'_And some of them would have taken Him; but no man laid hands on Him. Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees; and they said unto them, Why have ye not brought Him? The officers answered, Never man spake like this man. Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also deceived? Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on Him? But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed. Nicodemus saith unto them, (he that came to Jesus by night, being one of them,) Doth our law judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth? They answered and said unto Him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet. And every man went unto his own house._' All here is wonderfully living and characteristic. The faint effort of the officers to execute the command of their masters; the awe which held them back; their simple confession of the power which they found in the words of Jesus; the surprise of the Sanhedrim that the infection should have reached even their servants; their terror lest there might be traitors in the camp,--lest any Pharisee or lawyer (probably some eyes were turned on Nicodemus) should have been carried away by the impulse to which the crowd, naturally enough, had yielded; their scorn of the people, as wretched, 'accursed,' men utterly ignorant of the law;--who does not feel as if he were present in that convocation of doctors?--as if he were looking at their perplexed and angry faces?--as if he were hearing their contemptuous words? But the debate turns ultimately on the impossibility of a Galilæan Christ. Nicodemus timidly suggests that those who boast of the law, and call the people cursed for not knowing it, should adhere to the law in their treatment of an accused person. He is at once put down by the demand,--'_Art thou of Galilee?_' All arguments of conscience, even the formalities of law,--so much more precious than such arguments,--are nothing, unless, after searching and looking, he can find that a prophet could come out of Galilee. Whether he did search and look we are not told; but we are told that he found a prophet in the tomb of Joseph, if he failed to satisfy himself about His coming from Nazareth.