“I thought he was a messenger sent by some friend of yours. I remembered him immediately, and I remembered also my promise to Hortensius. I saw in him only an audacious criminal, returning without leave from an exile which had been decreed perpetual.” “And you threw him into prison?” “If I had known of his beautiful and heroic devotion to you, his fate would have been different.” The evident remorse of Pilate startled me. “And his fate? What was his fate? He is not dead,” said I, elevating my voice. “He was beheaded immediately.” “O cruel, cruel, cruel fate!” I exclaimed; and regardless of ceremony, I mourned for my dead friend with bitter tears and bitter words in the presence of his august murderer. “I feel,” said Pilate, when he bade me a friendly adieu—“I feel that I have discharged a severe duty in this matter; but the generous conduct of this African,—for he certainly must have known that he endangered his own life by appearing before me,—would have entitled him to a full pardon, which I would have given with pleasure for his own merits as well as for your sake.” As soon as my Christian friends heard of my reappearance, they crowded to see me. From them I learned the sorrows and trials my sisters had undergone, as well as the strange events which preceded, accompanied and followed the crucifixion of Jesus. Magistus and Caiaphas had set afloat the story that I was engaged in the raid upon the city of Jerusalem, made for the double purpose of robbery and murder, by Barabbas and his party; many of whom were deluded into the enterprise under the idea that it was a patriotic rebellion against the Roman yoke. They also suborned witnesses to prove that I was killed in the night attack, and was buried by them with a crowd of other rioters who fell by the Roman arms. This led to the confiscation of our estates; and as Mary and Martha were helpless and beautiful young women without relatives to protect them, they were assigned to the special guardianship of Magistus. Caiaphas approved in strong terms this decree of the Sanhedrim, eulogized Magistus for his generous character and patriarchal virtues, and congratulated the sisters of a vile robber, themselves the disciples of a base impostor, on their extraordinary good fortune in being placed under the enviable protection of one of the shining lights of Israel. The wickedness and duplicity of this high priest will be almost incredible to future times. But the age was evil; the church was corrupt; and public and private morality reduced to the lowest ebb. The priesthood was a matter of bargain and sale. The office of high priest, the holiest and highest in the Jewish theocracy, was obtained by bribery and fraud and in more than one instance by murder. Caiaphas was one of the most consummate hypocrites that ever entered the holy of holies. He might have changed places with Barabbas, and justice and religion would not have fared the worse for it.