CHRIST AND PILATE: OR, THE DIVINE AND HUMAN GOVERNMENTS IN CONTRAST. BY REV. DAVID S. DOGGETT, D. D., OF THE VIRGINIA CONFERENCE. "Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews but now is my kingdom not from hence. Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king, then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice."-John xviii, 36, 37. The Jews, in order to accomplish their murderous purpose upon Jesus Christ, availed themselves of the most successful of all human instruments the jealousy of the Roman government. To obtain against him the sentence of capital punishment, which, as a tributary people they had no right to pass, they charged him before the legal tribunal with the crime of sedition. They pretended that he was an opponent, if not a rival, of Cæsar, and perhaps a dangerous competitor for the imperial crown. Under this accusation he was arraigned before Pontius Pilate, the provincial governor. Said they, "We have found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar, saying that he himself is Christ, a king." And to render Pilate's decision in their favor inevitable, they charged him with virtual conspiracy against his own sovereign. They declared, "if thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king, speaketh against Cæsar." Thus were Christ and Pilate brought face to face. What a scene, my brethren! what a mystery! They confronted each other, not merely as individuals, not merely as a judge and a criminal, but as representative personages, brought by Heaven's unfathomable counsel, once in the lapse of ages, into contact and antagonism, that both might pronounce their verdict in the presence of a listening universe, on the greatest of all questions. Pilate represented the imperial authority of the |