suspicious master. Tiberius seemed to delight in humiliating
and disgracing his subordinates. Besides, at this very period he was
peculiarly dangerous. A diseased body, the punishment of vices long
indulged, had made his mind gloomy and savage; in fact, he was little
better than a madman--morose, suspicious and malicious. Nor was any
charge so likely to inflame him as the one which they proposed to lay
against Pilate. It was well known at Rome that the hope of a Messiah
was spread throughout the East; and any provincial governor supposed to
be favouring or even conniving at the claims of such a pretender would
certainly be recalled, probably exiled, and possibly executed. _Amicus
Caesaris_, "Caesar's friend," was one of the most coveted titles of a
man in Pilate's position; and to be accused of acting as no friend of
Caesar's could act was the most serious of all dangers.

But there was something else which lent point to the threat of the
Jewish authorities: Pilate well knew that his administration could not
bear the light of an investigation such as would inevitably follow a
complaint from his subjects. It is a curious thing that in a secular
writer of that age we find an account of another occasion on which this
same threat was held over Pilate; and the writer who mentions it adds:
"He was afraid that if a Jewish embassy were sent to Rome, they might
discuss the many maladministrations of his government, his extortions,
his unjust decrees, his inhuman punishments." [3] Such had been the
character of Pilate's past life; and now, when he was going to do a
humane and righteous act, it stayed his hand. There is nothing which
so frustrates good resolutions and paralyzes noble efforts as the dead
weight of past sins. Those who are acquainted with secret and
discreditable chapters of a man's history are able, wielding this
knowledge over his head, to say, Thou shalt not do this good act which
thou wishest to do, or, Thou shalt do this evil and shameful thing
which we bid thee. There are companies in which men cannot utter the
fine, high-sounding things they would say elsewhere, because there are
present those who know how their lives have contradicted them. What is
it that mocks the generous thought rising in our minds, that silences
the noble word on our lips, that paralyzes the forming energy of our
actions? Is it not the internal whisper, Remember how you have failed
before? This is the curse of past sin: it