nd demanding His acquittal, he
sought at the same time to propitiate His accusers. One generally
expects from a Roman governor some knowledge of men and some
fearlessness in his use of that knowledge. Pilate shows neither. His
first step in dealing with the accusers of Jesus is a fatal mistake.
Instead of at once going to his judgment-seat and pronouncing
authoritatively the acquittal of his Prisoner, and clearing his court of
all riotously disposed persons, he in one breath declared Jesus innocent
and proposed to treat Him as guilty, offering to release Him as a boon
to the Jews. A weaker proposal could scarcely have been made. There was
nothing, absolutely nothing, to induce the Jews to accept it, but in
making it he showed a disposition to treat with them--a disposition they
did not fail to make abundant use of in the succeeding scenes of this
disgraceful day. This first departure from justice lowered him to their
own level and removed the only bulwark he had against their insolence
and blood-thirstiness. Had he acted as any upright judge would have
acted and at once put his Prisoner beyond reach of their hatred, they
would have shrunk like cowed wild beasts; but his first concession put
him in their power, and from this point onwards there is exhibited one
of the most lamentable spectacles in history,--a man in power tossed
like a ball between his convictions and his fears; a Roman not without a
certain doggedness and cynical hardness that often pass for strength of
character, but held up here to view as a sample of the weakness that
results from the vain attempt to satisfy both what is bad and what is
good in us.

His second attempt to save Jesus from death was more unjust and as
futile as the first. He scourges the Prisoner whose innocence he had
himself declared, possibly under the idea that if nothing was confessed
by Jesus under this torture it might convince the Jews of His innocence,
but more probably under the impression that they might be satisfied when
they saw Jesus bleeding and fainting from the scourge. The Roman
scourge was a barbarous instrument, its heavy thongs being loaded with
metal and inlaid with bone, every cut of which tore away the flesh. But
if Pilate fancied that when the Jews saw this lacerated form they would
pity and relent, he greatly mistook the men he had to do with. He failed
to take into account the common principle that when you have wrongfully
injured a man you hate him all the mo