When Pilate saw this spectacle and heard these words, he trembled and was heard to say:
"Either this man or I must perish! These Jews are become madmen with rage and demand a sacrifice. One of us must fall!"
Oh, that I could write all I feel! But I am compelled, my dear father, to end here.
Your affectionate child,
Adina.
[LETTER XXXIII.]
My Dear Father:
In this letter will be continued my account of the trial, if such it can be called, of Jesus.
John, the faithful and yet trusting disciple whom Jesus loved, still kept near his captive Master, and sought to cheer him by affectionate looks and, where he could do it with safety, by kind acts. More than once he was rudely thrust aside by the fiercer Jews, and once several men seized upon him and would have done him violence, if Caiaphas, to whom John is remotely related and who knows him well, had not interposed. And while John was thus doing all that he could to soften the asperity of his friend's treatment, we at home were exerting ourselves to soothe the maternal solicitude of Mary of Nazareth, his noble and heartbroken mother.