Mark 15:1-15

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

Mark 15:1. And the whole council.—Even the whole Sanhedrin, which consisted of the three classes just named—chief priests, elders, and scribes (1Ma. 14:28).

Mark 15:2. Thou sayest it.—Σὺ λέγεις. This is generally taken as a direct affirmation—an idiomatic or courteous “Yes”; but Prof. Thayer seems to have shewn that it is rather an appeal to the questioner’s own conscience. “Art Thou the King of the Jews?” asked Pilate, half in scorn and half in amusement. “Dost thou say this?” is Christ’s reply; or, as in John 18:34, “Sayest thou this of thyself, or did others tell it thee concerning Me?” Bee Expository Times, vol. vi. No. 10, pp. 437–439.

Mark 15:3. But He answered nothing.—Omit this clause, “imported from Matthew 27:12.

Mark 15:6. Render: Now at feast-time he was wont to release unto them one prisoner, whomsoever they desired. For ὅνπερ ᾐτοῦντο, א, A, B read ὃν παρῃτοῦντο, whom they begged off.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Mark 15:1

(PARALLELS: Matthew 27:1; Matthew 27:11; Luke 23:1; Luke 23:13; John 18:28 to John 19:16.)

Christ and Pilate: the True King and His counterfeit.—The so-called trial of Jesus by the rulers turned entirely on His claim to be Messias; His examination by Pilate turns entirely on His claim to be King. The two claims are indeed one; but the political aspect is distinguishable from the higher one, and it was the Jewish rulers’ trick to push it exclusively into prominence before Pilate, in the hope that he might see in the claim an incipient insurrection, and might mercilessly stamp it out.

I. The True King at the bar of the apparent ruler (Mark 15:1).—Pilate holding Christ’s life in his hand is the crowning paradox of history and the mystery of self-abasing love. One exercise of the Prisoner’s will and His chains would have snapped and the governor lain dead on the marble “pavement.” The two hearings are parallel, and yet contrasted. In each there are two stages—the self-attestation of Jesus, and the accusations of others; but the order is different. The rulers begin with the witnesses, and, foiled there, fall back on Christ’s own answer. Pilate, with Roman directness and a touch of contempt for the accusers, goes straight to the point, and first questions Jesus. His question was simply as to our Lord’s regal pretensions. “Thou a king?”—poor, helpless peasant! A strange specimen of royalty this! How constantly the same blindness is repeated, and the strong things of this world despise the weak, and material power smiles pityingly at the helpless impotence of the principles of Christ’s gospel, which yet will one day shatter it to fragments, like a potter’s vessel! There are plenty of Pilates to-day who judge and misjudge the King of Israel. The silence of Jesus in regard to the eager accusations corresponds to His silence before the false witnesses. Christ can afford to let many of His foes alone. Contradictions and confutations keep slanders and heresies above water, which the law of gravitation would dispose of, if they were left alone. Pilate’s wonder might and should have led him further. It was the little glimmer of light at the far-off end of his cavern, which, travelled towards, might have brought him into free air and broad day. One great part of his crime was neglecting the faint monitions of which he was conscious.

II. The people’s favourite (Mark 15:7).—“Barabbas” means “son of the father.” His very name is a kind of caricature of the “Son of the Blessed,” and his character and actions present in gross form the sort of Messias whom the nation really wanted. The popular hero is like a mirror which reflects the popular mind. He echoes the popular voice, a little improved or exaggerated. Jesus had taught what the people did not care to hear, and given blessings which even the recipients soon forgot, and lived a life whose beauty of holiness oppressed and rebuked the common life of men. What chance had truth and goodness and purity against the sort of bravery that slashes with a sword, and is not elevated by inconvenient reach of thought or beauty of character above the mob? Even now, after nineteen centuries of Christ’s influence have modified the popular ideals, what chance have they? Are the popular “heroes” of Christian nations saints, teachers, lovers of men, in whom their Christlikeness is the thing venerated? That fatal choice revealed the character of the choosers, both in their hostility and admiration; for excellence hated shews what we ought to be and are not, and grossness or vice admired shews what we would fain be if we dared.—A. Maclaren, D.D.

A coward, and what became of him.—Fix your eyes on Pilate. An o’er close contact with an evil world had ploughed furrows across his face; sensuality had left its impress there. He had come up from Caesarea a little while ago to keep peace during the great annual festival, for the Jews were a turbulent race. He made his headquarters at the castle of Antonia, and doubtless kept well indoors; for he was the best-hated man in all Jerusalem, and deserved it. On the morning of this April day he was awakened early by a beating at his gates. He doubtless arose from his couch with reluctance and muttering maledictions on these troublesome Jews. They had brought a prisoner for trial. Last night, at the conclave of the Sanhedrin, He was accused of blasphemy, of making Himself equal with God. But no Roman magistrate would take cognisance of a theological indictment. So they must needs trump up charges against Him. First, He had perverted the nation. Second, He had forbidden payment of tribute to the emperor. Third, He had proclaimed Himself as a king. Pilate must determine upon this case: there was no escape. And you, friend, must also decide what you will do with Jesus who is called the Christ.

I. Now mark the circumstances which aggravated his cowardice—

1. He had heard about Jesus and knew Him. His wonderful work and words and name were in the air. He had had, moreover, an interview with Jesus. He had asked Him, “Art thou a king?” And Jesus answered, “Thou sayest it; but My kingdom is not of this world—I am come to reign in the province of truth.” So he knew about Him. What will he do with Him?
2. He had been warned concerning Him. Not only had his conscience rung the alarm—as conscience warns us all—but a special admonition had been given him. His wife Procula had dreamed in the waking hours of the morning—the hour when Israel thought all dreams came true—and tradition tells us the dream. She saw a conflagration that consumed homes and temples and palaces, licked up forests, and burned the heavens like a parched scroll, so that nothing could extinguish it. There were cries of the homeless and fear-stricken and dying. Then a lamb appeared, and as it lifted its eyes all sounds were hushed. It mounted the flaming pyre; its side was pierced, blood gushed forth, and the fires were quenched. Then the lamb assumed human form, and the appearance was, as the dreamer said,

“Of a Man Divine and passing fair,
And like your august Prisoner there.”

Therefore she said, “Do no harm to that just Man.”

3. Pilate’s cowardice was aggravated by his attempts at evasion and compromise. He entreated the people, “Why, what evil hath He done?” He might as well have sung a lullaby to a cyclone. “Crucify Him!” was the answer. “Crucify Him!” And then he sent Him to Herod—a happy thought. But Herod would not be responsible for the decision of this perplexing case; so he sent the Prisoner back. Pilate must judge Him; so must you and I. Here is this Jesus; and what will he do with Him? A great problem confronts him. He said, “I will chastise Him and let Him go.” Oh, shame upon him for a Roman magistrate! The Man is either guilty or innocent. If guilty, He should die the death; if innocent, let Him go. Compromise never pays. “Nothing is settled until it is settled right.” No man nor Church, no pastor nor teacher, can afford to split the difference in spiritual things.

II. But what was the occasion of this man’s cowardice?—

1. To begin with, he was a trifler. He lived in an age of cynicism; the foundations of religion were broken up. He had mingled with the soldiers at the camp-fire, cracking jokes about the gods and making sport of sacred things. And now, facing this Divine Truth-giver, the irony of his retort—“What is truth?”—was but the outcome of his pernicious habit. Some of you, perhaps, have been wont to trifle in like manner. But we cannot make light of any serious matter without ultimately paying for it.

2. He had no opinions of his own. He went to the people, to his wife, to the priests, for advice. Oh, man, think for thyself! It behoves us to have convictions of our own. Let us live by them, stand for them, and be willing in their defence, if need be, to die. If ever we are in doubt, we have a sure Counsellor (James 1:5).

3. Another reason for Pilate’s cowardice was his sycophancy. At all hazards he must be Caesar’s friend. What was the result? A little while after Tiberius was off the throne and Caligula was on. And Caligula said, “Go bring me Pilate; he must answer to certain charges concerning an aqueduct, a Roman standard, and a murder at the altar.” And a little later Pilate was an exile and a wanderer.

III. Let us not be too hard upon Pilate, for there may be some moral cowards among us. Let me give you a parting word, the motto of the Guthrie family, “Sto pro veritate.” Let us stand for the truth, the truth against the world. There is nothing better than that We are all in Pilate’s place. The Lord Jesus stands in judgment before us. What are you going to do with Him? Will you meet Him with mock heroics, admiration of His manhood and rejection of His Divine claim? Out upon all mere sentimentalism! Let us be logical and sensible. Christ was what He claimed to be, or else an impostor who deserved to die.—D. J. Burrell, D.D.

Personal conviction and popular clamour.—This Jewish scene, so important in the world’s life, introduces us to a very serious subject, involving moral and religious questions—the rule or prevalence of the majority. The theory that every man has a voice and vote in the arrangement of things, and that that arrangement shall be according to the opinion which combines the greatest number of those votes or voices, is almost universal. It seems to embody the only principle upon which a decision has any justice, or is binding at all. It encourages activity, free thought, and discussion, and the individual personal interests of us all. And yet we are sorely perplexed about it at times. We feel that the voices of the majority often mean nothing at all, and should have no weight—that is, they are mere empty noise, behind which there is no truth, but only ignorance, or only a half-truth, destructive in its mutilated state. When, then, ought the many voices to prevail?

I. When the responsibility of decision and action is to belong to the many whose voices are heard.—If a company of travellers are to choose between certain plans or paths of journeying, and no one person has or is to have the responsibility, and the success or disappointment will not be visited upon any one member, but all are interested and will bear the blame or praise of the future action, then a vote of the entire companionship is taken. Their decision may be wrong in itself, but it is right that it should have been so made. Now in the case of our text it was not so. The multitude had nothing to do with the judging or deciding. It was an individual matter between Pilate and Christ. And so it is with each of us. Every quiet moment of conviction, when we stand face to face with Christ and His pure cross-marked religion, and debate anxiously the question, “Shall I decide for or against Him?” is a reproduction of the interviews of Pilate and Jesus at the inner judgment-seat. We should decide in a moment for Jesus, if it were not that other voices enter in. They control the sentence, and we bear the responsibility and results of it. Oh, think of it! That empty-tongued crowd of fashion or society, which cries down your single heart’s voice—that hard-voiced throng of money-seekers, which shames and silences your warm conviction for the Lord—that false, smooth-toned multitude of unbelievers, which surround you and ply you with their infidel voices and sneers and arguments, and chill your spiritual aspirations,—you can never fasten the blame upon them. They will only mock at you when the results come. They will say, “It is none of our matter.” And it will be true.

II. In a matter of fact, in the testimony of experience—The more witnesses to a fact of experience that can be brought, the better for the truth, whoever has to decide it. But now turn to this story of Pilate again. What sort of voices did he listen to and allow to prevail? Did they bring the overwhelming weight of experience against him? Was that what controlled and turned his decision? No, he knew that those chief priests cried for crucifixion out of envy. He knew that his own experience of Christ, that his comprehension and appreciation of Him, was something of which this crowd had nothing. They should never have prevailed. If you have felt the truth of Christ’s love to you only for a moment—if you have felt His purity by the side of your sin in one quick instant of repentant experience—if you have once felt His gentle yet complete kingliness by the side of false earthly power,—there is a voice of experience within you over which all voices of men who have seen and learnt no such facts should never prevail. Oh, if a man’s moral self and God’s Spirit insist upon being heard together, and above all else, it is not obstinacy, but firmness of purpose; it is the strongest condition of man; it is the richest of life’s harmonies—man’s voice and God’s voice at one.—F. Brooks.

OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES

Mark 15:1. Activity in evil.—While honest men lay them down in peace and take their rest, suspecting no harm because they mean none, thieves and robbers are up and abroad, spreading their nets for the prey and watching to do mischievously. “The devil’s martyrs,” saith Bernard, “are more swift in running to hell than we to heaven.” How slack are we to do God any service! how backward to suffer anything for Him! And how they, on the other side, can bestir them to serve the devil, and be content to suffer a kind of martyrdom in his service! The way, sure, is broad enough and easy enough that leadeth to destruction; yet so much pains is there taken to find it, that I verily believe half the pains many a man taketh to go to hell, if it had been well bestowed, would have brought him to heaven.—Bishop Sanderson.

Jesus delivered to Pilate.—What a spectacle was that! The heads of the Jewish nation leading their own Messiah in chains to deliver Him up to a Gentile governor, with the petition that He should be put to death! Shades of the heroes and the prophets, who loved the nation and boasted of it and foretold its glorious fate, the hour of destiny has come, and this is the result! It was an act of national suicide. But was it not more? Was it not the frustration of the purpose and the promise of God? So it certainly appeared to be. Yet He is not mocked. Even through human sin His purpose holds on its way. The Jews brought the Son of God to Pilate’s judgment-seat, that both Jew and Gentile might unite in condemning Him; for it was part of the work of the Redeemer to expose human sin, and here was to be exhibited the ne plus ultra of wickedness, as the hand of humanity was lifted up against its Maker. And yet that death was to be the life of humanity; and Jesus, standing between Jew and Gentile, was to unite them in the fellowship of a common salvation.—J. Stalker, D.D.

Why was Jesus taken to Pilate?—The common opinion, that the Romans had deprived the Jews of the power to inflict capital punishment, would seem to be erroneous; for we learn from the Acts that the Sanhedrin put St. Stephen and others to death. The truth probably is, that the Pharisees, who were the chief instigators of our Lord’s death, were averse to the shedding of Jewish blood by the Sanhedrin, and preferred to throw the odium of His execution upon the Romans. The Sadducees, who took the lead in the persecution of the early Christians, had no such scruples.

Mark 15:2. Avowal and description of kingship.—Never answering the dishonest attack, the Saviour always answered the honest inquiry. Here He explicitly avows that He is “a king”—the King, according to the fuller reply recorded by John, of more than Jews; and, according to that account, He intimates His kingship (John 18:36) to be other than worldly royalties, not employing force and fighting men, but that His kingship is the royalty which invests all who can testify the truth, and invests Him as the Truth, as the Great Revealer of God, of duty, of mercy, of hope. There is no sort of kingliness like this.—R. Glover.

Mark 15:3. The silence of Jesus proceeds from His owning all our crimes before His Father, His only lawful judge. Concern, passion, fear of death, love of reputation, and desire to be justified, make an accused person speak who has nothing at liberty but his tongue; but even the tongue itself of Christ is not at liberty, being under a kind of confinement from His meekness, His patience, His wisdom, His humility, His obedience, and His quality of victim, which make Him even in love with shame and with the Cross.—P. Quesnel.

The silence of Jesus.—Much is said, and well said, on the teaching of Jesus—His manner and method as a speaker; how independent He was of times and circumstances; and how, in His peasant’s garb, and by the hillside or the river-shore, He forced the confession from His hearers, “Never man spake like this man!” He was troubled by no interruption. He was always ready to bear questionings, and no teacher was ever so patient to repeat himself so long as repetition promised anything. But there was the limit. When speech was useless, He was silent. The prudence of Jesus is seen in His keeping silence, and never more so than where He answered no more questions or thrusts. And the governor marvelled greatly. Pilate marvelled because he knew Jesus could speak. He knew the power with which He could plead the cause of truth. He knew the influence He had exerted by His eloquence. He knew these accusations came because of the power which the wonderful Teacher had exerted by His speech. He did not keep dumb because He had no words, nor because He was unused to discussion, nor because He could not bear the presence of these ecclesiastical dignitaries. Discussion and they were familiar to Him; but He had to practise the instructions He had given to His disciples. He had forbidden them to throw pearls where they would find no gold setting; and where there was only talk and no heart, He bade them leave the place and go elsewhere. He had not only taught this, but He had practised it. Many instances you will find which illustrate that so soon as He discovered that the disposition of the people was wrong He retired, and in silence found confidence and strength. And there in Pilate’s hall, accused and scorned, He who could wake the dead and still the sea, who could blast the unproductive fig tree whose life was expressed only in leaves, and who could open the deaf ear and bid the dumb to speak—He in the hour of mortal peril was silent. There He stood—still as the stars dropping their crystal light—still as the grass springs and the blossoms unfold—still as the subtlest forces of nature speed on their way—still as the footsteps of God, when He visits specially the human soul—still as the spirit goes to the resurrection. The example of Jesus in reference to the time to keep silent must not be lost upon us. We sometimes forget that the world is not wholly ruled by talk, that it is not possible at all times to find an unperverting hearing, and we need the discipline of silence. To Jesus let us go for an example in reference to the times and seasons of silence; and then in the difficult passes of life we shall say our word calmly, solemnly, truthfully, and leave the issues with God, not doubting the fidelity of His providence.—Henry Bacon.

Silence under misconception.—There still are few, even under the tuition of the example of Christ, who can preserve this supreme silence. It is not altogether easy, even for the wisest and the best, to be serenely contented to be misunderstood—to let their thought quietly grow, their good intention gradually become known of all men, their larger plan, their higher purpose, their prophetic anticipation of the world-age next to come, wait its hour, while they themselves may be regarded as unbelievers, or looked upon as visionaries, or hardly tolerated as dangerous Christian teachers; and they themselves may not expect to live to see the larger good in which some day their thought and toil may find beneficent fruitions. And if silence under misconception is no easy virtue always even for the wisest and the best, it is a spiritual gift not even coveted by the great mass of men and women whom the slightest misunderstanding may irritate into bitter speech and the least provocation cause to bristle up in offensive self-assertion. The millennium can hardly be expected to come even to the best society until men and women shall have mastered more humbly and unselfishly the secret of this personal silence of the Christ. His conduct in this particular seems the more remarkable when we consider what powers of commanding speech He possessed, had He been pleased to exercise them in His own behalf. What a vindication, had He pleased, He might have given of His life as the Son of Man, when the Jews falsely accused Him before Pilate of making Himself a king in Caesar’s place! What glorious argument of His doctrine He might have spoken when Herod asked Him many questions! What sublime apology for His life as the Divine Servant of men He might have left for disciples to publish to the coming ages after He should have suffered a martyr’s death! Yet He chose a kinglier silence for His record, and Heaven’s approval for His crown. He could wait, He alone of the great powers of our human history, until the glory of the Father which He had from the beginning should be manifested, and in His name all be reconciled.—N. Smyth, D.D.

Mark 15:10. The envy of the chief priests.—Christ’s earthly life was in many respects so unenviable that the thought of envy at first occasions surprise. He had no advantage of wealth or station. His limited successes in preaching the gospel of His kingdom were chiefly among poor and despised classes. How came it, then, that rich and haughty Sadducees envied Him? The truth is, that envy is a passion of blacker face than the mere feeling of disquiet at sight of the worldly successes of others. The heart that is apart from God and unreconciled to Him, lacking a worthy object for its affection, is a prey to unrest. Sometimes it must needs be discontented. And then the sight of spiritual peace and happiness in others awakens that sense of lack and that pain of contrast which we call envy. It may be hardly more than a tinge of feeling, or it may grow to be a dominant and malignant passion. Lord Bacon said: “A man that hath no virtue in himself ever envieth virtue in others, for men’s minds will either feed upon their own good or upon others’ evil; and who wanteth the one will prey upon the other; and whoso is out of hope to attain another’s virtue will seek to come at even hand by depressing another’s fortune.”

The choice of alternatives.—Tinworth has graphically reproduced this scene in clay, and called it “The World’s Choice.” He thus treats it not only as an historic but also as a typical fact. It expresses the spirit of the world. Note a few of the many elements in it.

1. Hatred of Rome and a desire to perplex Pilate.
2. Sympathy with the man who had lifted up his hand against the hateful rule of Rome and her representatives.
3. Bitter resentment against Christ for His scathing words in cleansing the Temple, and His daring deeds in scourging unholy traffickers.
4. The infectious influence of raging passion, or the feverish and mad frenzy of a crowd.
5. The felt inconvenience of being in the minority.—D. Daivies.

The tragedy of Pilate’s life.—There was nothing to signalise him; he was no bad example of an average Roman governor. In a few months he might have retired from his post, to end his days in the merciful obscurity which has closed over the remains of thousands such as he. But the pathetic tragedy of his life lies in this: that suddenly, by accident (as we speak), without any wish or choice or consent of his own, unasked, unwarned, surprised, he is found to be placed at the very hour and centre of the. sharpest and fiercest crisis that the world has ever seen. The heat of the great battle surges with abrupt vehemence, with furious emphasis, round the spot where he happens to stand. It is the hour of all hours, and he is in the very thick of its awful pressure before he is aware of it, before he can take its measure. Unexpected, uncalculated, the eternal war has swung his way—the war between good and evil, God and devil—the death-struggle for the world’s redemption. Round him the forces of the spiritual strife surge and swell. In a moment he is caught up into them, as into a whirlpool—round and round they eddy, they storm, they howl; they clamour for a decision from him—a decision swift, momentous, vital. “Yes or no.”—Canon Scott-Holland.

Mark 15:12. The parting of the ways.—It is very easy and respectable to place Pilate in our thoughts upon a pedestal of infamy; but are we sufficiently alive to the fact that our responsibility is as great? We have to pursue a certain course in regard to Christ. There are two main divergent roads, and only two. We must side with the mob, we must belie our own conscience, as Pilate did; or we must yield Him our allegiance, and crown Him with our love. Yet, of course, there are degrees in partisanship. The relations of men to Christ may be more elaborately described.

1. For example, you may put Christ off. Thousands do that without the slightest thought of dying infidels, and finally and deliberately rejecting the Christian gospel. But, oh, remember postponement is distinct action! For the time being it is final.

2. Or you may patronise Him. You may clothe Him in the fine robe of genteel respect; you may support the institutions of religion that bear His name; you may never speak against Him—you may even speak up for His Church. How high a value, think you, does Christ place upon this kind of support?

3. Or, again, you may sell Christ. You love money. But, it may be, you cannot make money as you have been making it and place Him on the throne of your heart. You are in sight of a big success; you have only to square your conscience and the thing will be done. Oh! face the situation boldly, know distinctly what you are going to do with Jesus which is called Christ!

4. Or, once more, you may boycott Him. In your heart of hearts you acknowledge His claim; yet you never seem to know Christ in society. You never speak of Him, you never honour Him, you never stand up for Him, you treat Him like a poor relation of whom you are ashamed. Now, is not each of these expedients the selection of a way? Is it not the adoption of a party? Is it not enlistment on one side of the great struggle? The most obvious and important lesson from this incident in Pilate’s history is the impossibility of shirking spiritual responsibilities.—R. B. Brindley.

A crisis in Pilate’s life.—Quite apart from that which is at stake, it is a terrible picture of a man, by no means all bad, driven by bold, bad men to do a dreadful deed, a deed from which his heart and his conscience and his honour each in turn recoil, a deed which has made the name of Pontius Pilate stand out in lurid letters as no other name ever named among men stands out, as no other name ever can stand out. It was not, you must notice, the first or the second time that Pilate had been defeated in the attempt to carry out his will by the determination of the Jews. He knew well what they were. His was the famous order which sent into the Holy City the standards of the Roman soldiers with the desecrating image of the emperor; and after one device and another had failed, after he had tried persuasion, and had tried the threat and the shew of violence, they made him withdraw the order. He it was who hung up in the palace of the Roman governor shields inscribed with the names of the Roman deities; but here, great as was the outrage to the Jews, he remained firm, and, had to bear the indignity of a special order from Tiberius to remove them. In both of those cases he was wrong from the first and throughout, and he had to give way,—in the one case to submit; in the other, in the case which fills our thoughts to-day, he strove to do what was right, and he had to give way, as before. It is a terrible warning to a weak man in a place of responsibility.—Canon G. F. Browne.

Pilate’s weakness.—“Poor mockery of a ruler,” one has said, “set by the Eternal to do right upon the earth and afraid to do it! Told so by his own bosom; strong enough in his legions, and in the truth itself, to have saved the Innocent One and kept his own soul,—he could only think of the apparently expedient. Type of the politician of all ages who forgets that only the right is the strong or wise.”

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 15

Mark 15:3. Silence and self-control.—Moltke, the great strategist, was a man of lowly habits and few words. He has been described as a man “who can hold his tongue in seven languages I”

Mark 15:10. Envy.—Dionysius the tyrant, out of envy, punished Philoxenus the musician because he could sing, and Plato the philosopher because he could dispute, better than himself.

Mark 15:11. A change of national sentiment.—Englishmen can very well understand what a change of national sentiment means—what it is for a ruler to have the confidence of the nation at one time and lose it at another. When that happens, and is proved to have happened by a general election, there need not be any voters—there seldom are more than a few scores or hundreds—who actually change sides, who vote one way one time and the opposite way another. But the party that was dominant at one time, that knew what it wanted and meant to get it, is at another time halfhearted and doubtful; if they will not vote against their old party they perhaps do not care to vote at all, or at any rate they do not care to try to convince others, to gain over those who are doubtful, or to urge to activity those who are indifferent, or still more half-hearted than themselves.—W. H. Simcox.

Fickleness of popularity.—On July 25th, 1553, Northumberland and Lord Ambrose Dudley were brought in from Cambridge, escorted by Grey and Arundel, with four hundred of the Guards. Detachments of troops were posted all along the streets from Bishopsgate, where the duke would enter, to the Tower, to prevent the mob from tearing him to pieces. It was but twelve days since he had ridden out from that gate in the splendour of his power: he was now assailed from all sides with yells and execrations; bareheaded with cap in hand, he bowed to the crowd as he rode on, as if to win some compassion from them; but so recent a humility could find no favour. His scarlet cloak was plucked from his back; the only sounds which greeted his ears were, “Traitor I traitor I Death to the traitor I” And he hid his face, sick at heart with shame, and Lord Ambrose at the gate of the Tower was seen to burst into tears.—J. A. Eroude.

Inherent weakness of human nature.—The poet has said, “Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.” Can you say that of human nature?

Mark 15:13. The world’s reception of Christ.—It is said of Dr. Robertson, the celebrated historian, that, preaching once in the forenoon, he affirmed, in the words of the ancient heathen, that “if perfect virtue were to descend to the earth clothed in a human form, all the world would fall prostrate and worship her.” In the afternoon Dr. Erskine, his colleague, remarked, on the contrary, that “perfect virtue, in the human nature of the Saviour of mankind, had indeed appeared on the earth; but, instead of being universally worshipped, the general cry of His countrymen was, “Crucify Him I crucify Him I”

Mark 15:15. Scourging.—We cannot tell what that Roman punishment was; we read about it in the olden books, but men do not understand what they read so much as what they feel. The victim was tied by the hands to a post or standard; he was compelled to assume a stooping position; the knotted thong was in the hands of a Roman executioner, and be administered the punishment largely according to his own will or passion. We have heard of the knout in Russia; in our own land we have the “cat,” so feared by felons; in the Roman law there was this arrangement for scourging, that men might be humbled as well as punished, that the truth might be extorted from them as well as a penalty inflicted, that they might be brought into lowliness of mind and submissiveness of temper, so that the judge could do with them what he pleased. The hands of Christ were tied to the stake, the flagellum was used upon His naked back; He was scourged by Roman hands.—J. Parker, D.D.