Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/228

Rh that we devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers. There was no answering such things ; so we scourged him half to death with rods, and then nailed him up there. We have fixed him now!" "How did he live?" "Like the infidel he was; trusting in his own goodness and piety for salvation. He tried to teach the people to trust in their piety and in their good works. He told a most absurd story about that poor fool who fell among thieves going from Jerusalem to Jericho; and then said that one of the priests went by—it was me he meant—and passed him on the other side. But I was in a great hurry. I had to be in Jerusalem to attend a prayer-meeting, and I could not attend to the man. Then he told a story of an old fellow, who kept a tavern at Samaria—nobody ever heard of him before—jogging along on his donkey, who saw the poor fellow, and turned in there (he had nothing else to do), set him on his own beast, and took care of him. He represented that as a good act, which was pleasing to Almighty God. Then he told a story of the last judgment, that God would take into heaven those who had been kind to poor fellows on earth, and would send the other way those who had trusted in sacrifices, prayers, and the like. But he was a miserable fellow. He would have ruined the nation. Why, he told men to forgive their enemies, and to love those who hate them. It was contrary to the sacred books, Moses never did so, nor Joshua, nor Samuel, nor David. There was no such thing in all the volumes of our law." "How did he die?" "Die? He died like a dog. No whine from him. Not a word of penitence ; not a tear; no confession that he was an infidel. Why, almost his last words were a miserable blaspheming prayer against us,—'Father, forgive them (he meant us), for they know not what they do.’ Why, to crucify such a man was an act of religion. Look here!"—And then he lifts up his garments, and on his phylactery (a piece of parchment) he has got the whole thirteenth chapter of the book of Deuteronomy written out. "Don't you see, it commands us to treat such a man just so! Glory to God!"

I come a little further down, and in a crowded room at Corinth, some five and twenty years after,—stifling, hot, unwholesome,—I find some fourscore earnest, devoted-