is the account that our Lord gives of His own mission. He says, '* To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth."
Of course we are not to suppose our Lord meant that this was the only end of His mission. No doubt He spoke with special reference to what He knew was pass- ing through Pilate's mind. He did not come to win a kingdom with the sword, and to gather adherents and followers by force. He came armed with no other weapon but " truth." To testify to fallen man the truth about God, about sin, about the need of a Redeemer, about the nature of holiness, — to declare and lift up before man's eyes this long lost and buried " truth," — was one great purpose of His ministry. He came to be God's witness to a lost and corrupt world. That the world needed such a testimony, He does not shrink from telling the proud Roman Governor. And this is what St. Paul had in view, when he tells Timothy, that " be- fore Pontius Pilate Christ witnessed a good confession." (1 Tim. vi. 13.)
The servants of Christ in every age must remember that our Lord's conduct in this place is meant to be their example. Like Him we are to be witnesses to God's truth, salt in the midst of corruption, light in the midst of darkness, men and women not afraid to stand alone, and to testify for God against the ways of sin and the world. To do so may entail on us much trouble, and even persecution. But the duty is clear and plain. If we love life, if we would keep a good conscience, and be owned by Christ at the last day, we must be "wit- nesses." It is written, " Whosoever shall be ashamed of Me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful gene- ration, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed,