The "voice in the wilderness" may be silenced in
prison, but the Christ is always just behind, walking
steadily on to the judgment-seat of Pilate. We know
the chief-priests and Pharisees — they live and walk



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. igg



among us to-day ; we know them by this, that they
love their church better than the Christ. We know
the unreasoning multitude they rule. All these were
there confronting Pilate, and nothing withstood them
but a frail human body in which, to Pilate's eyes,
centered the truth. Pilate's informal verdict was:
"This just man;" and then "he took water and
washed his hands." O wonderful basin! what white
fingers have been dipped into thy historic water ; what
priestly hands have been laved, and what red hands
have been made pure in the eyes of more than fifty
generations of the children of Pilate.
The cruel multitude, blind because they will not
see, still shout and go shouting to their graves, and
there is never wanting the central figure of truth ; in
the robes of a king or the rags of a beggar, it is
always there, and the children of Pilate are always
troubled. With their physical eyes they see the
chief priests and Pharisees, and the clamoring multi-
tude ; with their spiritual eyes they discover the
"twelve legions of angels;" and when their human
responsibility becomes greater than they can bear,
they reach forth their trembling hands and bury their
dismay and confusion, their human weakness and
their divine opportunity, their cross and their crown
in the time-honored basin of Pilate.
O blessed basin ! for eighteen Centuries, in thy ca-
pacious depths, men have found consolation in that



200 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler.
