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"And the Publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner." And is this thy way, poor Publican! O cunning sinner! O crafty Publican! thy wisdom has outdone the Pharisee; for it is better to apply ourselves to God's mercy than to trust to ourselves that we are righteous.
Third, The Pharisee in his approach to God, wipes his fingers of the Publican's enormities, will not come nigh him, lest he should defile him with his beastly rags: "I am not as other men are, or even as this Publican."
Nine or ten devils, loose on the upper Macquarrie, caught the publican at Marryong alone in the bush; he had been an overlooker, or some such thing, in old times, so they stripped him, tied him up, gave him four dozen, and left him to the tender mercies of the blowflies, in consequence of which he was found dead next day, with the cords at his wrists cutting down to the bone with the struggles he made in his agony."
The tall lad, standing in the porch, turned his bleared eyes from the publican to the smith and back again as if considering whom he ought to fight now. "Murderer!" he shouted suddenly to the publican. "Bind him, lads!" "I daresay you would like to bind me!" shouted the publican, pushing away the men advancing on him, and snatching his cap from his head he flung it on the ground.
They did not love, and their hate was but a peevish dislike. They followed their dull routine and died the death, hopeful that they would get the reward in another world which was denied them in this. And Jean Paul Marat grew to scorn the few who would thus enslave the many. For priest and publican he had only aversion.
But the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner. When the publican went home that night he was better and happier than the Pharisee. The Pharisee thought he was good; he did not want to be forgiven, and so God let him carry all his sins back home with him again.
If oratory is to be judged of by its effects, Cæsar's sermon was a great oration. It began amid the silence of his own followers, and the tschts and pshaws of a little group of his enemies, who lounged on the outside of the crowd to cast ridicule on the "swaddler" and the "publican preacher."
The Pharisee and the publican both stood while they prayed; but their prayers seem to have been short. To enact that the congregation must stand during prayer, and then to keep them praying for twenty minutes or half-an-hour, which is sometimes done, seems to be in effect turning prayer into penance. "The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee," &c.
Nor could the Treasury effectually restrain the chimneyman from using his powers with harshness: for the tax was farmed; and the government was consequently forced to connive at outrages and exactions such as have, in every age made the name of publican a proverb for all that is most hateful.
No, verily; there was some super-natural power within that did secretly prompt him on, and strengthen him to this more noble venture. True, there is nothing more common among wicked men, than to trick and toy, and play with this saying of the Publican, "God be merciful to me a sinner:" not at all being sensible either what sin is, or of their need of mercy.
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