Highest, and is it likely it should give Jerusalem the Messiah?"

In their blind rage they forgot that, at least, Jonah and Hosea and Nahum were Galilæans, and they ignored the fact that if the followers of Jesus were mostly from the illiterate North, He had also not a few even from the sons of bigoted Jerusalem.

AL

CHAPTER L.

AFTER THE FEAST.

LL who attended the Feast of Tabernacles were required to sleep in the city the first night at least, but were free afterwards to go any distance outside, within the limit of a Sabbath day's journey. Jesus, accustomed to the pure air of the hills and open country, and with little sympathy for the noise and merriment, or for the crowds and confusion, of the great holiday, was glad to avail Himself of this freedom, and went out, each night, after leaving the Temple, to seck sleep in the house of some friend on the Mount of Olives; 1 perhaps to that of the family of Bethany, of which we hear so much soon after this. The early morning, however, saw Him always at His post in the Temple courts; now in the royal porch, now in the Court of the Women, through which the men passed to their own.

The vast concourse of people from all countries, and the general excitement and relaxation of the season, had gradually led to abuses. Pilgrimages, in all ages, have had an indifferent name for their influence on morals, and the yearly feasts at Jerusalem were probably no exception.

A large number of people had already gathered round Jesus, when a commotion was seen in the Court of the Women, where He had sat down to teach. A woman of the humbler class had been guilty of immorality, and the scribes, on the moment, saw in her sin a possible snare for the hated Galilæan. It was not their business, but that of her husband, to accuse her; nor could she be legally punished, except by divorce, if he, himself, were not a man of pure life. It was the custom, however, in cases of difficulty, to consult a famous Rabbi, and advantage was taken of this, to entrap Jesus, if possible, by asking Him to adjudicate on the case. If he condemned her, and insisted that she should be stoned to death,2 it would

1 John viii. 1-11.

2 Lev. XX.

. 10. Deut. xxii. 24.

injure Him in the eyes of the people, for the Law, in this particular, had long been obsolete, from the very commonness of the offence. If, on the other hand, he simply dismissed her, they could charge Him with slighting the Law, for it was still formally binding. To condemn her to death would, moreover, bring Him under the Roman law, as an invasion of the right of the governor.

Leading forward their trembling prisoner, unveiled, and exposed before the crowd of men-the bitterest degradation to an Eastern woman-they set her before Jesus, and asked with feigned humility:

"Teacher, this woman has been guilty of sin. Now Moses, in the Law, charged us that such should be stoned. What is your opinion?

Knowing their smooth dissimulation, He instinctively felt that this mock respect was a mere cloak for sinister designs. Yet the incident threw Him into a moment's confusion. His soul shrank from the spectacle thus brought before Him, and in His stainless purity He could not bear to look on the fallen one. Stooping down, therefore, at once to hide the blush He could not prevent, and to show that He would have nothing to do with such a matter, He began to write on the dust before Him-most likely the very words He was presently to utter. Had they chosen to read them, they might have spared themselves the open exposure that followed. But they were too occupied with their plot to read the warning, and again and again repeated the question, to force Him to answer. At last, raising His face for a moment and looking straight at them, He said:

"Let him, among you, who is free from sin of a like kind, cast the first stone at her, as is required of the chief witness, by Moses." 1

It was an age of deep immorality, and the words of Jesus went to their consciences. He had again stooped and begun to write, as soon as He had spoken, perhaps to remind them how sin, when followed by penitence, is effaced for ever, like characters written in dust. Meanwhile, their own bosoms became their judges. One after another, beginning at the oldest among them, moved off, to the very last, and Jesus was left alone, with the woman, in the midst of the crowd.

1 Deut. xiii. 9, 10; xvii. 7. Acts vii. 58. Lücke thinks the reference would not be to a sin of like kind only, else it would have set her life too much on the cast.

GO AND SIN NO MORE.

281

Rising once more, and finding only the woman left. He asked her :

"Woman, where are thine accusers? Did no one condemn thee, by casting a stone at thee?"

"No one, Lord.”

66

'Neither," said He, "shall I. I come not to condemn, but to save. I am no criminal judge, either to sentence or acquit. Go, repent of thy guilt, and sin no more."

"1

His enemies had often murmured at the pity and favour He had shown to the fallen and outcast. They knew how He had allowed one sinful woman to wash His feet with her tears, and wipe them with her loose hair; how He had eaten with publicans and sinners, and how He even had a publican among His disciples. They had hoped to use all this against Him, but, once more, their schemes had only turned to their own shame. He had given no opinion for the obsolete Law, or against it; their own consciences had set the offender free.

This incident past, He began His discourse again to those round Him. He still sat in the Court of the Women, or, as it was sometimes called, "the treasury," from the thirteen brazen chests for offerings, with their trumpet-like mouths opening through the wall of its buildings.2 The court was the great thoroughfare to that of the Israelites, which was reached from it by the fifteen steps leading to the great gate.

In the address of the day before, He had spoken of Himself as alone having the water of life for the thirst of the soul. "To give water to drink," was a common phrase for teaching and explaining the Law, and hence its meaning, when used by our Lord, was familiar to all His hearers.3 Water, in such a climate, was the first necessary of life, and flowing or living waters pictured at once every image of joy and prosperity. But the mighty light, filling the heavens, the first-born creation of God, lifts the thoughts from individual benefit to that of the whole race, for light is the condition and source of blessing, alike to nature and man. was the characteristic of Jesus to make everything round Him, in creation or common life, His texts and illustrations. The shouts of the multitude, as they brought up the golden

It

1 Paulus, vol. i. p. 410. Sepp, vol. v. p. 176. Lightfoot, vol. iii. p. 328. Rosenmüller, Lücke, Tholuck, Luthardt, in loc. Ewald, vol. v. p. 480. Bibel Lex., vol. ii. p. 63. 2 Godwyn, p. 66. 3 Nork, p. 168.

vessel of water from Siloam, had introduced the discourse on the living waters. Round the court in which He now sat, rose the great candelabra, in whose huge cups were kindled the illuminations of the feasts that banished night from the city, and in whose brightness the multitudes found darkness changed to day, and these He now used as a text.

Pointing to them, and from them to the glorious sun, just risen over the Mount of Olives, and shining with dazzling splendour on the white houses of the city and the marble and gold of the Temple walls and gates, He began a new discourse, in language, which, from the lips of a Jew, was a direct claim to be the Messiah."

"I am the Light of the World," said He; "that is, of the whole race of man!" Such words from One who was humility itself-One acknowledged by all to have unbounded supernatural power at his command, yet so self-restrained that He never used it for His own advantage, and so unassuming and lowly that even the weakest and poorest felt perfectly free to approach Him-were uttered with a calm dignity which vouched their truth. "In me dwells Divine truth," He continued," and from me it shines forth, like the light, to all mankind. He who becomes my true disciple, and follows me sincerely, will no longer walk in the darkness of ignorance and sin, which is the death of the soul, but in the light of everlasting life, given to the children of the Messiah's kingdom."

Some adherents of the Rabbinical party, who remained to watch Him, listened with eager attention to every word. Enraged at the failure of the last attempt to entrap Him, the language they had now heard, which was far beyond what any prophet had ever claimed for Himself, deepened their bitterness.

"You make yourself judge in your own favour," said they. "You require us to believe you, on your own word. It is too much to ask. A man's witness on his own behalf is worthless."

"I do not make myself witness in my own favour," replied Jesus. "Your rule does not apply to me, for I speak not for myself alone, but as the mouthpiece of Him from whom I came, and to whom I shall soon return. If you knew who He was, you would be forced to receive His testimony to me. But you do not know Him, and therefore you reject it, for you know neither whence I came nor whither I shall return. I know, and must know, best, whose messenger I am, and