21) and inquired of him “by what authority he did such things,” instead of answering them frankly and making known to them his mission, he raised an irrelevant question, and because they could not tell whether “John’s baptism was from earth or heaven,” he refused to give any apology or explanation of his most treasonable and violent actions. He addressed the Scribes and Pharisees in the most extreme language, calling them “vipers,” “blind guides,” “hypocrites,” “serpents,” etc., and used fulminations that were calculated to excite the worst passions and the most atrocious acts. He told them that they were “whited sepulchres” and “fools.” When he was accepting the hospitalities of a Pharisee (Luke 11:37-54) he abused and denounced both the host and his guests. He is said to have looked on the Pharisees “with anger,” thus violating what he taught. His unjustifiable conduct toward the “barren fig tree” will not be overlooked. It was not the season for figs; he had no right to expect to find fruit on that tree, yet he “cursed” it, and here again destroyed private property without rendering an equivalent. So with the swine of the Gadarenes. This story is childish and wicked, and his action resulted in the destruction of animals which must have been valued at about four thousand pounds sterling. He was also chargeable with dissimulation greatly at variance with moral rectitude. When his brothers would have him go to Jerusalem to attend the feast of tabernacles he declined, and advised them to go without him. But when they had gone, “then went up also to the feast, as it were in secret” (John 7: 2-10). He certainly here practised deceit. When walking with the two disciples to Emmaus he pretended to be another person, and when they arrived there he “made as though he would go farther that is, he pretended what he did not intend...” (Luke 24:13). He practised the utmost dissimulation in several particulars in the affair of Judas, and carried it even farther than the traitor. (Read and study Matt. 26: 46-50 and context.) We might pursue this subject indefinitely. It is enough for our present purpose to affirm that many of the errors in natural philosophy, physiology, astronomy, and other sciences that prevailed in that day are implied or incorporated in the Gospels, with many prevailing superstitions, and that there are more mistakes and a greater number of contradictions in the four Gospels than in any other writings of the same length now extant in any language.