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VIA CRUCIS"
The Lesson of Holy Week
By
HERBERT CUSHING TOLMAN,
Ph.D.,D.D. "
Hon. Canon of All Saints'' Cathedral, Milwaukee;
Professor of Greek, Vanderbilt University
t
MILWAUKEE
THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN COMPANY
1907
LIBRARY of CONFESS
Two Copies Received
FEB 21 190/
Copyright Entry
COPY B.
„ No,
Copyright by
THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN COMPANY
1907
To My Wife
MARY WELLES fOLMAN,
Whose life has always been an inspiration
To follow in the footsteps of Christ
By the same Author
URBS BEATA
A Vision of the Perfect Life.
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fine simplicity, and the wisdom of an accomplished
scholar with the truth as it is in Jesus." — The
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TN the spring of 1905, I chanced to be a
member of the First International Con-
gress of Archaeologists, which convened
in Athens. After its adjournment the
privilege was afforded me of spending Holy
Week in Jerusalem. What spot in all the
world could be more filled with holy asso-
ciations than beneath the same sky where
Jesus suffered, and on the same soil where
Jesus trod!
Many of the meditations here recorded,
I wrote down at the close of each day, after
standing but a moment before on the
ground made sacred by the footsteps of our
Saviour. Where the order of events of
this Great Week is disputed, I have fol-
lowed Holtzmann (Lei en Jesu) and his
historical setting, although in some cases I
have departed widely from him.
As we thus walk with Christ on the last
days before His death, may we realize that
viii
VIA CRUCIS
His divine religion demands that, loving
as He loved, and serving as He served, we
walk with Him in such self-denial that
others seeing us do know that we have been
with Jesus.
Herbert Gushing Tolman.
Vanderbilt University,
October, 1906.
palm Sutiba?
THS the traveller coming from Beth-
J I any rounds the southern spur of
Olivet there bursts upon his view Jeru-
salem, with its ten thousand sacred
memories. He sees in front of him the
Valley of Jehoshaphat, the Vale of
Hinnom, the castellated battlements of
the city wall, the old Temple precinct,
while above the cupolas and minarets
of the modern town looms conspicu-
ously on the western side that palace
structure which tradition styles "The
Tower of David."
It was near this point of the road
that the throng following our Lord on
Palm Sunday, strewed the ground and
broke forth into loud Hosannas. This
spontaneous outburst of acclaim was
voiced in the words of a Psalm filled
2
VIA C BUG IS
with eager hope of the speedy advent
of the Messianic Kingdom. "Help
(Hoshiah na). Blessed be He that
cometh in the name of Yahweh. Help
in the highest."
The Kingdom of the Messiah had
indeed begun, but not as the expectant
crowd imagined. Christ entered, mount-
ed not upon a horse with martial trap-
pings as an earthly conqueror, but upon
a lowly ass, a symbol of humility.
How unlike the brilliant triumphs
which Eome had often witnessed, with
their pageants and their train of cap-
tives! Jesus' victory was the emanci-
pation from sin for those who had en-
tered into His own life, His crown of
conquest, the majesty of sacrifice; His
kingdom, the reign of love in the hu-
man heart.
Tradition says that the triumphal
procession approached the city by the
portals of the Golden Gate. This gate,
VIA CRUCIS
3
which, is usually closed, we were per-
mitted to enter, and to study minutely
the ancient columns within the en-
closure. From the time of the Cru-
saders the procession from the Mount
of Olives always passed through it into
the Temple Court. In recent times,
however, the entire structure has been
walled up because of the strong Moslem
belief that some day a Christian con-
queror will enter here and wrest Jeru-
salem from Mohammedan power.
An examination of the prostrate and
ruined columns, which contain Hebrew
carving on capitals of Greek shafts,
leads us to infer that the gate was built
partly out of the remains of the Jewish
Temple. It is very probable that
through an earlier gateway erected
near this site our Lord made His tri-
umphal entrance into the city. Even
in its present form it is a dominant fea-
ture of the modern wall, and from its
4
VIA CRUCIS
summit there is an extended prospect
over the environs of Jerusalem.
As imposing as to-day is the view of
the Holy City from the Mount of
Olives, it gives but a slight conception
of the splendor which met the gaze of
our Lord as the sunlight fell upon the
Temple. No doubt it was the grandest
sanctuary which the eye of man ever be-
held. The solid walls of white stone
rose from the steep valley beneath to a
height well nigh prodigious. Above
this vast substructure magnificent
colonnades surrounded the whole enclo-
sure, while high beyond the various
courts distinctly marked with terraces
and guarded by gates which flashed
with plates of gold, silver and polished
brass, towered the Holy Temple itself,
the symbol of Yahweh's everlasting pre-
sence. What Jew would not be pro-
foundly impressed by a scene so awe-in-
spiring and incomparably sacred !
THE GOLDEN GATE.
VIA CRUCIS
5
Yet Jesus saw that His teachings im-
parted to a humble band of Galilean
peasants were to be mightier and more
enduring than the costliest shrine.
We stand where once the Temple stood.
Of its glory nothing remains. That
proud monument of Yahweh's favor
has long since been leveled to the dust.
But to-day in place of one House of
God, are our churches, our hospitals,
and our asylums where dwells the
spirit of the Father revealed in Jesus.
The Holy of Holies is now the human
heart, where is enthroned the royalty of
service.
The lesson of Palm Sunday is not
our contemplation of the historic scene
which occurred before the steep incline
which we saw leading up to the city
walls, but its vital truth is the trium-
phal entrance of the Messiah into our
own souls. It is only with this thought
before us that we are fitted to follow the
6
VIA CRUCIS
Saviour through the coming days of
His Passion and Death.
What does the advent of Christ as
sovereign Lord into our hearts mean?
It means the clear detection and con-
quest of sin — the clear detection, I say,
for sin is not fully discernible until we
see it against the white background of
Jesus' life and character. No foe ever
lurked in deeper ambush. It is so dis-
guised that we do well to digress a little
as we inquire what is the nature of sin
from which the dominion of Christ
saves us.
Probably a concise summary of the
views of the late Dr. Julius Miiller,
who for a long time was regarded by
many as an authority, is in the state-
ment that sin is self-absorbed selfish-
ness. If this be so, certainly we need
something more than self -vision to re-
veal it to us. We must see sin as J esus
saw it.
VIA CRUCIS
7
Mr. Tennant in his recent work
(Origin of Sin) has followed Miiller
along the same lines, but has reached a
conclusion more advanced when he de-
clares that we come to morality only
through "the formation of the non-
moral material of nature into charac-
ter." The thought in this brief quota-
tion is so important that I may be par-
doned if, to make the idea a little
clearer, I give the words of Archdeacon
Wilson in his address to the Church
Congress. "To the evolutionist," he
says, "sin is not an innovation, but is
survival or misuse of habits and ten-
dencies which were incidental to an
earlier stage in development. Their
sinfulness lies in their resistance to the
evolutionary and divine force that
makes for moral development and right-
eousness."
If sin be the terrible anachronism
which these writers believe, a lagging
8
VIA CRUCIS
behind in the race for the goal, a tardi-
ness in advancing from the non-moral
to the moral state, then the keen moral
consciousness of the Christ becomes a
necessary vade mecum for our progress
in the divine life. We must see what
sin is — and that is a difficult thing —
before we can escape from it. It is
here we need one who shall be to us
Jesus "Deliverer/' for, as proclaimed
at His birth, He shall deliver His
people from their sins.
Should we for a moment suppose
that our self-assertive tendencies do not
make sin difficult to detect, I beg that
we remember how our most fatal and
disastrous sins are so subtle as to clothe
themselves with even the garb of vir-
tues. Cruelty puts on the cloak of
justice; pride and hate that of self-
respect; greed and envy that of ambi-
tion; narrowness, bigotry, and intoler-
ance that of truth. It is only through
VIA CRUCI8
9
Christ's triumphant lordship in our
hearts that we are enabled to know sin,
and at the same time to realize fully
God's condemnation of and sorrow for it.
Yes, such clear moral vision is the
victory of the love of Jesus shed abroad
in our hearts. Let me use a simple
illustration.
Eadiant energy — that white light
from God's heaven — must exist before
the sensitive plate of the camera re-
ceives any effect whatsoever. So our
hearts must glow with divine love —
that pure love, uncolored by envy or
malice, even that love which "thinketh
no evil" — ere the Christ-likeness can be
created there.
The surface of the plate, again, must
be brought before the projected image
of the object. Should anything inter-
vene reproduction is impossible. In
like manner between our souls and
Christ nothing can come. Should self
10
VIA CRUCIS
intervene there will be no impress of
the Christ-image.
And finally — to carry the figure far-
ther — the solar rays upon the exposed
film cut out the silver nitrate and other
chemicals so that the part shaded by the
object stands out clear and distinct.
Has not the love of Jesus to cut out of
our souls all impurity, jealousy, pride,
greed, and hate before His likeness can
be discerned ?
A hard process we say, yet this is the
triumph of Christ in the human heart,
a triumph which means nothing less
than Christ-similitude. "We all with
uncovered face, reflecting as in a mir-
ror the glory of our Lord, are trans-
figured into the same likeness from
glory unto glory."
It is said that after the lions in the
amphitheatre had devoured one of the
ancient martyrs, his heart was found in-
tact, and on it was inscribed the single
VIA OBUCIS
11
word Jesus. Surely, yes, surely, this
supreme name alone will be in our souls
when the Christ-victory is won.
So we see that Jesus' triumphal en-
trance into our hearts means a life-
union with Himself, effecting in us a
divine character like His own, whose
realization is absolute harmony and
complete fellowship with God. This
is salvation, and is a lifelong struggle.
Over our dead past with all its fail-
ures and mistakes, as on the old Egypt-
ian obelisk standing to-day in the
Piazza of St. Peter's, will now be
written the words so significant of the
reign of Jesus within us,
Christus vincit,
Christus regnat,
Christus imperat,
which means that the dominion of self
is replaced by the dominion of our
Master, our Lord, our King.
Christus Triumphal
Mtoit&a? before £aster
ON" Monday Jesus is at Bethany.
Bethany ! How tenderly
Christians pronounce this name, for it
was here that Christ showed more of
His human feelings. Here He de-
lighted in the quiet home of Mary and
Martha. Here He sorrowed for the
dead Lazarus, even as we sorrow at the
death of our beloved. Here was re-
vealed the tender love of the Christ-
heart : "He whom Thou lovest is sick,"
was the only message necessary to dis-
tinguish this friend of our Lord.
Happy Lazarus! That He who had
come from the Father's bosom, He
whom angels revered, should have
singled him out for such peculiar and
intimate companionship !
VIA CRUCIS
13
Looking eastward we see the illimi-
table waste of the barren hills stretch-
ing on as far as the Dead Sea and the
Jordan. It is a part of that vast
wilderness of Judsea whither Jesus
withdrew to fight the power of evil in
solitude. Certainly upon these desert
hills our Lord had looked many times.
Above our heads is the clear Oriental
sky, the same heaven that opened to re-
ceive the ascending Christ after He had
led His disciples out even unto Beth-
any.
The traditional grave of Lazarus is
pointed out to all travellers. Descend-
ing into a second subterranean chamber
we come to a small vault unlike the
many rock-hewn tombs which abound in
the environs of Jerusalem. It was at
some open grave on this eastern spur of
Olivet where the evangelist places that
transcendent scene of Death bowing
before the summons of the Lord of Life
14
VIA CRUGIS
who, in the sublime consciousness of
the immortality of self -giving love, pro-
claims : "I am the Resurrection and the
Life. He who puts his trust in Me,
even though he has died, shall live, and
he who lives and puts his trust in Me
shall not ever die." May our life-
union with Christ be such that these
words of promise become more and
more realized in our souls.
Some ruined walls rising in the
centre of the insignificant modern town
are associated with the house of Simon
the Leper, while a fairly preserved sub-
structure, a short distance from the
road, marks the foundation of the tra-
ditional home of Mary and Martha.
However incredulous the traveller
may be in accepting the authenticity of
these scanty remains which the drago-
man points out with such zeal, yet this
little village on the eastern slope of
Olivet is a sacred spot, for here Christ
VIA CRUCIS
15
withdrew from the noise and bustle of
the city to the comfort of social joys.
We do well to remember that our
Lord threw His life into the throbbing,
pulsating world with the same sym-
pathy as He entered into the religious
services of the Temple. It is a false
dualism that would separate the sacred
and the profane. All life is holy.
The name "Christian" means that we
are to be Ohrists in society, Ohrists in
the home, Ohrists in business. Our
words will be forgotten, but the
personal touch of our lives with other
lives will live as long as the souls which
we may have influenced.
Jesus loved His friends. What is
there more divine than friendship?
Yet how loosely we use the term!
Friends are not made in a day. I had
a friend in childhood and I loved him,
but it was with the love of childhood.
I have a friend in manhood and I love
16
VIA CRUCIS
him with the strong, true, intelligent
love of manhood. So the friend of my
old age will be he whom I shall love in
a friendship tried and tested through
the years. Christ says that He calls us
"His friends." We have perhaps loved
Him with the love of earlier days, but
how higher, diviner, richer, and deeper
the love as the passing years of our com-
panionship with Him bring us near the
end of life !
Eternal life, Jesus tells us, is to
know God and Christ Himself; to
know our Lord as we know our dearest
friend, and by this lifelong friendship
with Him to receive into us His person-
ality. It is very true that our friends
become a part of ourselves and we a
part of them. Are we through con-
stant communion with Him taking the
life of Jesus into us ? Are we in our
social intercourse imparting to others
the Christ within us ? If not, we may
VIA CRUCIS
17
call ourselves "friends of Jesus," yet
fail to have that friendship which
Jesus meant.
The evening of this day Christ spent
at the house of Simon the Leper
(Holtzmann) and received the devotion
of a sinful woman who cast herself at
His feet and bathed them with costly
ointment.
Along the road leading from the
Mount of Olives over the Kedron
Valley crowds of lepers to-day beg the
passing traveller for alms. This foul
disease in its present form obliterates
the physical features. The eye be-
comes glassy; the fleshy part of the
nose falls away; portions of the limbs
drop off. Is not this a fitting symbol
of the loathsome disease of sin daily
eating insidiously into the divine life
of the soul?
We note that our Lord mingled with
lepers. He reached out His hand and
18
VIA CRUCIS
touched them, saying "I will, be you
clean." He was called contemptously
by the self-righteous, "a friend of sin-
ners." Blessed word! If sin in the
world is to be cured, it can never be
done by drawing the robes of our self-
righteousness about us. Its remedy is
only through the personal contact of the
Christ-life in ourselves with the de-
generate, the erring, the wicked. It is
certain that Jesus treated sin as a dis-
ease, an unsound, abnormal condition
of human life. Are not the Church and
society to find here a solution of the
great problem of criminology? A
truly Christian civilization should re-
quire that all institutions for the
criminal class be reformatory, not
penal. Jacob Riis, in writing his well
known book which shows the awful in-
fluence of heredity and environment on
the human soul, was profoundly im-
pressed by the thought of the impos-
VIA CRUCIS
19
sibility of showing the love of God to
those who have ever been nurtured in
sight of the greed of man.
The religion of Jesus Christ de-
mands nothing less than that we bring
our healing life to sinners and our com-
fort to the outcast.
Oues6a£ before Caster
OK Tuesday our Lord on His way to
Jerusalem curses the barren fig
tree, a type of many so-called Christ-
ians, who show forth the external form
of Christianity, but who have not in
themselves that divine life which brings
forth the fruits of the Spirit. Let us
ask ourselves here that searching ques-
tion: Have we these fruits of charac-
ter ? Think well on each as we enum-
erate them : "love, joy, peace, long suf-
fering, kindness, goodness, trust, gentle-
ness, self -control" (Gal. v. 22).
Within the Temple enclosure Jesus
finds those who were selling doves for
sacrifice and the money-changers, who
gained considerable profit in the pre-
mium exacted for changing Roman
coin into the Jewish money required
for offering to Tahweh. The confu-
VIA CBUCIS
21
sion in the court was such that our
Lord drives them from the Temple,
and so justifiable was this act that the
Roman soldiers quartered in the neigh-
boring Castle of Antonia did not ven-
ture to interfere.
If our Lord's anger was great in be-
holding those who took advantage of the
sanctuary for purposes of personal
gain, with what displeasure he must
look upon members of His Church who
worship with hearts filled with avarice
and greed, and whose ill-gotten wealth
is amassed through the oppression of
the poor !
There is no doubt that the Jewish
Temple occupied the site of the present
Haram esh Sherif ("Holy Enclosure"),
a spot in Mohammedan religion second
in sanctity to the Kaaba in Mecca.
On the south side Solomon erected
his vast substructure to afford a
broader plateau for the temple area,
22
VIA CBUCIS
and the massive square stones on which
are traced Phoenician marks for six
courses of masonry attest the solidity
of the ancient foundation. These
painted and incised characters have
been interpreted as masons' signs and
are identical with those carved on the
tomb of the Phoenician king Eshmuna-
zar. On this wall probably rose the
pinnacle of the temple, whose summit
commanded a dizzy height, overlooking
the deep gorge of the Valley of
Jehoshaphat.
At the bottom of the southeast angle
is a well-hewn block of stone, fourteen
feet long and nearly four feet high,
deeply sunk into the rock. It is evi-
dent by the absence of marginal draft
at the bottom that it was prepared in
the quarry for its present position.
For many centuries it has bound the
two walls of supporting masonry above
it, and strikingly became from the
VIA CRUCIS
23
earliest period the symbol of moral
strength, and later the token of the per-
manency of Christ's kingdom. "Behold
I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone,
a tried stone, a precious corner-stone,
a sure foundation." So St. Paul re-
ferring to the solidity of the ecclesias-
tical structure speaks of it as "built
upon the foundation of the Apostles
and Prophets, Christ Jesus Himself be-
ing the Head corner-stone, in whom all
the building, exactly framed together,
groweth unto an holy temple in the
Lord."
Are the lives of Christians such that
no stone is placed therein which shall
mar the spiritual edifice of the Holy
Church of God? Are our acts, our
thoughts, our words, such as to be com-
pactly fitted into that building not
made with hands, eternal in the
heavens ? Will they stand the scrutiny
of the Supreme Architect ?
24
VIA CRUCIS
Along the south wall of the city a
little farther to the west are remains of
the Double and Triple Gates. We de-
scend under ground to these structures,
and observe several ancient columns
as evinced by Jewish ornamentation
that had come under the influence of
GrsGco-Roman art. Since the Double
Gate lay in the direction of Bethany,
we are certain that our Lord Himself
passed under the shadow of these very
pillars which have survived the vicissi-
tudes of Jerusalem.
On the upper terrace of the modern
precinct was found the famous stone
containing the Greek inscription for-
bidding all foreigners to enter the inner
enclosure on penalty of death. I
thought as I saw this stele several
years before in the Ottoman Museum
at Constantinople, how little the Jews
realized that their national Tahweh
was the common Father of all men.
VIA CRTJCW
25
On this stone the eyes of our Saviour
must have rested often, and we recall
His words : "Many sheep I have not of
this fold."
So to-day, alas ! Christians erect their
barriers of religious prejudice and
dogmatism with somewhat the spirit
of Eoman imperialism : extra ecclesiam
nulla saluSj "no salvation outside their
fold." Hence a disrupted and divided
Christendom. Hence narrowness, big-
otry, intolerance and schism. If the
Church is to be what its divine Founder
intended, a continuous and increasing
revelation of Christ in the world — and
who will deny this? — then there must
be One Lord, One common faith in
His love, One universal baptism of
consecration. May the time be not far
distant when a clearer understanding
of the truths of Jesus shall sweep away
the landmarks and boundaries of sec-
tarianism, and the old walls which
26
VIA CRVCm
guarded bigotry be looked upon with
the same idle curiosity as the passing
traveller regards the ancient Jewish
stele in the Ottoman Museum.
Under the shelter of the dome of the
Mohammedan Mosque is the ancient
Rock of Sacrifice which stood on the
summit of Mount Moriah, a spot
transcendently sacred to Jew and
Christian alike. Here all the victims
were offered from the time of David
until the fall of Jerusalem. Behind
it, where to-day stands a small grove of
cypress trees, was the Holy of Holies,
and it was necessary that the priest
should pass by this Stone of Sacrifice
before he could stand in God's presence
in that inner shrine.
Is not here a lesson for our lives?
If we shall enter that higher, larger,
and holier life, we must first pass
through the stage of self-giving and
sacrifice. This is the true ordo salutis.
^Pednesda? before Caster
CHE evening of Tuesday Jesus spent
probably on the Mount of Olives,
and again on Wednesday morning
comes to the Temple court where He
converses with a deputation from the
Sanhedrim It is at this time that
Jesus is fully conscious of the in-
effectiveness of His stern invective
against the hypocritical piety of the
Pharisees, and in despair He laments
"0 Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! — how often
would I have gathered thy children
together — and ye would not" (Holtz-
mann).
In these haughty adversaries of our
Lord we see a common type of Christ-
ians who identify religion with theo-
logic formularies, and complacent in
the efficacy of their creed to save their
souls, keep their heart untouched by
28
VIA CRUCIS
love. Cold, cruel, self-opinionated,
they look with scant charity upon the
views of those who may be holding as a
prerequisite for closer communion with
God, the sign-manual Lux et Veritas,
to follow wherever the Light and Truth
may lead. They ponder upon the
traditional theories of "personal" salva-
tion, little realizing that
"Who seeks for heaven alone to save his soul,
May keep the path but will not reach the goal;
While he who walks in love may wander far,
Yet God will bring him where the blessed are."
— Van Dyke.
Jesus is aware also of the intense
hatred His words have incurred, and
knows that His enemies will not rest
until they have accomplished His ruin.
His suspicions are fully justified, for
presently emissaries come from the
Sanhedrin with the concealed purpose
of inducing Jesus to make some rash
statement which might be construed as
VIA CRUCIS
29
treason against Roman authority. So
they introduce the tax question. A
direct answer would either have given
offence to Jewish sentiment, thereby
diminishing Christ's influence among
the people, or, had Jesus questioned
the right of Eome to levy tribute, a
criminal procedure would have been the
immediate consequence.
Jesus' familiar evasive reply, "Pay
what is Caesar's to Caesar, and what is
God's to God," is a remarkable example
of astuteness in avoiding a most difficult
dilemma, and at the same time in teach-
ing a profound truth. "His foes,"
says Keim, "must have felt disap-
pointed above measure, completely
overthrown, for they had achieved
nothing. They had neither as they had
wished and expected, unmasked Him as
a rebel and an enemy of Eome, nor
even, as they might have afterwards
wished, as a traitor to God, to the
30
VIA CRUCIS
people, to their liberty, to tlieir future,
to their longings for Messianic salva-
tion" (Jesus of Nazara).
Another captious question is put to
our Lord by the Sadducees respecting
what they deemed an insurmountable
difficulty to belief in the resurrection.
Jesus does not answer the question, but
plainly declares that the finite condi-
tions which surround us here should
not be projected into our thought of the
world beyond. The spiritual com-
munion of the next life transcends the
human limitations of family, and is
like that of the angels of heaven.
"More illustrious than ever the hero
from Galilee stood there, His foes His
footstool, and the people, newly en-
chained, roused afresh for the Prophet,
the God" (Keim).
In marked contrast to these responses
to His adversaries is the plain and
direct answer which Jesus gives to the
VIA CRUGIS
31
honest inquiry of the Scribe respecting
the greatest of the Commandments.
It is then Christ made for all time that
concise summary of religious obliga-
tion: "Thou shalt love Yahweh thy
God with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy understanding,
and with all thy strength." The Second
Commandment is this: "Thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself."
The former was very familiar to
every Jew, written as it was on His
phylacteries, and naturally met with
the hearty endorsement of Jesus' inter-
locutor. The latter command, although
found in J ewish Scripture, had become
obsolete. To make plain its meaning
our Lord at the Scribe's request defines
the word neighbor through the graphic
parable of the Good Samaritan (Holtz-
mann), who was passing along the
Jerusalem road which Jesus had re-
cently traveled, a region doubtless as
32
VIA CRUGIS
barren and wild in Christ's time
(eprjfxov Kal 7rcTpo)8cs, Josephus) as we
see it to-day.
Nothing met our eyes as we
journeyed by this route to the Dead
Sea save desolate stretches of sand upon
which the rays of the sun beat with un-
mitigated vehemence. Only two small
Khans, which afford a little rest and
coolness to the traveller, break the mo-
notony of a long and tedious journey.
One is named "The Inn of The Good
Samaritan"; but it certainly cannot
localize the imaginary place of the
assault upon the wayfarer, since it lies
nearly half way between J erusalem and
Jericho. We infer from the parable
that the robbers attacked their victims
at no very great distance from Jerus-
alem, as the two passers-by were
evidently coming out from the city.
The priest was doubtless on his way
home from service in the Temple
VIA CRUCIS
33
(Jiilicher, Die Oleichnisreden Jesu).
He had been standing in the quiet soli-
tude of the Court of the Priests before
the divine Presence, yet he had seen no
vision of God. He, as well as the
Levite, was an official representative of
Judaism. Both were strict in their
theology, but disregarded a fellow be-
ing in distress. It remained for an
ignorant, lowly, despised Samaritan to
render a service more divine in God's
sight than magnificent temple cere-
monies. Then Jesus sums up the
ratio vivendi in a single brief sentence :
"Do likewise."
In the old White Keep of the London
Tower the visitor is shown where in
the underground chambers stood the
rack and the wheel. The walls are
dark and damp, haunted even to-day
by the cries of pain they have echoed.
Yet by a strange inconsistency a wind-
ing staircase brings one to the chapel
34
VIA CRUCIS
of St. John the Divine. Here stood at
the altar the cross, that symbol of suf-
fering love; here men knelt and re-
peated the very words of the Saviour of
the world, while stifled by the thick
stone beneath them were the shrieks
and wails of victims tortured by cord
and thumbscrew. Was that Christ-
ianity ? Yet have we not to-day much
of that spirit? We leave our comfort-
able homes and enjoy the dignity and
calm which come from worship in the
House of God. But did we see in that
narrow alley which we passed any de-
graded lives to lift Godward? Did
we hear from the dank of the cellar and
the gloom of the attic any cry of suf-
fering? Christianity is seeing with
the Christ-vision the sorrows of the
sorrowing, the poverty of the poor, the
despair of the despairing.
That night Jesus retires again to the
Mount of Olives.
ON Thursday morning our Lord for
the last time visits the Temple.
The Pharisees had probably heard that
a courtesan had anointed His feet a
few days before, and that the act had
met with His favor. Jesus' compassion,
they believe, will now destroy His in-
fluence. An excellent opportunity
offers. They find a common adulter-
ess, who happened to be in the crowd
about the temple, and publicly place
her before Him.
I know that this incident is not
found in some of our best manuscripts,
yet it is so in accord with the spirit of
Christ that I feel it is real. Even
Holtzmann regards it as genuine, and
places it here in the order of events.
If J esus condemns the sinful woman,
36
VIA CRUCIS
He will act inconsistently with His
spirit of pardon. If He does not con-
demn her, He will lose all claim to be-
ing a moral teacher. But our Lord's
rebuke is to the woman's accusers. He
asks them to search their own hearts,
and if they find they have lived blame-
less before God, then and then only are
they qualified to judge a fellow crea-
ture. Unable to evade this searching
test, they creep away, one by one, till
Jesus stands alone before the sinner.
I should like to have seen the look our
Lord gave to that shrinking, abject be-
ing. It must have been full of love,
tenderness, sympathy. He saw, be-
cause He was the Christ of Love, what
her accusers had failed to see. He saw
God's image with all the possibilities
of the divine life in that weak and
broken body, and His words had to do
only with the future: "Go and sin no
more."
VIA CRUGIS
37
The Pharisees demanded punish-
ment; Jesus Christ asked for reforma-
tion.
In a Christian city of 'New England
a girl who had been nurtured under
the influence of God-fearing parents
found employment in one of the large
factories. Deceived by the treachery
of a so-called friend who had invited
her to meet some of her acquaintances,
she was drugged, ruined and aband-
oned. Later as she reeled half uncon-
scious through the streets she was
arrested for drunkenness, brought with
a load of vile and loathsome criminals
into the police court, and sentenced to
ninety days in jail. At the expira-
tion of that time she sought her em-
ployer and told him her story. He
refused to take her back. She went to
another city, but found evil report had
preceded her. In despair she turned
to her old Sunday School teacher, but
38
VIA CRUCIS
the door was shut in her face and she
was told not to defile that home with
her presence. Yes, she was an
abandoned woman— that awful term-
abandoned by a self-righteous world,
but still dear and precious to the Christ-
heart. A week later the waves gently-
washed her frail and outworn body
upon the rugged shore of that New
England coast. The waters, more
kind than the human hearts, to which
she had appealed, gave that rest which
had been denied her in the great city
of Christian homes and Christian
churches. How different the con-
demnation of the world to-day from
that of Jesus two thousand years ago!
The Sunday School teacher still meets
her classes, but she has not heard the
Christ saying "Inasmuch as ye have
done it unto one of these least, ye have
done it unto Me."
As Jesus was still sitting in the
VIA CRUCIS
30
temple (Holtzmann), he observes a
poor widow approaching the treasury
and putting in two lepta (a quarter
cent), surely an insignificant sum com-
pared with the contributions of the
rich. Our Lord takes this occasion to
teach the great truth that the value of
an offering in God's sight is measured
solely by the personal sacrifice in-
volved. We cannot hoard our wealth
and give to God something which
costs us little to surrender. Neither
can we use our money for selfish aims,
and then satisfy our consciences by
leaving legacies for great philanthropic
purposes, since what death wrests from
us is in no wise a voluntary gift.
It is the spirit of individual self-
denial which God accepts and blesses.
Jesus now passes out of the temple
buildings which by their size and
magnificence overawed the simple band
of Galilean peasants. Yet our Lord
40
VIA CBUGIS
boldly foretells the utter destruction of
a shrine so sacred to every Jew. The
language of a similar prophecy was
later used against Him at His trial.
He had also on this day publicly ex-
posed the hypocrisy and pride of
Pharisaism, thus arousing still more
the hatred of His enemies. Jesus is
glad to retire again to the quiet of
Olivet.
Sitting on the hillslope He con-
verses with His disciples concerning
His second coming. He tells them,
through graphic illustrations, of the
necessity of preparedness, of the
separation between those qualified and
those unqualified for admission into
His kingdom. He shows that the uni-
versal law of that kingdom is one of
love, and that the sole criterion of judg-
ment will be based on the amount of
this unselfish love contained in the
hearts of His believers. He clearly
VIA CRUCIS
41
teaches that service to humanity is
service to Himself.
When the evening shadows gather
Christ prepares to eat His last meal
with His disciples.
Late in the afternoon of Thursday
we visited the traditional cenaculum.
A statement of Epiphanius, to the
effect that the Upper Room used at
that time as a little church had escaped
the general demolition of Jerusalem,
has led many to regard this chamber as
one of the most authentic of sacred sites
(Zahn, Neue KircMiche Zeitschrift).
Prof. Sanday commits himself fully to
this view, remarking that the evidence
appears to him so strong that he is pre-
pared to give it an unqualified ad-
hesion. The room is to-day in the
hands of the most fanatical sect of the
Moslems. It is an ancient edifice with
later vaulted ceiling, supported by mas-
sive columns, and I can easily believe
42
VIA CRUCIS
that at least it may have been in exist-
ence in the time of Christ.
On the evening of that day we cele-
brated the Holy Communion in the
English Church at J erusalem, certainly
not far from the spot where Christ
Himself established this memorial of
His death. After the words, "This do
in remembrance of Me," we paused,
that our thoughts might go back
through the centuries to that solemn
scene when, on this same night and at
the same hour, our Lord took the cup
into His hand and blessed it to be for-
ever the pledge of His love.
It is thought by many modern
scholars that the Last Supper on that
eve before the Passover symbolized the
ancient Sinaitic Covenant whereby
Yahweh bound Himself to His people
(Titius, Neutest. Lehre). During
the ceremonies of this feast the victim
was slain, and his blood originally was
VIA CRUCIS
43
drunk by the worshipper in the belief
that he was actually partaking of the
life of his God. Although the J ews in
the time of our Lord had advanced far
beyond that crude idea of sacrifice, yet
there still survived a symbolism of the
shed blood as a type of the union of
God with His people.
If this view be correct, I think we
see a more suggestive and a diviner
meaning in the Holy Eucharist. It is
His Body and His Blood, not of the
old Jewish compact with a national
God, but of the new covenant "with
Yahweh's Servant suffering to redeem
not only the nation's sin but those of
the world" (Giesebrecht, Der Knecht
Jahwes des Deuterojesaia). It is
strictly a communion service, for in it
we take into ourselves the life and
nature of our Lord. It is a type of
Christ-similitude.
We do well to ask ourselves as we
44
VIA CBUGIS
come Sunday after Sunday to His Holy
Table, "Are we more like Christ now
than when we partook of the Holy
Communion in the days gone by ?" If
we are not, we have not that religion
which Jesus brought. Are our hearts
filled with pride, greed, jealousy, and
hate ? Then is it not sacrilege for us to
partake of the emblems of His divine life ?
Communion with Christ in this
sacred ordinance means our becoming
more and more Christ-ed.
When our service in the church was
ended, we passed out along the dark
and tortuous streets of Jerusalem,
through St. Stephen's Gate, over the
dry bed of the brook Kedron, to the
Mount of Olives and the Garden of
Gethsemane. It was the time of the
full Paschal moon. I have seen the
moonbeams illumine the weird deserts
of Arizona ; I have seen them sport on
the waters of the Aegean Sea, and
VIA CRUCIS
45
silver the domes and minarets of Con-
stantinople ; but never have I seen their
effulgence greater than on that night
when their light came down through
the silver sheen of the olive trees.
For a long time we gathered in
silence, and then we read the simple
Gospel narrative of our Lord's agony
and betrayal. It was no time for
words, but each one of that little band
gave himself up to the thoughts sug-
gested by the holy environment. We
stood there with no superstitious feel-
ing that we were standing on the very
spot where Christ had knelt, but we
realized that it was under the same sky
and on the same soil and at the same
hour. We knew that the same moon
had met His upturned gaze as He
prayed, "If it be possible let this cup
pass from Me." We knew that the
same ground had been wet with the
sweat of His agony.
46
VIA GRUGIS
From a band of Christians gathered
at another point on the hillside were
wafted the familiar words
' ' Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee,
E'en though it be a cross that raiseth me,"
and we thought how in accord they
were with the spirit of Christ's prayer,
"Not My will but Thine be done." Do
we, as we take the chalice into our
hands, hear Christ speaking to us as He
spoke centuries ago, "Are ye able to
drink of this cup of sacrifice that I
drink of?" Upon our answer to that
question depends the degree of our fel-
lowship and communion with our Lord.
A picture by a celebrated foreign
artist has been fitly styled a sermon in
painting. It is called "Despised and
Rejected of Men," and portrays the
suffering form of our Saviour bound to
an altar, on the pedestal of which is in-
scribed Ignoto Deo, "to the unknown
God," while there pass by a confused
VIA CRUCIS
47
and noisy crowd representing all con-
ditions of life. The scientist is there
absorbed in his investigations, the
priest of God engrossed in dogmatic
problems, the woman enslaved by the
sham and emptiness of society, each of
them oblivious to the divine call to
share in the Christ-Sacrifice. The
only one who responds in all that
throng is a poor woman holding a babe
to her breast ; the love for her child has
enabled her to catch some vision of the
divine love, and she has crept up to the
altar steps and looks sympathetically
into the face of Jesus. Our Lord's
heart is broken with sorrow, and angels
raise to His lips the cup of anguish
which He again must drink.
Are we of that number that pass by
and receive not from the Saviour's
hands the cup of His sacrifice ?
The evangelist beautifully tells us
that an angel came and ministered
48
VIA CRUCIS
to Him. The struggle is now over.
Christ's prayer is answered and He has
entered into complete harmony and
touch with the Father. So every life,
which enters into communion with
God, hears the divine voice.
I remember that I was crossing the
Atlantic shortly after the Marconi
system had been put in operation. I
spent many hours watching the move-
ments of the little machine which was
receiving messages from the distant
shore. We were surrounded by the
trackless expanse of water, yet the deli-
cate receiver transmitted to us tidings
simply because it was attuned to the
vibrations of the ether waves. Our
ears were too dull to respond to them.
Is it not true that our lives must be in
harmony with God before they can re-
ceive messages from heaven ?
Perhaps we have heard God speaking
to us in moments of prosperity, in
VIA CRUCIS
49
hours of sorrow. Perhaps God's voice
was heard as we stood by the bedside of
a departing soul. We went forth
thrilled and responsive, but the clamor
of the busy world dulled our souls. Is
not the function of all educative in-
fluences whether in the school, the col-
lege, or the church, is not the purpose
of the disciplinary forces of life, to
draw us out into such attune with God
that we may hear the divine voice even
as Christ heard the whisper of angels
in dark Gethsemane ?
Before we separated on that sacred
hill we sang together that hymn:
"When I survey the wondrous Cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,"
and it seemed as if we could literally
survey that Cross which on the morrow
was to be erected on one of the hills
which frowned down upon the slumber-
ing city.
We returned across the Kedron
50
VIA CRUCIS
brook by the road which preserves the
direction taken by the captors of our
Lord. As the domes and minarets of
the city glittered in the moonlight we
pictured the midnight scene in the
Palace of the High Priest.
Whatever the Sanhedrin had to do
must be done quickly. The following
day would be the fourteenth of Msan
(Holtzmann), and the Passover would
begin at six o'clock in the evening.
This accounts for the desperate haste
of the Priests, Scribes and Elders to
condemn and execute Jesus on the day
previous to the Great Sabbath. They
must kill the Son of God before they
enter upon their religious services.
Here is a lesson so deeply significant
that it needs no comment.
The hall of the Sanhedrin lay close
to the "ancient city wall which joined
the Xystos square with the western por-
tico of the temple" (Holtzmann). The
VIA CRUCIS
51
power of this body to condemn Christ
rested in the charge of His proclaiming
a religion which would supersede the
God-revealed tenets of Judaism. His
caustic accusations against the official
representatives of the national faith,
His blasphemous prophecy relating to
the destruction of the Temple, and His
presumptive assurance that He could
rear another in an incredibly brief
period, were regarded as sufficient
ground for his condemnation. But the
criminal proceedings against Jesus were
stayed through the failure in concur-
rence of two witnesses respecting the
actual language of the accused. Con-
demnation on the testimony of a
single witness was illegal. It was at
this crisis that the High Priest resorted
to the device of causing Christ to in-
criminate Himself. Looking with de-
rision upon the lowly peasant before
52
VIA GEUOIB
him, he asks: "Art thou the Messiah,
the Son of God?"
Jesus up to this time had said
nothing, but now the question involved
His Messiahship publicly proclaimed
a few days before. To continue silent
longer or to deny it would be disloyalty
to His consciousness of His divine
mission. "No degree of caution will
allow Him to keep back the admission
which revealed the essential meaning of
His life now that He is questioned
directly" (Holtzmann). Although
knowing full well the fatal result of
such an affirmation He calmly replies:
"I am indeed the Messiah."
This statement of our Lord inter-
preted in the light of His life and
teachings could not be regarded by the
Sanhedrin as fanatical; it must be
blasphemous, and blasphemy was a
capital offense. Jesus is forthwith
condemned to death.
VIA CRUCIS
53
Another legal step is necessary.
Christ's Messianic claims must be con-
strued to mean treason against Rome.
The Sanhedrin must bring Him to
trial before the Roman Viceroy, who
at this time happened to be in the city.
While J esus is waiting to be led before
Pilate the servants of the High Priest
mock our Lord as a blasphemer, blind-
folding Him and demanding that He
declare in His role of prophet who it
is that strikes Him.
At this point even Peter denies Christ.
The other disciples had long since aban-
doned Him. J esus now stands alone.
How often since that awful scene
have the followers of our Lord been
called upon to stand alone against the
world! It matters little whether men
applaud or condemn so long as we are
conscious of truth and right. Moral
isolation is power, if we stand alone
with God.
03ST Good Friday we found Jerusalem
crowded with pilgrims. The Mo-
hammedans had come to celebrate the
festival of Moses, a Moslem invention to
counteract the Christian influence of
Easter, the J ews to keep their Passover,
while thousands of Roman and Greek
Christians had assembled to follow the
footsteps of Christ during Holy Week.
Many of these were Russians who
had walked their weary way overland.
We meet them everywhere — even along
the lonely road that leads from Jerus-
alem to Jericho, tramping under a blaz-
ing sun because Christ had gone foot-
sore and weary as they over the same
way. They have little purse or script
for their journey. I remember seeing
one venerable white-haired pilgrim en-
VIA CRUCIS
55
ter with slow step a neighboring shop
and spend his all for a glass ball, which
was to be the receptacle of the Holy
Fire on the Greek Easter. Death is
constantly thinning their ranks.
Funerals pass our hotel at the rate of
five a day. In fact, very many never
expect to return to the land of their
fathers, but count it a privilege to be
buried in holy soil.
Why this self-denial, this toilsome
journey, this coveted death? Simply
to walk where Jesus walked; and I
doubt not that our Lord receives this
sacrifice in the spirit in which it is
offered.
Is not Christianity a walking with
Christ in love and service? Are not
His steps very plain ? They lead us to
follow Him in unselfish mission, rebuk-
ing pride, hypocrisy and greed, bring-
ing sight to the blind, opening the
mouth of the dumb, healing by the
58
VIA CRUGIS
touch of our lives the leprosy of sin,
raising through our hearts' love the sor-
rowing and afflicted; they lead us to
Gethsemane where we make His will
our will ; they lead us even to Calvary
that we crucify our selfish selves and
enter upon the immortal life of sacri-
fice.
Early in the morning of this most
sacred day of the Christian year we
stood beside the ruins of Herod's
Palace, preserved for several courses of
great drafted blocks in the foundation
walls of the fourteenth century citadel.
The Koman Procurator presumably had
his temporary residence here, and
hither Jesus was brought as soon as
Pilate was ready to give audience.
It is probable that the trial took place
on an elevation (Gabbatha) before the
palace (Holtzmann). The charge
against the accused is His treasonable
claim to Judaic kingship.
VIA CRUCIS
57
Pilate tests the seriousness of this
accusation by putting upon the populace
the responsibility of choosing between
an ordinary robber and the "king of the
Jews" as to which should become a
recipient of clemency. Had they re-
quested the release of Jesus, he would
have suspected a real plot against
Eoman authority; but their vehement
demands for Christ's execution convince
him that Jesus is a victim of irrational
Jewish fanaticism (Holtzmann). He
regards Him as an innocent man and
plainly tells His accusers that he finds
no fault in Him. His subsequent
condemnation of our Lord is an act of
cowardice. He dreads a popular
demonstration. He fears that he might
be accused at Eome of pardoning a
traitor. "The priests," as Weiss points
out, "threaten to appeal to the Emperor
Tiberius, should Pilate release an
acknowledged pretender to the throne"
58
VIA CBUGIS
(Leben Jesu). They cry out, "If you
let this man go, you are not Csesar's
friend" ; a fearful accusation, for Taci-
tus distinctly states that Laesa Majestas
under Tiberius was the greatest of
crimes. Political reasons alone in-
fluence the Roman Governor reluctantly
to pronounce sentence of death upon the
guiltless Son of God.
Alas ! this is not the only time in the
world's history when right and truth
have been sacrificed on the selfish
ground of expediency.
Jesus suffers now the flogging which
regularly accompanied crucifixion.
While some of the soldiers mock Him in
the role of king, others prepare the
cross.
Doubtless they had made many
crosses for condemned criminals ere
this. They little realized when they
fitted the rude transverse beam to the
upright that this gruesome gallows-
VIA CRUCIS
59
tree would come down through the cen-
turies as the holiest symbol of our
faith; that it would flash in gold
and sparkle with gems upon our
altars; that it would rise on heaven-
pointing church spires, far above the
din of our busy streets as if to hal-
low the city's life. Yes, around
it martyr hands have clung. It has
been oft-times the last earthly object on
which were fixed the eyes of the dying.
It is to-day the idolon of service to those
who have entered into life-union with
Christ, and its divine lesson of consecra-
tion and sacrifice must leave its impress
upon the soul before it can fully com-
mune with a God of Love.
A centurion leads the party towards
the place of execution. The Via Dolo-
rosa, or Path of Pain, begins at the site
of the Roman barracks of the ancient
Castle of Antonia.
At the hour of our visit a fanatical
60
VIA CRVCIB
Mohammedan procession was going
from the Haram esh Sherif, where
elaborate ceremonies had been held for
several days, to the tomb of Moses,
which, very conveniently for the follow-
ers of the prophet, has been found on
this side of the Jordan. From the din
and discordance of the military music
of the Turkish bands, from the confu-
sion and jostling of the crowd, we with-
drew into the peace and seclusion of the
Latin Convent of the Sisters of Zion,
situated at the beginning of this tra-
ditional road which Christ trod on His
way to Calvary.
A Sister with a pure and sweet face
which reflected the calm of her daily
life, took us beneath the ground floor of
the convent, and showed us the ancient
pavement some twenty feet below the
modern street. Pointing to it she ex-
claimed: "It is very sacred; our Lord
Himself walked here."
VIA CRUCIS
61
Deeply cut in the hard stone were the
familiar outlines of the game of
draughts, so popular among the Eoman
soldiers, and which the traveller ob-
serves on the floor of the Basilica Julia
in the Eoman Forum. These marks, it
is true, tend somewhat to confirm the
hypothesis that the old Eoman Pre-
torium and the Judgment Hall of
Pilate were situated near this spot. In
fact Weiss (Das Leben Jesu) remarks
that the narrative seems to indicate the
tower of Antonia where the Eoman
cohort was quartered, and where doubt-
less the commander resided. Yet I
have accepted what seems to me the
more plausible view, that the Procura-
tor during his presence in Jerusalem
occupied the royal Palace of Herod
near the modern Jaffa Gate.
We all looked, however, with deep
reverence upon these ancient stones,
feeling that it was indeed possible that
62
VIA GROCm
they had been pressed by the footsteps
of the Son of God, and had resounded
to the dull thud of the Cross on this
very day and at this very hour.
Spanning the modern street at this
point is the Eece Homo arch, a struc-
ture not standing in the time of Christ,
but probably erected during the reign of
Hadrian. Here it is said Pilate showed
our Lord to the people, saying : "Behold
the Man."
A famous French painter has given
us this sad scene. The Saviour wears
the crown of thorns deeply sunk in His
brow, yet is the only one quiet and com-
posed amid the tumultuous throng.
Pilate points to the sorrowing form of
our Lord and utters the famous words :
Ecce Homo.
It is fitting that the Way of Pain
should begin here, that we should see
from the balcony of Pilate's Palace that
mocked but silent Christ as if saying to
THE VIA DOLOROSA,
Showing Ecce Homo Arch.
VIA CRUCIS 63
us, "Look upon Me. Consider what
the name 'Christian' involves before you
take it upon yourselves/' and as if
appealing to us to follow in His foot-
steps of love and sacrifice as we enter
the Via Dolorosa to ascend to Calvary.
Following the Stations of the Cross
we come to the spot where Simon of
Cyrene took upon his own shoulders the
Cross from the exhausted and fainting
Christ.
Is it not true that we need in Christ-
ianity more Cross-bearers? We have
enough Cross-parasites. Many are
ready to sing "Simply to Thy Cross I
cling/' but Christianity demands that
we bear the Cross of sacrifice. Yes, on
our own shoulders must be laid that
great world-burden of our Lord.
The Cross of self-denial is hard to
bear, but He has borne it before us.
The path may be rugged, but His feet
have trod every step of the way. He
64
VIA CBUGIS
does not say, "Go," but lie turns and
bids us, "Follow after Me."
Suppose every member of the Church
of God were a Cross-bearer. How the
afflicted, the downcast, the degraded,
would crowd our doors ! How lovingly
and tenderly our names would be taken
upon the lips of the poor, the father-
less, and the suffering! What mean-
ing would be carried by the name
"Christian!" We cannot doubt that
this is Christ's test of our discipleship,
for He has plainly declared: "He who
would be My disciple, let him deny
himself and take up his cross and fol-
low Me."
A few steps beyond we reach the
place where legend says that St.
Veronica wiped the face of the Saviour
with her napkin. She did not know it
was the Lord of Glory; she doubtless
thought it was only some poor criminal
led to an ignominious death.
VIA CRUCIS
65
We envy her this holy opportunity;
we wish we could have been there to re-
lieve the suffering Christ ; but our Lord
points us to the sad and the despairing,
to the sorrowing and the bereaved, and
says: "Inasmuch as ye have done it
unto one of these least, ye have done it
unto Me/'
We are told that on the cloth the
maiden carried there appeared the face
of our Lord Himself. So every good
deed and every kind word leaves the
Christ-character stamped upon the soul
forever.
And now the Stations of the Cross
end at Calvary. As we stood on this
height, sacredly associated with the dy-
ing agony of our Lord through a tra-
dition extending over fifteen hundred
years, we realized how the Church
throughout the world was remembering
the divine suffering; how the Cross
upon each altar was veiled during these
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awful hours; how Christians were as-
sembling to keep that day of days by
solemn meditation on those last words
uttered by our Saviour from the Cross,
while we were permitted to spend that
holy day beneath the same sky where
He died.
Desiring to keep full possession of
His powers, Jesus will not drink the an-
aesthetic generally given to criminals
before crucifixion. The soldiers now
strip Him of His clothes and nail Him
to the Cross, while they post above His
head, as Eoman custom required, the
accusation of the condemned :
King of the Jews.
They stand guard to prevent any at-
tempt at rescue, and cast lots for the
garments of the Lord.
It happened at this hour of the day
of our visit that the motley procession
which I have described was filing out
tore
VIA CRUCIS
67
St. Stephen's Gate. As we looked at
the disorderly and shouting mob we
could easily imagine the crowd that
jeered, hooted and reviled as they
passed by the Cross. They knew not
that it was the Kedeemer of the World
who was hanging there.
J esus, because He was divine, looked
beyond all hate and cruelty deep into
their souls, and out of pity of a heart
broken with sorrow He cries : "Father,
forgive them, for they know not what
they do/'
Even at this awful hour the heart of
our Saviour forgot the pain of the Cross
in filial solicitude for His mother as He
commits her to the care of His beloved
disciple saying: "Mother, look upon
thy Son." '
With the same unselfish love His
next words are those of pardon to a
penitent fellow sufferer, and a promise
of entrance into His Kingdom.
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We were sitting beneath burning rays
of an April sun. We realized how the
unmitigated heat must have been even
greater suffering to our Lord than the
pain from the driven nails. As the
blistering sun of midday fell upon that
barren hill, we cannot wonder that there
escaped from Him those words, wrung
from His lips by awful torture: "I
thirst, I thirst."
The populace which had proclaimed
belief in Jesus as the Messiah, now de-
mand a miraculous descent from the
Cross as a vindication of His claim.
Could our Lord have escaped death ?
Even without a miracle, He had the
power to save Himself, but He never
could have had the desire. He could
have withdrawn to the wilderness of
Judsea at the time He was anticipating
His capture in Gethsemane. If He had
denied His Messianic mission before
the Sanhedrin, it is probable that suffi-
VIA CRUCIS
69
cient evidence of blasphemy could not
have been brought against Him. Had
He undertaken His self-defence before
Pilate, the trial might have resulted in
acquittal. But "as God, He could be
moved by no necessity. As it would not
be power but weakness for God to wish
to lie (whence its impossibility), so it
would not be power but weakness for
Christ to desire to withold His life
when once the purpose of salvation had
been formed, and in view of the great
good to be wrought by the gift of it"
(Stevens, Christian Doctrine of Salva-
tion).
In the sight of the people Christ's
failure to avoid an ignominious death
invalidates His Messianic claim, and
they revile Him as an imposter. Their
taunting words must have been greater
agony to the heart of Jesus than any
physical suffering. It is at this awful
moment that our Lord takes refuge in
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the Psalm of Agony which He utters
in the Aramaic dialect: Elo'i, Elo%
lama sabachthani : "My God, My God,
why hast Thou forsaken Me !"
I cannot believe that He whose life
had been in perfect fellowship with the
Father could have felt a sense of
divine abandonment in the very hour
when He most needed God's presence.
"In life and death Christ's conscious-
ness of complete union with God was
uninterrupted" (Kitschl, Die Christ-
liche Lehre). Kather, He spake these
words with the same spirit that inspired
many a martyr at the stake to chant
portions of the Liturgy, in calm assur-
ance of divine comfort in the midst of
the revilings and the mistaken judg-
ments of men.
Because of the noise and confusion
around the Cross, this utterance of
Jesus is indistinctly heard. The crowd
imagine that He is calling upon Elijah
VIA GRUCIS
71
for help. An observer takes this oppor-
tunity to do a merciful deed (Holtz-
mann). It was a violation of the
Eoman law to offer drink to a criminal
during the period of his execution.
Under the pretense of derision (for
such an act would have been prevented
had its friendly purpose been sus-
pected), he raised a sponge to the lips
of Christ, while he contemptuously re-
marked, "Let us see if Elijah will come
and take Him down."
Conscious of the approach of a re-
markably speedy death, Jesus now
utters those words of tremendous sig-
nificance : "It is finished !" and commits
His soul to God in a prayer which can
come only from a life in unbroken com-
munion with the Father.
Let us look upon the dying Christ as
the centurion, amid the gloom of a
heaven overcast with clouds as if
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nature felt the divine agony, exclaims:
"Behold, this was the Son of God!"
Behold Christ ; and in His death you
behold God's incomparable sorrow for
sin. You behold the world-vision of
self-giving love. You behold the roy-
alty of forgiveness and sacrifice. You
behold what was central in the heart of
God from eternity, His infinite yearn-
ing to bring man into perfect fellowship
with Him. You behold the great lov-
ing heart of God Himself. You behold
the divinest, noblest, most exalted
revelation, that of the God-likeness of
suffering and service.
In the Paedagogium on the Palatine
Hill at Rome, was found a rude graf-
fito done by a slave in ridicule of a
Christian comrade. It represents an
ass suspended on a cross, and under it
is scrawled in miserable Greek,
"Alexamenos worships his god." I
thought as I saw this relic in the Museo
THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE,
On Traditional Site of Calyaey.
VIA GRUCIS
73
Kircheriano how little that slave knew
that those arms were outstretched for
him, that those feet and hands were
pierced for him, that the agony of
death was for him, all to reveal how a
3ommon Father loved the humblest of
His children. We can pardon him, for
he knew not what he was doing.
But what shall we say of the pro-
fessed followers of our Lord who hold
up to the world the image of the Cruci-
fied, marred by selfishness, narrowness,
greed and pride? Do men see in our
lives the Christ of Calvary? Let us
answer seriously and thoughtfully, for
Jesus Himself will some day ask, and
He too will answer this question; and
upon His answer will depend the
promise of entrance into the joy of our
Lord.
Caster Stfcorttiitg
CHE Easter sun ushered in a glorious
morning. Very early, while the
birds were singing their carols, we came
to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher,
which by a tradition fifteen centuries
old is supposed to mark the tomb of our
Lord. At any rate it is a spot made
profoundly sacred by blood and tears.
Since the time when Helena may have
identified some wooden beams of a sub-
terranean reservoir with the true Cross,
and Constantine surrounded the Holy
Grave with a Basilica, sacred memories
have gathered here. The cold stones
shutting in the burial place of our Lord
have been moistened by Christian blood,
as hands of martyrs have been out-
stretched to defend it.
The conquest of this consecrated
THE HOLY GRAVE.
VIA CRUCIS
75
shrine has inspired the heroic deeds of
the Crusaders. The Grave of Christ has
been the goal of thousands and thou-
sands of pilgrims who have come to lay-
down their sins and burdens before the
Holy Sepulcher.
Later that same morning I had the
privilege of celebrating, within the
walls of Jerusalem, the Holy Euchar-
ist, at this hour especially, as its
etymology implies, a true service of
Thanksgiving :
Christus Resurkexit.
I cannot close this little volume with-
out repeating the great fundamental
obligation of our Christian religion,
that we go with Christ to Gethsemane,
there to take the chalice of His sacri-
fice ; that we follow Him in the steps of
His divine forgiveness, by which He
forgave those who reviled, cursed and
mobbed Him ; that we go with Him even
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VIA GRUCIS
to Calvary, there to give up life, to show
that the entrance into the life of God
comes only through love and sacrifice
and service.
Once more let me give the searching
test of our discipleship ; are we able to
drink of the cup of self-denial whereof
He drank, and to be baptized with the
baptism of service wherewith He was
baptized? Are we ready to deny our-
selves and take up the Cross and follow
Him?
Then and then only can we enter
into the Easter joy of a risen life with
Christ.
"If I find Him, if I follow,
What His guerdon here?
Many a sorrow, many a labor,
Many a tear.
"If I still hold closely to Him,
What hath He at last?
Sorrow vanquished, labor ended,
Jordan past/'
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