MADNESS. 227 



of speech. He called the learned doctors a genera- 

 tion of vipers, whited sepulchres, and serpents ; he 

 declared that they should not escape the damnation of 

 hell. Because they had made the washing of hands 

 before dinner a religious ablution, Jesus, with equal 

 bigotry, would not wash his hands at all, though 

 people eat with the hand in the East, and dip their 

 hands in the same dish. He told his disciples that 

 if a man called another a fool, he would be in danger 

 of hell-fire ; and whoever spoke against the Holy 

 Ghost, it would not be forgiven him " neither in this 

 world nor in the world to come." He said that if a 

 man had done anything wrong with his hand or his 

 eye, it were better for him to cut off his guilty hand, 

 or to pluck out his guilty eye, rather than to go with 

 his whole body into hell. He cursed a fig-tree be- 

 cause it bore no fruit, although it was not the season 

 of fruit — an action as rational as that of Xerxes, who 

 flogged the sea. He retorted to those who accused 

 him -of breaking the Sabbath, that he was above the 

 Sabbath. 



It is evident that a man who talked in such a 

 manner, who believed that it was in his power to 

 abrogate the laws of the land, to forgive sins, to be- 

 stow eternal happiness upon his friends, and to send 

 all those who differed from him to everlasting flames, 

 would lay himself open to a charge of blasphemy ; 

 and it is also evident that the generation of vipers 

 would not hesitate to take advantage of the circum- 

 stance. But whatever share personal enmity might 

 have had in the charges that were made against him, 

 he was lawfully condemned, according to Bible law. 

 He declared in open court that they would see him 

 descending in the clouds at the right hand of the 



