This was not so much the case where the nobility came in contact with only Roman citizens, but in every conquered province or country the arrogance and cruelty of the representatives of the nobility of Rome made absolutely wretched and hopeless the lives of the conquered people. The Jewish people had become almost accustomed, as a race, to the yoke of a conqueror. So often had they been oppressed, and so long, they had learned that the ark of their hope and comfort lay, not in temporal power, but in that hope of everlasting happiness which the Word of God, delivered to Moses, insured them hereafter. This had resulted in the creation among the Jewish people of a priesthood and a religious order almost as powerful as the priesthood of ancient Egypt, which exerted, with regard to spiritual and social affairs, though not in conflict with the power of Rome, almost the same tyrannical power as Rome did by the might of her legions in temporal affairs. Between the grindstones of military despotism and priestly despotism the poor Jew was ground until his very soul cried out in anguish. The true religion, given to his forefathers, through that great teacher, Moses, by God Almighty, had ceased to afford him comfort. “Caste” had crept into the temple, as well as into the Roman government, destroying, as it ever will, peace and happiness at home, security and prosperity abroad. Therefore, when a voice was heard “crying in the wilderness, Come, ye who are heavy-laden,” the ears of the Jew, the Gentile, the barbarian, all the world over, were ready to listen and follow the sweet music of hope created in the breasts of the oppressed, which Christ brought. The persecution of our Saviour and his sufferings arose and were occasioned by the priestly “caste,” and executed, in that scene on the cross, by the military “caste”--the Roman soldiers. “Caste,” and the crime of it, is responsible for the crucifixion of our Saviour, the Son of God. The “Common People,” in multitudes, followed Jesus, and listened in rapt attention to the loving words of peace and hope he brought them. It was the high priests of the temple who accused him; it was the Roman governor who had him crucified, by reason of the accusations of the priestly “caste.” No fair-minded man, examining into the beautiful story furnished by the existence of the Son of God on earth, can fail to recognize that the loving, peaceful, kindly mission of our Saviour was made wretched, resulting in his suffering and death, by reason of the _crime of “caste.”_