pted by the Temple priests. It is easy to call them
thieves, but they were not tried, and their evidence is unheard. If they
cheated, they must have been remarkably clever, for all their customers
were Jews. Besides, there were proper tribunals for the correction of
such offences, and no one who was not beside himself would think of
going into a market and indiscriminately whipping the traders and
dashing down their stalls. Certainly any man who did it now would
be arrested, if he were not lynched on the spot, and would either be
imprisoned or detained at Her Majesty's pleasure.

Quite in keeping with these displays of temper was the conduct of Jesus
before Pilate. A modicum of common sense would have saved him. He
was not required to tell a lie or renounce a conviction. All that was
necessary to his release was to plead not guilty and defend himself
against the charge of sedition. His death, therefore, was rather a
suicide than a martyrdom. Unfortunately the jurisprudence of that
age was less scientific than the one which now prevails; the finer
differences between sanity and insanity were not discriminated;
otherwise Jesus would have been remanded for inquiries into his mental
condition.

As a man Jesus died because he had not the sense to live. As a God he
must have died voluntarily. In either case it is an idle, gratuitous,
enervating indulgence in "the luxury of woe" to be always afflicting
ourselves with the story of his doom. Great and good men have suffered
and died since, and other lessons are needed than any that may be learnt
at the foot of the Cross.

DID JESUS ASCEND?

The story of the Ascension of Jesus Christ is as absurd as the story
of his Resurrection. Both, in fact, are the products of an age prone
to believe in the wonderful. So prevalent was the popular belief in the
supernatural character of great men, that the comparatively cultivated
Romans accepted a monstrous fable about Julius Caesar. "The enthusiasm
of the multitude," says Mr. Froude, "refused to believe that he was
dead. He was supposed to have ascended into heaven, not in adulatory
metaphor, but in literal and prosaic fact."

Similarly the enthusiasm of the first followers of Jesus, and especially
of hysterical ladies like Mary Magdalene, refused to believe that _he_
was dead. The fable of his resurrection was gradually developed, and
his ascension was devised to round off the story. Whoever will read St.
Paul's epistles first,