of the deed. But in vain. It was his life that these wretches thirsted for.

OFTEN in our civil commotions have I witnessed the furious animosity of the multitude, but nothing could be compared to what I witnessed in the present instance. It might have been truly said that on this occasion all the phantoms of the infernal regions had assembled at Jerusalem. The multitude appeared not to walk. It was borne off and whirled as a vortex, rolling along like living waves from the portals of the Pretorium even into Mount Zion, with howlings such as were never heard in the seditions of the Pannonia, or in the tumult of the forum.

By degrees the day darkened like a winter’s twilight, such as had been at the death of the great Julius Caesar. It was likewise towards the ides of March. I, the continued governor of a rebellious province, was leaning against a column of my basilic contemplating through the dreary gloom these fiends of torture dragging to execution the innocent Nazarene. All around me was deserted. Jerusalem had vomited forth her indwellers through the funeral gate that leads to the Germonia.

An air of desolation and sadness enveloped me. My guards had joined the cavalry, and the centurion, to display a shadow of power, was endeavoring to keep order. I was left alone, and my breaking heart admonished me that what was passing at that moment appertained rather to the history of the gods than to that of man.

A loud glamour was heard proceeding from Golgatha, which, borne on the winds, seemed to announce an agony such as had never been heard by mortal ears. Dark clouds lowered over the pinnacle of the Temple, and, settling over the city, covered it as with a veil. So dreadful were the signs that were seen, both in the heavens and on the earth, that Dionysius the Areopagite is reported to have exclaimed, “Either the author of nature is suffering or the universe is falling apart.”

Toward the first hour of the night I threw my mantle around me and went down into the city toward the gates of Golgatha. The sacrifice was consummated. The multitude was returning home; still agitated, it is true, but gloomy, taciturn and desperate. What it had witnessed had caused terror and remorse.