and forged certificates, by means of which they obtained entrance into the interior of houses, and were privily present at the most secret meetings. And they used all manner of artifice, and all manner of lying, and all manner of treachery to entrap the unwary offender. And when they had him in their snare, they laid hold on him, and made him prisoner, in the name of the chief governor of those islands, and brought him and placed him before the judge; and when the judge asked, Who hath brought this man here, and whose prisoner is he?" the peace-officer answered," He is my prisoner." And when the jndge said again, "Who is this man's accuser?" the peace-officer answered, I am his accuser." And when the judge said again, "Who is the witness against this man?" the peace-officer said, "I am the witness against him." Then the judge said, "The

offence of which thou accusest this man was committed in a secret room; how couldst thou be present? Then the peace-officer answered, I obtained admission by a cunning artifice and a lie, for the Chief of the peaceofficers forged a certificate for me, stating that I was a member, and had taken the oath; so they admitted me, believing me to be a brother; and then I made a speech, and excited them to say and do the things of which I now accuse this man, for he was one of them." Then the judge asked, "Has the prisoner anything to say in his defence?" And the prisoner said, "The peace-officer is thy servant, and under thy authority, and has besides a direct interest in my condemnation, for he will be rewarded if I am condemned; and if I am not, he will be disgraced, and perhaps be dismissed from his situation; and, moreover, he hath himself declared that he cometh before thee with a lie fresh on his lips; for all these reasons, his evidence is totally unworthy of credit." Then the judge said, "It was the peace-officer's duty to do as he hath done, and by so doing he hath proved himself a trust-worthy servant, and no objection can be made to his evidence, provided he professes his belief in the Gospel of Christ, which strictly forbids the fraud, and artifice, and lying, and treachery which he hath used against thee, and which inculcates forgiveness of injuries as one of the first duties of a Christian." Then turning to the peaceofficer, he said, "Believest thou the Gospel of Christ?

For if thou believest not, thy evidence cannot be received, and this man cannot be convicted, and thou shalt receive no reward, but shalt immediately be discharged from thy situation, on my representing to the Chief of the peaceofficers that thou hast failed in substantiating thy charge against a prisoner." Then the peace-officer said, “My lord, I believe." And the judge said, "Take the book." And the peace-officer took the holy Gospel of Christ, and kissed it, and said, "All that I have now said is as true as what I said in the room of the secret society was false, so help me God!" Then the judge said, "Peace-officer, thou hast fully proved thy charge against this man, therefore take him straightway to the prison, and deliver him to the jailer." So the peace-officer took him, and delivered him to the jailer, and then went to the Chief of the peace-officers, and received his reward.

And the people of those islands continually made new laws and regulations, and enacted new penalties; and the number of persons judged and punished increased continually. And it became necessary to appoint new judges, and to build new halls of judgment, and to enlarge the old jails, and to build new. And the making, and the interpretation of the laws, and the accusation and defence, and judgment and punishment of offenders, became a great and flourishing trade, and hundreds, and thousands, and tens of thousands of disciples of Christ made profit, and supported themselves and their families by it. And when a stranger or a heathen travelled in those islands, and saw the land swarming with legislators, and lawyers, and judges, and attorneys, and peace-officers, and informers, and jailers, and turnkeys, and bailiffs, and soldiers, he said, "The great God hath visited these islands with a plague, which is more grievous than the frogs, and the flies, and the lice, with which the God of Israel plagued the Egyptians." But the people themselves said, "Behold the sure evidence of our increasing civilisation, and of our obedience to the command of the Lord Jesus, to live together in brotherly love and charity, and mutual forgiveness of injuries."

And the people of those islands punished those whom they had convicted of offences, some with fine, and some with imprisonment, and some with both fine and imprisonment, and some with banishment. And they said, "Neither

fine, nor imprisonment, nor both of them together, nor even banishment, is sufficient for the punishment of our brethren in Christ. Let us therefore torture them also." And when they debated among themselves what kind of torture they should use, Clemens said to them, "Ye shall neither burn with red hot pincers, nor break upon the wheel, as your forefathers did, lest the heathen gainsay you as it did them; but ye shall use this new torture, which I have invented specially for the use of Christians, and which ye shall find, upon trial, to be quite as effectual as the wheel.” Then Clemens showed them the treadmill. And all the people admired it and said, “This is indeed a most excellent instrument to make the stoutest heart and the strongest body to faint with insupportable agony, while yet it teareth no flesh and breaketh no bones; wherefore, if the heathen mock us, saying, 'Do ye also torture?' we can produce our prisoner and say, Here is the man, what harm have we done him?" And forthwith they commanded that the treadmill should be used in all their jails, in place of every other instrument of torture.

Then Clemens said again, "There is yet another torture which is even more insupportable than that of the treadmill, and which, besides, hath the advantage of requiring no instrument." And when the people said, "What is it?" Clemens answered, "Ye must build strong cells of hewn stone in the very heart of your jails. And these cells must be one full size larger than the cages in which the Chinese confine their prisoners; for ye must not imitate the cruelty of savage and heathen nations. Therefore every cell must be sufficiently long, to allow a man to lie down in it. And each cell shall have an iron door; and instead of a window, a grated hole, high up near the roof, for the admission of a little light, and so much air as is indispensable to life. And ye shall call these cells, solitary cells, for ye shall put but one prisoner in each. And the prisoner whom ye put into one of these cells, ye shall not allow to see the face of any human being, nor any living thing, save only the jailer, who brings him his bread and water; nor shall ye allow him to hear the sound of anything that stirs or that has life, nor to have anything with him in his cell which he can handle, or with which he can occupy or

amuse himself, except only the pallet on which he lies, and the pitcher out of which he drinks, and the copy of the New Testament with which ye shall supply him, that by reading it and meditating upon it he may be thoroughly satisfied that his tortures are in conformity not only with the letter, bnt the spirit of the holy Gospel. Doubt not but the man ye shall so treat will pray to be taken out, and to be placed upon the treadmill, or even to be killed, as an act of grace." Then some of she people objected and said, “How know we but this torture is so great that it may cause the prisoner to die before he hath been tortured long enough?" But Clemens replied, "This kind of torture maketh mad before it killeth. Therefore let the solitary cell be inspected once each week, and if ye find the prisoner mad, let him be removed until he recovers, and when he has recovered, let him be brought back to the solitary cell, and treated as before. And for further security let the judge, when he pronounceth the sentence of solitary confinement, command the jailer, saying, 'Thou shalt divide the term for which this man is to kept in solitary confinement into so many parts, and there shall be such and such an interval of ordinary conconfinement between every two parts,' so shall ye inflict a greater amount of torture than would otherwise be possible, and so shall ye imitate the wisdom of your forefathers, who allowed intervals in the torture of the rack, that the sufferer might have his strength recruited, and be enabled to bear further torture." But some of the more ignorant of the people murmured and said, “This torture is too subtile and refined, to be effectual for the punishment of offenders." Then Justus said, "What more effectual torture do ye desire than that which driveth a man to madness, and maketh him even to pray for death as a deliverance?" And Liber said, "As freemen and Christians, we will have no other tortures but those which Clemens has proposed." Then all the people were convinced, and applauded what Clemens and Liber and Justus had said, and passed a law accordingly.

And the people of those islands said again, "Imprisonment is good, and torture during imprisonment is still better, but to take the life is best of all. Our fathers and our forefathers, were they not examples of Christian

charity to all mankind, and did they not kill every man who stole so much as a sheep, or a horse, or an ass?” Then Clemens said, "Ye shall indeed kill, for what Christian nation killeth not? But it must not be as your fathers did; for their love of blood was so great, and they killed so many as to defeat their own object, and to bring the punishment of death into disrepute, and to cause it to be esteemed lightly even by the offenders themselves. Ye must therefore kill more rarely than your fathers, not because it is wrong to kill, but that ye may thereby render the punishment more terrible." Then all the people said, We will do in this respect also as Clemens counselleth, and will kill only those who commit the greatest offences, because it is they who most require to live, that they may have time to repent and make their peace with God; therefore will we kill them."

And this was the way in which the people of those islands killed an offender. The jailer placed him before the judge, and the judge put on a black cap, and said to him," Prisoner, we are going to kill thee, because thou hast committed this great offence. Therefore, if thou hast anything to say why thou shouldst not be killed, now is thy time." Then the prisoner said, “I confess my guilt, and truly and from my heart repent, and humbly pray for mercy in the name of that blessed Saviour who died upon the cross for each and all of us, and most for the sinner who repenteth." And the judge said, "It is well that thou repentest, for our holy religion teacheth that repentance availeth before that God whose name is Mercy, and who hath declared that he will pardon to the uttermost every repentant sinner that cometh unto him; but repentance availeth not with the tribunal before which thou now standest, for it is the tribunal of a poor sinful man like thyself, and established by sinful men, for the purpose of punishing, not only him that repenteth not, but him also that repenteth. Therefore cast away all hope and prepare to die, for we will surely kill thee." Then the prisoner answered, "The blessed Saviour hath commanded that thou shalt forgive even unto seventy times seven times thy brother that cometh unto thee, saying, I repent.'" The judge answered, "God forbid that both I and all thy Christian brethren should not truly and from the heart forgive both thee and also every