Every one of us has contributed his quota, an infinitesimal quota, to buy that victim from Judas. We have all contributed towards the sum for which the blood of the Redeemer was bought: Caiaphas was only our agent. The field of Aceldama, bought with the price of blood, is our inheritance, our property. And this field has grown mysteriously larger, has spread over half the face of the earth: whole populous cities, paved, lighted, well-ordered cities, of shops and brothels, shine resplendent on it from north to south. And that the mystery should be even greater, Judas’ money, also multiplied by the betrayals of so many centuries, by the accumulation of interest, has become incalculably great. Nothing is so fruitful and fecund as blood. The statisticians, those soothsayers of modern days, can bear witness to the fact that all the courts of the Temple could not contain the money engendered from that day to this by those thirty pieces of silver cast down there in a delirium of remorse, by the man who sold his God. THE MAN WITH THE PITCHER The bargain was struck, the price paid, the buyers were impatient to finish the transaction. They had said “before the Feast day.” The great feast day of the Passover fell on a Saturday and this was Thursday. Jesus had but one more day of freedom, the last day. Before leaving His friends, those who were to abandon Him that night, He wished once more to dip His bread in the same platter with them. Before the Syrian soldiery should have spit upon Him, before He should be defiled by the Jewish filth, He wished to kneel down and wash the feet of those who until the day of their death were to travel all the roads of the earth to tell the story of His death. Before the blood dropped from His hands, His feet, His chest, He wished to give the first fruits to those who were to be one soul with Him until the end. Before suffering thirst, nailed upon the cross, He wished to drink a cup of wine with His companions. This last evening before His death was to be like an anticipation of the banquet of the Kingdom. On the evening of Thursday, the first day of unleavened bread, the Disciples asked Him, “Where wilt thou that we go and prepare that thou mayest eat the passover?” The Son of Man, poorer than the foxes, had no home of His own. He had left His home in Nazareth forever. The home of Simon of Capernaum, which had been in the early days like His own, was far away; and the home of Mary and Martha in Bethany, where He was almost Master, was too far outside the city. He had only enemies in Jerusalem or shame-faced friends: Joseph of Arimathea was to receive Him as his guest only the next evening, in the dark cave, the banquet-hall of worms.