heard from heaven, saying, "I both have glorified it, and will glorify it again." Thereupon Jesus observed that this voice came not for his sake, but for that of the bystanders. It seems, however, to have produced but little effect upon them, for a few verses later we find a complaint that, in spite of his many miracles, they did not believe on him (Jo. xii. 12-50). The last supper with the disciples was immediately succeeded by a parting discourse of much beauty, conceived in an elevated tone; and his last moments of freedom were occupied in a prayer of which the pathos has been rarely equaled (Jo. xiii.-xvii).
The remainder of his career—his trial, execution, and alleged resurrection—have been fully treated in another place.
Subdivision 4.—What did the Jews think of him?
Victorious over Jesus Christ at the moment, the Jewish nation have, from an early period in Christian history, been subject in their turn to his disciples. Their polity—crushed under the iron heel of Vespasian, scattered to the winds by Hadrian—vanished from existence not long after it had successfully put down the founder of the new faith. Their religion, tolerated by the heathen Romans only under humiliating and galling conditions, persecuted almost to death by the Christians, suffered until modern times an oppression so terrible and so cruel, that but for the deep and unshakeable attachment of its adherents, it could never have survived its perils. Hence the course of events has been such that this unhappy nation has never until quite recently enjoyed the freedom necessary to present their case in the matter of Jesus the son of Joseph; while the gradual decay of the rancor formerly felt against them, at the same time that it gives them liberty, renders it less important for them to come forward in what would still be an unpopular cause. Thus it happens that one side only in the controversy, that of the Christians, has been adequately heard. They certainly have not shrunk from the presentation of their views. Every epithet that scorn, hatred, or indignation could suggest has been heaped upon the generation of Jews who were the immediate instigators of the execution of Jesus, while all the subsequent miseries of their race have been regarded—by
