Him." But this
announcement was met by an infuriated shout of disapproval. "They were
instant with loud voices, requiring that He might be crucified." "They
cried out the more exceedingly, Crucify Him." A little before this
Pilate had been besieged for six days in his palace at Caesarea by
similar crowds, whose persistent fury at last compelled him to give in
to them. He dared not provoke similar scenes, lest they should result
in a revolution. When he saw that he could prevail nothing, but that
rather a tumult was made, he called for water. He said to himself, "I
am very sorry, this Man is innocent, and I should like to save Him.
But I have done my best, and can do no more. I will, at least, relieve
myself of the responsibility of His blood. 'Slave, bring me water!'"

As he washed his hands he said, "I am innocent of the blood of this
righteous Man; see ye to it." "Yes, yes," cried those bloodthirsty
voices, "His blood be on us, and on our children." See how God
sometimes takes men at their word. The blood of Jesus was required of
that generation at the sack of Jerusalem, forty years after; and it has
been required of their children through all the ages. Why that
wandering foot, found in every land, yet homeless in all? Why the
hideous tortures, plunderings, and massacres of the Middle Ages? Why
the modern Jew-hate, disguised under the more refined term
_anti-Semitism_? Why the banishment from their holy places for
eighteen centuries? All is attributable to that terrible imprecation
which attracted to the race the blood of an innocent Victim. It does
not exculpate them to say that they did not realize who Jesus was, and
that they would not have crucified Him if they had realized His Divine
dignity. They are being punished to-day, not because they crucified
the Son of God, knowing Him to be such, but because they crucified One
against whom they could allege no crime, and whose life had been full
of truth and grace.

After he had washed his hands "Pilate gave sentence that it should be
as they required, and released unto them him that for sedition and
murder had been cast into prison, whom they desired; but he delivered
Jesus to their will."

Those condemned to die by crucifixion first underwent the hideous
torture of the scourge. This, then, was inflicted on Jesus, and it was
carried out in the inner courtyard by the Roman soldiery, under
Pilate's direction. "Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and