Pharisees, approached, with lanterns and weapons. The salutation of Judas was to be the sign to the multitude whom they should arrest. Then, coming immediately to Christ, he exclaimed, "Hail, Master; and kissed him." But Jesus, beholding the perfidious traitor, exclaimed, “Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?" Then said he also to the captains of the band, "Be ye come out as against a thief, with swords and staves? When I was daily with you in the temple, ye stretched forth no hands against me; but this is your hour, and the power of darkness." After this he submitted himself to them, and the officers took him and bound him. Then the disciples forsook him and fled. Jesus is led to the palace of the high priest, where were assembled the chief priests, the elders, and the council. There they sought false witnesses against him without success, till the high priest adjured him by the living God to tell whether he were "the Christ, the Son of God." Then Jesus replied, "Thou hast said ;" and immediately the high priest adjudged him guilty of blasphemy, and the whole multitude declared him worthy of death. Then they spit in his face and buffeted him; they blindfolded his eyes, and smote him with the palms of their hands, and called upon him to prophesy who it was that smote him.

As soon as it was morning, the whole multitude carried away Jesus to the hall of justice, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate, the governor. Then the chief priests accused him of many things, but he made no reply, insomuch that Pilate was greatly astonished. Learning, however, that he was of Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod who was then at Jerusalem. While in the presence of Herod, though vehemently accused, he maintained the same silence that he had observed before Pilate. Then Herod and his men of war set him at naught, and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorge

ous robe, and sent him back to Pilate. But Pilate, when he had called the accusers of Christ together, and rehearsed their accusations against him, said to them, “I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him. No, nor yet Herod-for I sent you to him; and lo, nothing worthy of death has been done by him; I will therefore chastise him and release him." But the assembled Jews, instigated by the priests and elders, all cried out, “Away with this man!" And as Pilate spoke again unto them, and said, “I find in him no fault at all," the whole multitude cried out, "Crucify him, crucify him!" Pilate the third time remonstrated with the people, and inquired, "Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him." But the people were only the more vehement that he should be crucified. Then Pilate took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, "I am innocent of the blood of this just person; see ye to it." Blinded and infuriated, the multitude cried out, "His blood be on us, and on our children." Then sentence of death was pronounced upon Christ, and he was delivered over to be crucified.

The grand and awful tragedy was now rapidly drawing to its consummation. Jesus was led into the common hall, and the whole band of soldiers was gathered around him. And they stript him of his clothes, and put on him a scarlet robe. They also platted a crown of thorns, and put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand. Then they bowed the knee before him, and cried, "Hail, King of the Jews!" They also spit upon him, and took the reed and smote him on the head. After they had thus derided and mocked him, they took off the robe, put on his own raiment, and led him forth to crucify him. And there followed a great company of people, and of women, who bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus, turning to them, said, "Daughters of Jerusalem,

weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. If they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" Two malefactors were also led forth to be crucified with him. And, bearing his cross, Jesus went forth to a place called Calvary. On arriving at the place of execution, they offered him vinegar mingled with gall to drink, but he refused it. Then they crucified him between the two thieves; and the Scripture, which says, "He was numbered with transgressors," was thus fulfilled. The four soldiers that crucified him parted his garments among them, and cast lots for his coat which was without seam. Over the cross was placed, by Pilate, the inscription-JESUS OF NAZARETH, KING OF THE JEWS. The people stood aghast at the spectacle! But the rulers derided him, crying aloud, Thou that destroyest the temple and rebuildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou art the Son of God, as thou hast pretended, come down from the cross and save thyself. The soldiers also mocked him, and in his thirst offered him vinegar to drink. Then said Jesus, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." From twelve o'clock till three in the afternoon, a supernatural darkness overspread the land. At this moment Jesus cried out, with a loud voice, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Some of those who heard his cry, said, He calleth for Elias; and others said, Let us see whether Elias will come to save him. And one of them, filling a sponge with vinegar, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. Then, when Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, "It is finished; Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” He then bowed his head and gave up the ghost. Thus closed a scene of indignity and torture, of mental and bodily suffering protracted through eighteen hours; and to which, when we consider who it is that suffers and dies, the earth furnishes no parallel.

The omens of that solemn moment were grand and awful. The veil of the temple was rent asunder from top to bottom, the earth was shaken by an earthquake, the rocks were rent, the graves were opened, and the bodies of many holy persons arose and appeared to many in the city. No wonder that the centurion, and those with him who were guarding Jesus, were led to exclaim, "Truly this was the Son of God;" and that the people who had witnessed the awful spectacle returned to Jerusalem smiting upon their breasts in anguish.

Such was the tragic end of our Lord. No wonder that infidelity itself has been forced to the confession that the "life and death of Jesus Christ were those of a God."*

The following encomium upon our holy religion and its Divine Founder, was given by Rousseau, one of the most profligate and hardened infidels of the French school:-"I will confess to you, that the majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the Gospel has its influence on my heart. Peruse the works of our philosophers with all their pomp of diction; how mean, how contemptible are they, compared with the Scripture! Is it possible, that a book, at once so simple and sublime, should be merely the work of man? Is it possible, that the sacred personage, whose history it contains, should be himself a mere man? Do we find that he assumed the tone of an enthusiast or ambitious

sectary? What sweetness, what purity in his manner! What an affecting gracefulness in his delivery! What sublimity in his maxims! What profound wisdom in his discourses! What presence of mind, what subtlety, what truth in his replies! How great the command over his passions! Where is the man, where the philosopher, who could so live, and so die, without weakness, and without ostentation! When Plato described his imaginary good man, loaded with all the shame of guilt, yet meriting the highest rewards of virtue, he describes exactly the character of Jesus Christ; the resemblance is so striking, that all the Fathers perceived it.

"What prepossession, what blindness must it be, to compare the son of Sophroniscus to the son of Mary! What an infinite disproportion there is between them! Socrates, dying without pain

2. ST. STEPHEN.

SOON after the special outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, the disciples had become so multiplied, that the Apostles became burdened with the care of the needy among them. To aid them St. Stephen, and six others, "men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom," were set apart as deacons, and appointed over that work. St. Stephen was an able and

or ignominy, easily supported his character to the last; and if his death, however easy, had not crowned his life, it might have been doubted whether Socrates, with all his wisdom, was anything more than a vain Sophist. He invented, it is said, the theory of morals. Others, however, had before put them in practice; he had only to say therefore what they had done, and to reduce their examples to precepts. Aristides had been just, before Socrates defined justice; Leonidas had given up his life for his country, before Socrates declared patriotism to be a duty; the Spartans were a sober people, before Socrates recommended sobriety; before he had even defined virtue, Greece abounded in virtuous men. But where could Jesus learn, among his competitors, that pure and sublime morality, of which he only hath given us both precept and example? The greatest wisdom was made known among the most bigoted fanaticism, and the simplicity of the most heroic virtues did honour to the vilest people upon earth. The death of Socrates, peaceably philosophizing with his friend, appears the most agreeable that could be wished for; that of Jesus, expiring in the midst of agonizing pains, abused, insulted, and accused by a whole nation, is the most horrible that could be feared. Socrates, in receiving the cup of poison, blest indeed the weeping executioner who administered it; but Jesus, in the midst of excruciating tortures, prayed for his merciless tormentors. Yes: if the life and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God. Shall we suppose the evangelic history a mere fiction? Indeed, my friend, it bears not the marks of fiction; on the contrary, the history of Socrates, which nobody presumes to doubt, is not so well attested as that of Jesus Christ. Such a supposition, in fact, only shifts the difficulty without obviating it; it is more inconceivable