas, who had so basely betrayed his Master. The
spectacle which he exhibited was revolting, and horrid to
look upon. About his neck was wound a fragment of his
girdle, the other half being still secured to a limb of the
tree, showing how he had met his fate. The cord had
broken by his weight, and being a fleshy man, he had,
most dreadful to relate, in the fall burst asunder, and the
hungry dogs that infest the suburbs, were feeding upon
his bowels. With cries of horror, several of the Jews
drove them away, and the Roman Centurion, whom Pilate
had ordered to crucify Jesus for the Jews, directed four of
his soldiers to convey the hideous corpse from sight, and
see that it was either burned or buried.

“If,” said Rabbi Amos to John, who now rejoined him

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“if the accusers of Jesus are to be punished like this
man, this will be a fearful day for the men of Jerusalem.
Judas, the betrayer dies before his victim dies, and by his
own hand. This looks like Divine retribution, and, as if
Jesus were, in truth, the favored Prophet of the Highest.”

By this time, the people, who were dragging Jesus to
death, were got out of the gate, where a cross of heavy
cyprus was obtained by the Centurion, from a yard near
the lodge, wherein stood several new crosses, awaiting
whatsoever victims Roman justice might, from day to day,
condemn to death. Two others were also brought out,
and laid upon the shoulders of two men, the lieutenants
of Barabbas, who were also that day to be crucified. The
released Barabbas was himself present, and the most
active, in laying the cross upon the back of the already
faint and drooping Jesus.

By the time the great crowd had passed the gate, it was
known throughout all Jerusalem, that Pilate had given
orders for the crucifixion of the Nazarene Prophet; and,
with one mind, all who had known him, and believed in
him, or loved him, left their houses, to go out after him,
to witness his crucifixion; for, I forgot to say, that Caiaphas
had promised, if Jesus were delivered up, his followers
should not be molested. Therefore, every person went
out of the gate towards Calvary. Mary, his mother, my
cousin Mary, Martha and her sister, Lazarus, John, and
Peter, and Thomas, and some women, his relatives from
Galilee, and many others also went. When we had got
without the walls, we seemed to leave a deserted city behind
us. As far as the eye could embrace, there was a
countless multitude moving along the vast space, between
the Gate of the Kings and Mount Calvary. Jesus was

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borne in front, where we could now and then catch the
gleam of a Roman spear. We hastened to get near him,
and, with difficulty, made our way to the head of the
throng; both foes and friends giving back, when they saw
his weeping mother among us.

At the ascent of Calvary we found that, from some
cause, the course of the mighty current of human beings
was checked. We soon learned the reason. Jesus had,
at length, sunk to the ground, under the weight of
the wooden beams on which he was to die, and fainted.

“He is dead!” was the cry of those about him; but, as
we drew near, he was reviving, some one having offered
wine to his lips, and poured water upon his brow. He
stood up, and looking mildly around. Meeting his mother's
gaze, he said, touchingly:

“Weep not! Remember what I have often told thee
of this hour, and believe! The sword pierces through thy
soul, but it is held in my Father's hand. Mine hour is
come. Fear not.”

Thus speaking, he smiled upon his mother, and upon
us, with a certain look of Divine peace illuminating his
countenance.

Barabbas, the robber-chief, who had, in some degree,
taken the lead of the mob, now, with the aid of three
men, raised the cross to the shoulders of Jesus, and ordered
him to move on. But the young victim sank at once
beneath the load. Upon this they were at a loss what to
do; for it is ignominious for Jew or Gentile to aid in bearing
a malefactor's cross, and not a Roman would touch it;
and the Jews would not for fear of defilement, which
would compel them to be set apart afterwards for many
days' purification. Barabbas again raised Jesus to his

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feet, and began to scourge him, to make him drag the
heavy beams up the steep of Calvary. But he had no
strength to advance three steps with it, though he made
the effort to obey his tyrannous executioners. At this
crisis they discerned the Syro-Phœnician merchant, Simon
of Cyrene, a venerable man, well-known to all in Jerusalem,
and father of the two young men, Rufus and Alexander,
who were followers of Jesus, having sold, the last
year, all they had, in order to become his disciples, and
sit at his feet, and listen to his Divine teachings. Their
father was, for this or some other reason, particularly obnoxious
to Caiaphas, and, on seeing him, he pointed him
out to the Centurion, “as one of the Nazarenes,” and
suggested that he should be compelled to bear the cross
after him.

The Cyrenian merchant was at once dragged from his
mule, and led to the place where the cross lay, believing
he was about to be himself executed. But when he beheld
Jesus standing, pale and bleeding, by the fallen cross,
and knew what was required of him, he burst into tears,
and kneeling at his feet, said:

“If they compel me to do this, Lord, think not that I
aid thy death! I know that thou art a Prophet come
from God! If thou diest to-day, Jerusalem will have
more precious blood to answer for than the blood of all
her prophets.”

“We brought thee here not to prate, old man, but to
work. Thou art strong-bodied. Up with this end of the
cross, and go on after him!” cried the chief priests.

Simon, who is a powerful man, though three-score years
of age, raised the extremity of the beam, and Jesus essayed
to move under the weight of the other; but he failed.

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