“Kinsmen and colleagues, ye have all heard, if ye have not witnessed, how Jesus of Nazara entered the Holy City on the first day of this week, amid the acclamations of his followers and many of the lower people, who even went so far as to hail him as the Deliverer. Now, to‐morrow, as ye know, is the Passover. Who knows, if the thoughts of deliverance from Egypt, which come at that time, may not cause this man, or, if not him, his followers, to attempt a rising against the Romans our masters? We know that any such attempt would be entirely futile, but the very attempt itself would be the ruin of the nation. Ye know the character of the man Pontius Pilate. ’Tis but a short time since he slew, of wanton cruelty, certain Galilæans, even while they were making sacrifices, and all for mere suspicion of disaffection. Ye cannot but remember the building of Solomon’s Aqueduct. Because money was taken from the Temple treasury for the building thereof, the people were inflamed, and would have risen against them. What did he but send his soldiers, disguised in civil garb and armed with clubs, among the people, when they came to make their protest? And without warning, and in mere wanton cruelty, did he give the signal for massacre. If he did this at a mere threat of a rising, what will happen should an actual rising take place to‐morrow? It is our duty to see that such a calamity fall not upon this nation because of the presence of this rude provincial in our midst. Better one man should die than the nation should suffer. No time was to be lost, and I therefore have had this Jesus arrested, and he now awaits our pleasure in the atrium. “Before I summon him to our presence, I would briefly state to you what seems to me and some of our friends here the right course to be followed. We purpose to hand him over at dawn to Pontius Pilate, to deal with him as he will. For he, by his spies, and by the demonstration on the first day of the week, must be aware of the danger of a rising to‐morrow night, caused by this man’s presence in our city. Indeed, it is for the very purpose of preventing a rising that he cometh up each year about the Passover to Jerusalem. Let it, then, be his care to prevent it how he will; we shall have done our part, and he cannot punish the nation, or us its leaders.