undefended, come straight from insult and mockery in another court, and that after a night of mental agony. Observe how completely the relative position of judge and Prisoner are reversed, at least, to the eyes of the onlooker. Jesus calmly questions Pilate, calmly tells him of the limit of his power, and calmly claims the kinship for himself--there of all places--in the Roman governor's residence, speaking to this governor himself, knowing that it must seal His own fate. The two powers are now face to face--the world-power of Rome, outwardly so imposing, but at this moment shrinking to insignificance, looking so vulgar, so mean, so sordid, so unreal, so essentially weak, in the person of the paltry governor; and the heavenly power, the power of truth and goodness, the Kingdom of God represented by the provincial Prisoner whose inherent dignity of Presence is seen to be all the more sublime for the contrast. And Pilate? How does he view this? He is manifestly disconcerted, but he tries to hide his awkwardness under a mask of Roman scorn. "_Am I a Jew_?" he exclaims, in a tone of measureless contempt. It is like the contempt of Agrippa when, in response to St Paul's enthusiastic appeal and close home-thrust, he cried, "_With but little persuasion thou wouldest fain make me a Christian_!" Pilate reminds Jesus that He has been given up by His own people. Jews might be expected to stand by a fellow-Jew under the Roman tyranny. How comes it to pass that the Jewish people have brought a man of their own race to the foreign tribunal, prosecuting Him before this alien power, seeking His death from the hated Imperial government? What can He have done to bring about so unusual a situation? Pilate is perplexed; and the answer of Jesus does not clarify the magistrate's ideas. It seems only more mystifying. Jesus describes His kingdom, so different from any institution bearing the name that Pilate has ever heard of. It is not of the order of things in this world. If it were, of course Christ's servants would fight, as do the servants of the claimants of earthly thrones. But they do not resort to violence. The kingdom and its methods of government are both unearthly. Pilate is interested, perhaps amused, with what now seem to him the fancies of a fanatical dreamer. He pursues the inquiry, we may suppose, with a smile on his lips, "_Art thou a king, then_?" he asked. There is no ambiguity in his Prisoner's reply. He is a king. This strange kingdom, not resting on any basis of earthly power, dispensing with fighting, with all that an army suggests, with force, is the very opposite to Pilate's idea of a state. Rome was materialistic to the core. Her rule rested on brute force. The Empire, the _Imperium_, was the dominion of the _Imperator_, that is to say, of the commander-in-chief of the army. It was a military despotism. Nominally the government was still republican, and the older and more