end is nigh, but there are no shadows in His retrospect; of all that is
done there is nothing He could wish undone or done otherwise. "I
glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which Thou
hast given Me to do." It is so when He comes to die. Among the Seven
Words from the Cross we are struck by one significant omission: the
dying Sufferer utters a cry of physical weakness--"I thirst"--but He
makes no acknowledgement of sin; He prays for the forgiveness of
others--"Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do"--He asks
none for Himself. The great Augustine died with the penitential Psalms
hung round his bed. Fifty or sixty times, it is said, did sweet St.
Catharine of Siena cry upon her deathbed, _Peccavi, Domine miserere
mei_, "Lord, I have sinned: have mercy on me." But in all the prayers of
Jesus, whether in life or in death, He has no pardon to ask, no sins to
confess.

We are thus brought to the fact upon which of recent years so much
emphasis has been justly laid, namely, that nowhere throughout the
Gospels does Christ betray any consciousness of sin. "Which of you," He
said, "convicteth Me of sin?" And no man was able, nor is any man now
able, to answer Him a word. But the all-important fact is not so much
that they could not convict Him of sin; _He could not convict Himself._
Yet it could not be that He was self-deceived. "He knew what was in
man;" He read the hearts of others till, like the Samaritan woman, they
felt as though He knew all things that ever they had done. Was it
possible, then, that He did not know Himself? Not only so, but the law
by which He judged Himself was not theirs, but His. And what that was,
how high, how searching, how different from the low, conventional
standards which satisfied them, we who have read His words and His
judgments know full well. Nevertheless, He knew nothing against Himself;
as no man could condemn Him neither could He condemn Himself. Looking up