hat Galilean? What Englishman who
has ever ruled a province in India, where religious ferment was rife,
who would not have felt tempted to act as Pilate acted--nay, would not
have acted as he acted without even the hesitation he showed, if the
life of some poor devil of a wandering fakir stood between him and the
peace of the empire? Would to God that British magistrates, even at
home in our own land, would give the despised and unpopular poor man
the same number of chances Pilate gave to Jesus. With Downing street
eager for the conviction of a socialist agitator, and the whole of
society and the mob savage against him, a man would be a fool who would
not appeal from Bow street or old Bailey to so just a judge as Pilate.
To the last Pilate never made himself the willing instrument of popular
frenzy. He argued against it, he denounced it, he resorted to every
subterfuge by which he could save the prisoner's life, and it was only
when the Sanhedrin threatened to denounce him to Caesar as an enemy of
the emperor that he unwillingly gave way. Here and there no doubt
there are among our latter day magistrates and judges fanatical
believers in abstract right, who would have risked the empire rather
than let a hair of Christ's head be touched; but the average English or
American magistrate--especially if the accused was "only a
nigger"--would shrug his shoulders at such Quixotism as folly and
worse. It is better, they would say, that one man should die, even
unjustly, than that everything should be upset.

Another person who comes out better than might be expected is Judas.
The conception of his character is very fine and very human. Judas, as
the treasurer of the little band, naturally felt indignant at the
apparent wanton extravagance which led Mary Magdalene to pour ointment
worth 300 pence upon the head of her master. There is real human
nature and sound practical common sense in his reply to those who told
him not to worry about the money, when he retorted, "Who is there to
take care about it if I don't?" Judas never really from first to last
meditates betraying his master to death. The salves which he lays to
his conscience when consenting to identify Jesus at night are very
ingenious. Judas was a smart man who calculated he stood to win in any
event. He got the indispensable cash; all that he did was to indicate
what could perfectly well have been discovered without his aid; if
Jesus were what he believed hi