What presentiment of his nation’s doom came to him in that moment of clearer insight, of more candid intercourse with truth? “The thoughts of many hearts”—­“the uneasy working of the understanding in the service of a bad heart":—­how much was revealed, how much was mercifully concealed?  We cannot tell; but strength was given him to bear the gleam of the vision, and still wait. “O rest in the Lord; wait patiently for Him.”  He saw the Child go out of the Temple; and if, for a moment, a breath as of a chill wind smote his soul, he retired into the deeper consolations of God, where the sun smites not by day, nor the moon by night.  If it was his last visit to the Temple, he had seen what would have made it worth his while to have gone there every day for seventy years or more.  And let it not be forgotten that God still gives His Child to those who humbly, faithfully wait for the consolation of Israel.

Such a picture as that of Simeon gives piety its divinest charm.  It is not simply that men have wished to be in his place; but—­what is far better and far more practical—­they have wished to be in his spirit.  He draws them towards him, and after him.  He stands in a glorious company of winsome souls, who not only lead to heaven, but attract men on the way.

  “They are, indeed, our Pillar-fires
        Seen as we go;
  They are that City’s shining spires,
        We travel to: 
      A sword-like gleam
        Kept man for sin
      First out; this beam
        Will guide him in.”

PONTIUS PILATE

BY REV.  PRINCIPAL WALTER F. ADENEY, D.D.

In spite of the fact that he condemned Jesus to death, the Gospels present us a more favourable portrait of Pontius Pilate than that which we derive from secular historians.  Josephus relates incidents that reveal him as the most insolent and provoking of governors.  For instance, the Jewish historian ascribes to him a gratuitous insult, the story of which shows its perpetrator to have been as weak as he was offensive.  It was customary for Roman armies to carry an image of the emperor on their standards; but previous governors of Judaea had relaxed this rule when entering Jerusalem, in deference to the strong objection of the Jews to admit “the likeness of anything.”  Nevertheless Pilate ordered the usual images to be introduced at night.  When they were discovered, the citizens protested vehemently.  Pilate had the crowd that he had admitted to his presence surrounded with soldiers, and threatened them with instant death.  But they threw themselves on the ground, protesting that they would submit to this fate rather than that the wisdom of their laws should be transgressed.  The governor had not reckoned on this.  He was only “bluffing,” and now he had to climb down, and the images were removed.  On another occasion, described by the same historian, Pilate had