the world that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth My voice." There, I say, is truth, and it stands alone. Mark that; Truth stands alone. God against the world. It is not, as in later history, 'Athanasius against the world.' It is something far more wonderful; God against the whole world. The world in open arms against its God. That is the spectacle. If all who are of the truth hear His voice, and none out of all that vast and tumultuous assembly attends or listens to Him, must we not say, 'There is God the Truth, and every man is a liar beside Him and against Him?' Somewhere, indeed, there is a loving John, and a coward Peter, and a few weak women; but they are hidden in the crowd, and 66 what are they among so many?" It is almost perfect truth to say that truth is solitary, solitary in that great crowd, single in that innumerable company. God is in the world, and the world knows Him not. Who that reflects on this will test truth by the number of its votaries? Who will be disposed to think that the many must certainly be right, and that the few are always wrong ? Truth never had and never can have many friends. Its beauty is too stern and too severe for that great multitude which loves and follows evil. Truth, like truth's Master, has not the form or comeliness which men admire.

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Look thus on truth. And when you have looked on truth till have learned to love it, and feel your own intrinsic falsehood as you stand in contrast at its side, then behold perfection. "Behold the man,"the pattern man, the blameless one, the flower of holiness, the man without a flaw, the glass and mirror of perfection in which men should look and see their

true selves. Look on Him, and see what perfect goodness is. It is not what men so often fancy. It is something very different. Perfect goodness is perfect patience. Remember that our Lord is God. Recollect that He has only to put forth one single purpose of His will, and every one among those banded enemies has vanished into nothingness. Then think of all that He has now endured. It is six o'clock upon the Friday morning. What has He not suffered during the past night! He was captured in the garden as if He had been a thief. He was taken to Annas, the true lineal high priest. He was sent by Annas, bound, to Caiaphas, the high priest appointed by the Roman government, and by him subjected to insulting questions, and lying accusations, and shameful blows. He was tried before the council, and condemned of blasphemy. All this before the cock that convicted Peter had crowed twice. Then in the morning, very early, He had been carried to the hall where Pilate sat, and from Pilate He had been sent to Herod, and from Herod back to Pilate again. He had been flayed with scourges. He had been clothed in the mockery of purple. He had been crowned with thorns as a mimic king. And now He stands to hear His sentence, at the mouth of him who knows that He does not deserve to die. And yet He bears it all. That is His perfection. "As a sheep before his shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth." There is His holiness. And why? Because patience is the crown of virtues and the height of grace. bore it because He would be submissive to authority, and would respect "the powers that be." He had taught the people to obey the Scribes who adminis

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tered the law of Moses, and He practised His own sacred precept. Did the Church abuse its own authority? That was no concern of His; but it was. His duty to obey the Church. He bowed, too, to the sentence of the Roman governor, respecting his power as the ordinance of God. What if Pilate prostituted power ? There was a God above to whom Pilate must account hereafter. For the present, it was His duty to submit to human law and bow to Pilate's will. Oh how does He condemn that pride of ours which kicks against every restraint, however wholesome, and cannot bear authority, however sacred, and frets and chafes beneath little insults, and is so ready to resent a wrong, and so quick to take offence, and so intolerant of affronts, and so alive to injuries. What shame and rebuke are cast upon our moods of anger, and sullen tempers, and biting words, and passionate complainings, when we look upon the meek Jesus, and contemplate His unruffled calmness, and His angelic softness, and His gentle answers, and His unmurmuring tolerance of every wrong. Surely Gabbatha must teach us that resistance is not religion, and that faith can never become faction, and that to be great is to be gentle, and that pride is meanness, and that forbearance is divine.

But we must not only look upon the faultless pattern of goodness. There are specimens on every side of Him of every kind of sin. It is a well-known fact that there are many persons who have not any full belief in the existence of sin. When sin is spoken of as a moral disease from which all men suffer, some more and some less, they think that this is rather a thing which divines have got into a way of saying, than an actual fact of human nature. When

they hear, out of God's Word, that "the heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked," and that "there is none righteous, no not one," and other such like plain assertions, they doubt their truth, they question their accuracy, and they say or think, 'After all, men are not very bad.' If any such are present now let me invite them to observe the spectacle at Gabbatha, for what they there may see will set their doubts at rest for ever. Remember,

the Son of God is on His trial and is condemned by a whole nation, consenting together in a verdict which declares that He is guilty of death. How shall we account for this? Where is the key to this insane delusion? They pronounce our blessed Lord to be a madman. The real truth is that they are mad themselves. A whole nation-nay, let me speak the full truth, the whole world, by itself and in its natural condition-is mad, as well as dead, through sin. What an entire perversion of the whole moral nature does this aweful spectacle betray. Human nature not sinful! Indeed! Then how came human nature to convict the Son of God of sin? How shall we account for this? I will give you the proper explanation. The Son of God was not a sinner, but man was so utterly blinded by his own iniquity that he knew not "THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS," and had fallen to so great a depth that he could almost say with Satan, 'Good thou art my evil, evil thou art my good.' Surely Gabbatha must teach us the reality of sin.

It may also show us something of the manifold varieties of sin. Consider Pontius Pilate, seated on the throne of judgment, Governor of Judæa, representative of Cæsar, upholder of the law and majesty

of mighty and imperial Rome. What a picture of weakness is Pontius Pilate. He is a weathercock. He is " a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed." He would serve both God and mammon. He would do right, and yet he would not offend the Jews. He would save the innocent, and yet he would please the people. How could such a contest end but as this contest ended? What else could he do who strove to please men but violate the everlasting laws of God? Yes, my brethren, look at Pilate and look into yourselves too, and when you have seen how often you have sinned by instability of nature, and infirmity of purpose, and lack of resolution, and weakness of will, reflect that a double mind is always in danger, and learn not to fear "them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do ;" but rather to "fear Him who after He hath killed hath power to cast into hell. Yea, I say unto you, fear Him." Ah, my brethren, Pilate shows us that it is not place which does honour to the man, but the man who does honour to the place, and that it is not either power, or dignity, or wealth, or any outward circumstance, which makes a man noble; but that "virtue is the sole nobility," and a single eye for God's glory the only true renown.

From Pilate let us turn to the people. On Sunday last they cried-"Hosanna." To-day they shout"Crucify." On Sunday they chose Jesus for their monarch, and strewed the path on which His ass travelled with clothes from their own backs, and branches from the green trees. To-day they have it in their power to save Him, and they say, "Not this man, but Barabbas." And yet, with this spectacle before us, we can make a god of opinion, and think,