ut to raise it to his lips; the time of discipleship he looked upon as a dead loss; his rofits had been small at best, but the prospect of improving his circumstances is now blighted; and his occupation is gone. Tantalizing, and even torturing, as all this must have been to him, another disappointment, though of a minor sort, is added. A sum of three hundred denarii, or more, that is to say, upwards of ten guineas, bad been profusely lavisued in a way and for an object with which he had not the least possible sympathy, nay, in a manuer as he thought highly reprehensible. It was sheer waste, and worse, for no one gained anything; the poor were not bencfited—“ not that he cared for the poor,” except as a matter of hypocritical pretence; he himself missed the disbursement of a sum from which he could have appropriated a percentage that might have been 4 crumb of comfort in present disastrous times and during the dull days he must now look forward to. But there was even more than this; he must have felt himself by this ime an object of suspicion; conscience must have made him aware of this; he must have known that the Master, at all events, saw through the thin disguises that concealed his real character from ordinary eyes. He did not feel at home with the brotherhood ; and, his occupation being gone, a spirit of recklessness was creeping over him. besides, he was stung into hostility by the severe but well-deserved reproof which our Lord now saw right to administer to him. “ The poor always ye have with you,” said our Lord ; and it was thus hinted that it was his duty—part of his office— to look after them, and that opportunity was never wanting for that purpose. Thus wrought on, Judas bethought himself that it was high time to look to his own interests ; and, having failed in one direction, to try the opposite.
Vi. Warnines wasted. It is truly astonishing what effect the continued indul- gence of a single sin has in hardening the heart, searing the conscience as with a hot iron, blinding the mind, and banishing for a time at least all feelings of shame and even of common humanity. The black crime soon to be committed had cast its shadow before. More than one hint had been given, more than one warning note had been sounded; but all to no purpose. The first intimation appears to have been after our Lord had washed the disciples’ feet, impressing by that expressive symbolic action the great lesson of humility on all his followers. On that occasion he said, “ Now ye are clean, but not all” (John xiii. 10), In the second section of this chapter, where the traitor is again referred to, words of warning still more distinct are uttered: “ One of you which eateth with me shall betray me;” and while all of them, “one by oue,” as 8t. Mark particularly mentions, deprecated with surprise and sorrow such an impeachment, asking, “Is it 1?” or literally, “It is not I, is it?” Judas had the amazing effrontery to pretend innocence, and ask with the rest, “Is it 1?” The inti- mation about the betrayer being “one of the twelve, he that dippeth with me in the dish,” and the individual who should receive the sop, may have been whispered into the ear of the beloved John, and through him to Peter; but the final fearful warning was uttere? aloud and in the hearing of all. And yet that terrible sentence, “ Woe to that msn by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had never been born,” had no etfect on him ; at all events, it failed to shake his diabolical purpose, It is possible that during the first shower of questions—each asking, “ Is it 1? ’—Judas had sat silent, either sullenly through contempt, or conscious-stricken ; that subse- quently, with an air of careless coldness, and in order to conceal the confusion of the moment, he asked not, “ Lord, is it 1?” but “ Rabbi, is it 1?” when he received the answer, “'l'hou hast said,” in the affirmative, unheard perhaps except by the disciples John and Peter, who sat close by. The expression, too, which our Lord added, namely, ‘“* What thou doest, do quickly,” though heard by all, was misunderstood, and referred by them to directions about the purchase of requisites for to-morrow’s feast, or making distribution to the poor; but it must have been perfectly comprehended by the traitor himself. At all events, on receiving the sop, he went out immediately, and, in s;1te of all, pursued his foul and fiendish purpose. All these checks, all these warnings, were utterly inefiectual. His besetting sin, growing like the mountain snow bali, and
on, XIV, 1—72.) THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. 279
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gathering within its compass other elements, as disappointment, resentment, ingrati- tude, and envy, had now become too powerful to be overcome. The sin that might have been checked effectually at the first had now become uncontrollable; the evil one, who might have been successfully resisted at the commencement, had now gained complete mastery over this wretched man. To such a fearful extent was this the case, that the evangelist informs us that “ Satan entered into him.” In no other way, as it seems, could the enormity of his crime be accounted for. No wonder it is added, “And it was night.” It was night with earth and sky—night with all its darkness, night with that dark heart of the traitor, night in every sense with that unhappy man! How all this inculcates, as another and a third lesson, the importance of cultivating prayer- fulness of spirit, and enforces the necessity of praying frequently and praying fervently, ‘“‘ Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one ”!