In the chemistry class we learned how acids act on different substances. In the course of our experiment the professor gave us a bit of gold and told us to dissolve it. We left it all night in the strongest acid we had, and tried combinations of acids, then finally told him we thought that gold could not be dissolved. He smiled and said, "I knew you could not dissolve gold," he said; "none of the acids you have there will attack it; but try this," and he handed us a bottle labeled "Nitromuriatic Acid (Aqua Regia)."

We poured some of its contents into the tube that held the piece of gold; and the gold that had resisted so easily all the other acids quickly disappeared in the "royal water." The gold at last had found its master.

The next day in the classs room the professor asked, "Do you know why it is called Royal Water?"

"Yes," we replied, "it is because it is the master of gold, which can resist almost anything else that can be poured on it."

Then he said, "Boys, it will not hurt the lesson today if I take time to tell you that there is one other substance that is just as impervious as gold; it cannot be touched or changed, though a hundred attempts are made upon it. That substance is the sinful heart. Trial and affliction, riches and honor, imprisonment and punishment will not soften or master it. Education and culture will not dissolve and purify it. There is but one element that has power over it -- the blood of Christ the Savior, the aqua regia of the soul.

–  Reformatory Record

Golgotha

There are three references to Golgotha in the New Testament: Matthew 27;33, Mark 15:22, and John 19:17. Each of these references are mentioned as the place where Jesus was crucified. The Greek translation is "the place of the skull"; the last word in of the phrase in Latin is "calva." It is from that Latin word that the term "Calvary" in Luke 23:33 was derived.

Tradition locates Golgotha on a hill. This is either because it was on a high elevation so it could be seen from a distance (Mark 15:40), or because the ground was shaped like a skull or, with the church father Origen, because of the idea that Adam's skull was supposedly found there. It is likely that Golgotha was on a hill so that the crucifixion could be witnessed by many. A secondary purpose of a crucifixion was to humiliate and horrify, and thus warn others of the futility of a life of crime.

The exact location of Golgotha is uncertain. There are two rival views:

1) The first proposal for the location of the Crucifixion is connected with the burial site mentioned in John 19:41. This places Golgotha within the area now occupied by the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This tradition dates back to the fourth century. Constantine had a church built at this site before 340 A. D. The fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and again in 135 A. D. means that tradition before 337 AD is unreliable.

Recent excavation of Jerusalem's walls have revealed that in Jesus' day the line of the second city walls ran south of this proposed site of Golgotha. This would endorse the witness of Jesus' death "outside the gait," marked by the present Russian Alexander Hospice.

2) The second proposal for the location begins with the shape of a raised prominence. It is a hill seen from a distance. It also is thought to be skull-shaped in appearance. This spot is near the "Garden Tomb" (John 19:41), and close to the Damascus Gait. Two British army officers, Condor and Gordon, proposed this site chiefly on the ground of natural setting and reference to a "green hill" in a once popular hymn. 

Sources: The Dictionary of Bible and Religion, William Gentz | The Bible Almanac, White | Easter a Pictorial Pilgrimage - Pierre Benoit |

Easter Quotations

The death on the Cross . . . was the supreme witnessing act in His witnessing to the iniquity of sin against a world in which malice or ignorance would justify sin.

       — FATHER CUTHBERT, God and the Supernatural, 1920

It was inevitable that Jesus Christ should be crucified; it was also inevitable that he should rise again.  

— H. R. L. Sheppard

HENRY SLOANE COFFIN