had
withered ere it struck that blow. Almost the same thing once happened
to St. Paul in the same place, and he could not help hurling back a
stinging epithet of contempt and indignation. Jesus was betrayed into
no such loss of temper. But what shall be said of a tribunal, and an
ecclesiastical tribunal, which could allow an untried Prisoner to be
thus abused in open court by one of its minions?

The high priest had, however, been stopped on the tack which he had
first tried, and was compelled to do what he ought to have begun
with--to call witnesses. But this, too, turned out a pitiful failure.
They had not had time to get a charge properly made out and witnesses
cited; and there was no time to wait. Evidence had to be extemporized;
and it was swept up apparently from the underlings and hangers on of
the court. It is expressly said by St. Matthew that "they sought false
witness against Jesus to put Him to death." To put Him to death was
what in their hearts they were resolved upon,--they were only trying to
trump up a legal pretext, and they were not scrupulous. The attempt
was, however, far from successful. The witnesses could not be got to
agree together or to tell a consistent story. Many were tried, but the
fiasco grew more and more ridiculous.

At length two were got to agree about something they had heard from
Him, out of which, it was hoped, a charge could be constructed. They
had heard Him say, "I will destroy this temple that is made with hands,
and within three days I will build another made without hands." It was
a sentence of His early ministry, obviously of high poetic meaning,
which they were reproducing as the vulgarest prose; although, even thus
interpreted, it is difficult to see what they could have made of it;
because, if the first half of it meant that He was to destroy the
temple, the second promised to restore it again. The high priest saw
too well that they were making nothing of it; and, starting up and
springing forward, he demanded of Jesus, "Answerest Thou nothing? What
is it which these witness against Thee?" He affected to believe that
it was something of enormity that had been alleged; but it was really
because he knew that nothing could be founded on it that he gave way to
such unseemly excitement.

Jesus had looked on in absolute silence while the witnesses against Him
were annihilating one another; nor did He now answer a word in response
to the high priest's interrupt