When the sermon was ended, the bishops ordered Wishart to stand up on his platform to hear the accusation. Then rose the accuser, John Lauder, a priest whom the chronicler calls a monster, and, facing Wishart, unrolled a long paper full of threatenings and devilish maledictions, and, addressing the guiltless evangelist in cruel words, hurled pitilessly at him all the thunders of the papacy. The ignorant crowd who heard him, expected to see the earth open and swallow the unhappy reformer; but he remained quiet, and listened with great patience and without a change of countenance to the violent accusations of his adversary. When Lauder had finished reading at the top of his voice the threatening indictment, he turned to Wishart, his face ‘all running down with sweat,’ says the chronicler, ‘and frothing at the mouth like a boar, he spat at Mr. George’s face, saying, What answerest thou to these sayings, thou renegade, traitor, and thief, which we have duly proved by sufficient witness against thee?’[346] Wishart knelt down and prayed for the help of God. Then rising, he made answer with all sweetness--‘My lords, I pray you quietly to hear me, so that instead of condemning me unjustly, to the great peril of your souls, you may know that I have taught the pure Word of God, and that you may receive it yourselves as the source from which health and life shall spring forth for you. In Dundee I taught the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, and shall show your discretions faithfully what fashion and manner I used when I taught, without any human dread....’ At these words the accuser interrupted him, and cried with all his might, ‘Thou heretic, renegade, traitor, and thief, it was not lawful for thee to preach, ... and we forethink that thou hast been a preacher too long.’ Then all the prelates, terrified at the thought that he was going to set before that vast audience the very substance and pith of his teaching, said one to another, ‘He is so crafty, and in Holy Scriptures so exercised, that he will persuade the people to his own opinion and raise them against us.’ Wishart, perceiving that he had no chance of a fair hearing before that ecclesiastical court, said, ‘I appeal from my lord cardinal to my lord the governor.’ ‘What,’ replied Lauder, ‘is not my lord cardinal the second person within this realm, chancellor of Scotland, archbishop of St. Andrews, bishop of Mirepoix [in Languedoc], commendator of Arbroath, _legatus natus, legatus a latere_...?’ He recited so many titles, says the chronicler, that you might have laden a ship with them, much sooner an ass.[347] ‘Whom desirest thou to be thy judge?’ cried Lauder. [Sidenote: THE TRIAL.]