a man had all his life been thinking about the "best
manner of circumcision," or about "the mode of kneeling in prayer," he
would be wholly unable to understand what Jesus said about love to God
and to man. But no doubt some of them knew he was right, and hated him
all the more for that very reason. When they talked in their libraries,
they admitted that they had no faith in the old forms of religion; but
when they appeared in public they made broad their phylacteries, and
enlarged the borders of their garments; and when they preached in their
pulpits, they laid heavy burdens on men's shoulders, and grievous to be
borne. The same thing probably took place then which has happened ever
since; and they who had no faith in God or man, were the first to accuse
this religious genius with being an infidel!

So, one night they seized Jesus, tried him before daylight next morning,
condemned him, and put him to death. The seizure, the trial, the
execution, were not effected in the regular legal form,--they did not
occupy more than twelve hours of time,--but were done in the same wicked
way that evil men also used in Boston when they made Mr. Simms and Mr.
Burns slaves for life. But Jesus made no resistance; at the "trial"
there was no "defence;" nay, he did not even feel angry with those
wicked men; but, as he hung on the cross, almost the last words he
uttered were these,--"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they
do." Such wicked men killed Jesus, just as in Old England, three hundred
years ago, the Catholics used to burn Protestants alive; or as in New
England, two hundred years ago, our Protestant fathers hung the Quakers
and whipped the Baptists; or as the Slaveholders in the South now beat
an Abolitionist, or whip a man to death who insists on working for
himself and his family, and not merely for men who only steal what he
earns; or as some in Massachusetts, a few years ago, sought to put in
jail such as speak against the wickedness of Slavery.

After Jesus was dead and buried, some of his followers thought that he
rose from the dead and came back to life again within three days, and
showed himself to a few persons here and there,--coming suddenly and
then vanishing, as a "ghost" is said to appear all at once and then
vanish, or as the souls of other dead men are thought to "appear" to the
spiritualists, who do not, however, _see_ the ghosts, but only _hear_
and _feel_ them. Very strange stories were told about hi