to take money
as the price of betraying a friend--could any sin be baser? Could any
crime be blacker than that? To take money as the price of betraying a
friend in whose confidence one has lived for years, at whose table one
has eaten day after day, in the blessing of whose friendship one has
rested for months and years--are there words black enough to paint the
infamy of such a deed?

All the participators in the crime of that Good Friday wear a peculiar
brand of infamy as they are portrayed on the pages of history; but
among them all, the most despicable, the one whose name bears the
deepest infamy, is Judas, an apostle turned traitor, for a few
miserable coins betraying his best friend into the hands of malignant
foes.

This is the outcome of the friendship of Jesus for Judas; this was the
fruit of those years of affection, cherishing, patient teaching. Think
what Judas might have been. He was chosen and called to be an apostle.
There was no reason in the heart of Jesus why Judas might not have been
true and worthy. Sin is not God's plan for any life. Treachery and
infamy were not in God's purpose for Judas. Jesus would not have
chosen him for one of the Twelve if it had not been possible for him to
be a good and true man. Judas fell because he had never altogether
surrendered himself to Christ. He tried to serve God and mammon; but
both could not stay in his heart, and instead of driving out mammon,
mammon drove out Christ.

This suggests to us what a battlefield the human heart sometimes is--a
Waterloo where destinies are settled. God or mammon--which? That is
the question every soul must answer. How goes the battle in your soul?
Who is winning on your field--Christ or money? Christ or pleasure?
Christ or sin? Christ or self? Judas lost the battle; the Devil won.

A picture in Brussels represents Judas wandering about the night after
the betrayal. By chance he comes upon the workmen who have been
preparing the cross for Jesus. A fire burning close by throws its
weird light on the faces of the men who are now sleeping. The face of
Judas is somewhat in the shade; but one sees on it remorse and agony,
as the traitor's eyes fall upon the cross and the tools which have been
used in making it,--the cross to which his treason had doomed his
friend. But though suffering in the torments of a guilty conscience,
he still tightly clutches his money-bag as he hurries on into the
night. The picture tells