in quiet peacefulness like Enoch, but in the whirlwind and the flame of his career, Elijah passed, without death, into the rest of God. Elisha felt like an orphaned child. He rent his clothes. But see! here was Elijah's mantle! Had his prayer been granted for that double portion? The parted waters of Jordan answered that (v. 14). The passage closes with the search for Elijah, lest the Lord should have cast him upon some mountain (v. 16); and it is on a mountain that we next see Elijah, with Moses and our transfigured Saviour.

Now

OW let us note three minor lessons, and first the true safeguard of a nation (v. 12). 'My father, my father,' cried Elisha, 'the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof.' He meant that the strength of Israel was not in its chariotry, but in the character and prayer of heroes like Elijah. When the Armada was sent out against England, Spain thought that its mighty galleons were invincible. But the Lord Admiral was a heartless ignoramus, and failure was stamped on the expedition from the first. Great men, inspired by God, and true to Him, are the real defence of a nation in distress. It is noble and consecrated spirits like Elijah who are the chariot and horsemen of Israel. Then mark the new use for the old mantle. It was at the touch of the mantle that the Jordan parted. That shaggy mantle awoke many memories. It was a kind of epitome of Elijah's past. How many hours of wrestling it had witnessed! How many mercies and miracles it had seen! It was the badge of the prophetic calling; it spoke to Elijah of a God who had never failed him. And he uses it now, as in the happy confidence that the Lord, who had been mindful of him, would bless him still. Is not that a new use for old clothes? Even an old jacket may help me forward. We give our old mantles to our church's mission; but Elijah's mantle spoke to him of his own. Then, lastly, will you note the sight which love gives?

The only eye that saw the ascension of Elijah was Elisha's. Was it not because he loved him and was so loyal? The first to see the risen Christ was Mary Magdalen, and do we not read of Mary that she loved much? Love is not blind, as the old saying would have it. True love has the keenest of all sight. It is the condition of all revelation. It is the highway to knowing and to seeing God.

O

ence.

THIRTY-SIXTH SUNDAY

Evening

JESUS BEFORE CAIAPHAS

Passage to be read: Matt. xxvi. 57-75.

UR Saviour had to undergo two trials, the one before the high-priest, and the other before the Roman governor, and it is with the former of these two that our passage deals. Had Palestine been an independent state, the tribunal of Caiaphas would have given the verdict. There would have been no appeal for any prisoner from the decision of the college of the Sanhedrim. But Palestine had lost its independIt was part of the great Roman province of Syria. Hence the last word, in cases of high moment, lay not with the Jew, but with the Roman. Now the Romans. did not strain their own authority. They left a large measure of power with the provincials. Especially where matters of religion were concerned, they gave the conquered nations a free hand. But when the question was one of life and death, they took the final judgment to themselves, and that explains the double trial of Jesus. He is first brought before the Jewish council, and by it he is held guilty of death. He is then brought before the

Roman governor, and next Sunday we shall find what happened there.

CAIAPHAS, then, was high-priest at the time, and

Jesus should have been led straight to him. But it was past midnight now, and some of the members of the court would be abed-could not something be done with Jesus till all was ready? John tells us that Jesus was taken before Annas. This Annas had himself been the high-priest, and just as we sometimes call a man provost, or bailie, though it is a year or two since he held office, so Annas, a man of most commanding influence, was still called, in Jerusalem, the high-priest. He parleyed with Jesus, in an informal way, while the senators came hurrying into the council-hall. And then, while all the city was asleep, and the children were dreaming of play and love and heaven, the Friend of the children was put upon His trial. It was an illegal council, to begin with. The Sanhedrim was forbidden to meet by night. But if they waited until the city was astir, and the whisper ran along the streets that Christ was prisoner, might there not be a popular rising in His favour? They loved the darkness because their deeds were evil. Like Judas, they had a kinship with the night. It were well that the Roman soldiers should have Jesus, when the day lightened and the city awoke.

THEN the trial began with the summoning of witnesses, and for a time it looked as if the prosecution must break down. Things had been rushed with such a nervous hurry that even the witnesses had not been drilled. There was no lack of witnesses, it seems (v. 60). I wish we could always count on witnesses for Christ, as surely as they reckoned on witnesses against Him then. But though these witnesses had much to say, and repeated many a biting word of Jesus on His judges, the judges knew their own character too well, and knew what

the people thought of them too well, to dream that Jesus could be condemned for that. There was a vaunt about the Temple, certainly, but you could not get Rome (that rude destroyer of temples) to sanction a Galilean's death for that. Caiaphas was baffled. The steady composure of Christ was like an insult. Every one else was feverish, Jesus alone was calm. And it was then, as in half-frantic desperation, that Caiaphas put his question to the Lord. He conjured Him to tell if He were Messiah. Jesus answered immediately that He was, and hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.' Jesus was very courageous in His silence; but He was also very courageous in His speech. That sentence practically sealed His fate, yet the hour had come for speech, and Jesus spoke. They called it blasphemy. He was guilty of death (Lev. xxiv. 15). They had triumphed, and selfcontrol went to the winds. Their pent-up passions burst out like a torrent. They spat on Him, and they smote Him-how they loathed Him! And out in the court the Apostle John was sitting, watching it all in unutterable agony. Would not this hour come back to him again, when, long years afterwards, in the isle of Patmos, he wrote of 'the Kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ'?

MEANTIME Peter had come upon the scene.

Im

pelled partly by curiosity, it may be, and largely by his devotion to his Lord, he had followed afar off to the high-priest's palace. Like other men who follow afar off, he was running into terrible temptation. Unbefriended and unknown, Peter might have been denied admission to the high-priest's house. But John was there already, and John was a man of some little social standing, and it was at John's entreaty that Peter got in. There are times when we think we are doing our friend a kindness, and we are only making life the harder for him. Now, when we read about the high-priest's palace, we are not to

think of such a palace as Holyrood. It was a large house built round a square courtyard, and with the windows opening inward on the court. It was in this courtyard, then, that Peter was sitting, chafing his cold hands at the fire, when one of the maidservants charged him with discipleship. And Peter was so utterly taken aback, that quick as lightning, he denied the charge. And then it dawned on him what he had done, and he rose up, and went to the dark gateway. He would stand in its deep shadows for a little, if only to feel the ground beneath his feet. But the lamp in the gateway swung and flared, and every now and then it lit up the face of Peter; and another maid recognised him there, and Peter once again denied his Lord. The first sin made the second easier. Meanwhile the news was spreading in the courtyard. There would be sport in baiting the disciple. It would put some warmth into their hearts on that cold morning to worry this bewildered Galilean. Poor Peter! it was too late to keep silence now, and to open his mouth was to be betrayed by his Highland accent. Peter denied again. And immediately the cock crew.' With a breaking and a penitent heart Peter went out. went out, it was darkening to midnight. went out it was very near the dawn.

When Judas But when Peter