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Men who lived ill were fined or expelled from Stratford's boundaries; scolding wives were sentenced to have their tempers sweetened by immersion from the ducking-stool in the clear, cold waters of Avon. Publicans were forced to conform to the local laws carefully framed to abolish public drunkenness.
Further, when he said that 'the whole need not a physician' Jesus declared that the Jews were whole, the publicans sick. Publicanum adlectum a domino ... dicendo, medicum sanis non esse necessarium sed male habentibus...
But if at any called popular elections, the power was sinfully betrayed into the hands of such baptized persons, as in ignorance and loose practice equalled, if not transcended, heathen men and publicans; into the hand of those who, to please a superior, to obtain a paltry bribe, or a flagon of wine, were readily determined in their vote for a minister; let the prostitutes of Jesus' ordinance answer for the unhappy consequences of their conduct.
The publicans, the renegades, who were farming the taxes of the Roman conquerors, and making their base profit out of their countrymen's slavery, came to him, "Master, what shall we do?" He does not tell them not to be publicans. He does not tell his countrymen to rebel, though he must have been sorely tempted to do it.
We Abolitionists are just what we are, babes and sucklings, obscure men, silly women, publicans, sinners; and we shall manage the matter we have taken in hand just as might be expected of such persons as we are. It is unbecoming in able men, who stood by and would do nothing, to complain of us because we manage this matter no better."
The colonial taste for good liquor was spoiled from the very beginning, first by black strap and rum, condensed from the steam of hell, then by Old Tom and British brandy, fortified with tobacco this liquor was the nectar with which the ambrosial station hands were lambed down by the publicans and in these latter days by colonial beer, the washiest drink a nation was ever drenched with. the origin of bad beer dates from the repeal of the sugar duty in England; before that time beer was brewed from malt and hops, and that we had "jolly good ale and old," and sour pie.
But one has not the right to kill; that is the reason why the just man will not draw from the urn a number that will send him to the war. The right is not to pamper the folly and crimes of a prince raised over a kingdom or over a republic; and that is the reason why the just man will not pay taxes and will not give money to the publicans.
I don't suppose there are many publicans here to-night, for this meeting isn't quite in their line; and if there are, they can't have come expecting compliments. But if you fellows think you get good liquor at the publics round here, I tell you you are jolly well mistaken." "Hear! hear!" shouted several voices.
Have we not need to beware lest, while we are settling which is the right gate to the kingdom of heaven, the publicans and harlots should press into it before us; and lest, while we are boasting that we are the children of Abraham, God should, without our help, raise up children to Abraham of those stones outside; those hard hearts, dull brains, natures ground down by the drudgery of daily life till they are as the pavement of the streets; those so-called 'heathen masses' of whom we are bid to think this day.
'He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. When we see Jesus Christ looking across the valley to the city, with tears in His sad and gentle eyes; and when we see harlots and sinners coming near Him with new hope, and a strange consciousness of a fascination which He wields; and when we see Him opening His heart to all the impure, just as He laid His clean hand on the leper's ulcers, let us rejoice to believe that the Friend of publicans and sinners is God manifest in the flesh.
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