perished in a paroxysm of rage against a person. The ideas for which the nation had fought and struggled with a splendid obstinacy through so many years of subjugation, were in a moment thrown away. And it is the same kind of madness which we discern in the demand for the crucifixion of Jesus. It matters nothing to the people that the Cross is the symbol of national degradation, and that for a Jew, however guilty, to die by such a death, is an insult to the whole nation; it is the death which they themselves demand for their noblest Son. That they may the more effectually dishonour Jesus they are willing to dishonour the entire race; nor can they see, in this madness of revenge, that it is not Jesus only, but the nation itself, that is put to an open shame.

It was about nine o'clock in the morning when the final order was given for the execution of Jesus. The place of execution is minutely described to us as Golgotha, or the place of a skull, a small hill near the city, and immediately beyond its gates. There is but one place discoverable in modern Jerusalem which entirely fulfils the descriptions of the Evangelists. It is a green hill, with a precipitous limestone cliff, which bears an unmistakable likeness to a human skull. It is at a point where great roads converge, open and public, so that it would be possible for a great concourse of people to assemble, each of whom would be able to see all that occurred upon the hill itself, and to read the inscription which Pilate wrote above the Cross. The hill rises immediately outside the Damascus Gate, which in earlier times was called the Gate of Stephen, because tradition asserts that the first martyr suffered death in its immediate vicinity. To this day the hill is known among the Jews as the Hill of Execution, and it is said that he who passes it breathes to himself the strange words, "Cursed be He who destroyed our nation by aspiring to be its king." At

the foot of the hill is a garden, in which a rock sepulchre has lately been discovered, certainly dating from the days of Herod, and almost certainly the tomb in which the body of Jesus lay.

It was to this hill that the sad procession now passed. First of all marched the centurion charged with the execution of the sentence, who bore aloft the tablet on which the offence of Jesus was described, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews." Next followed the soldiers, carrying the instruments of execution, and behind them came Jesus Himself bearing the Cross. Two other prisoners doomed to the same death accompanied Him: a refinement of derision on the part of Pilate, addressed to the Jews rather than to Jesus, whom he wished to insult not only by the inscription on the tablet, but making their King the companion of thieves in His death. The whole multitude followed behind, conspicuous among whom were some of the friends of Jesus, and many women who wept aloud, and smote their breasts, after the custom of mourners at a Jewish funeral. Immediately outside the Damascus Gate, the procession halted, for Jesus was now at the ascent of the hill, and could no longer bear the Cross. A man coming in from the country, known as Simon of Cyrene, was hastily impressed for this duty by the Roman soldiers, who had too great a scorn of the Cross to offer the Sufferer the least help in sustaining it. The plateau of the hill was soon reached. The Sufferer was then bound upon the Cross, which was raised, and fastened into the cavity prepared for it. Heavy nails were driven through the hands and feet of Jesus, and the horrible torture of the crucifixion began.

The peculiar feature of death by crucifixion was its ignominy. It was a form of death with which it was impossible to associate the least idea of dignity; its associations were altogether sordid and depraved. The

fact that a man dies by public execution may be painful to remember, but it is not necessarily dishonourable or shameful. Socrates was executed, but it was under circumstances which did not make personal dignity impossible. Many martyrs have died upon the scaffold and at the stake; but while men may have been disgusted at the barbarity of the means of death employed, none have felt them to be inherently shameful. The common form of Jewish execution was by stoning; but barbarous as this death was, yet it was so little shameful that there had been those who still were heroes in Jewish memory in spite of the nature of their death. But crucifixion involved a kind of shame beyond shame : indelible, odious, and utterly revolting. Among civilised nations who allow the penalty of death for capital offences, it is generally agreed that the means of death employed should be swift. Justice is content with the fact of death, and does not demand torture. But in crucifixion the pangs of dissolution were prolonged and public. It was no unusual thing for a criminal to hang upon his cross for several days, expiring at last from sheer exhaustion. The modesty of death itself was violated in this prolonged public exhibition of a dreadful agony. Exposed to a pitiless sun, racked with a furious thirst, often derided by the passers-by, liable to the attacks of vultures while yet consciousness survived-it was so that men died upon the Cross, under every aggravation of atrocity. It was little wonder, therefore, that the Cross was regarded with a peculiar abhorrence. It was the symbol of an infamy so complete that even pity was alienated: of a dishonour so dire that the mind refused its contemplation.

The truly astonishing thing in the death of Jesus is that by the manner of His dying He utterly destroyed these evil associations of the Cross, and replaced them with ideas of inexhaustible beauty and significance. He