In a sarcastic paragraph of his _French Revolution_, Carlyle speaks of the work of the National Convention thus: "In fact, what can be more unprofitable than the sight of six hundred and forty-nine ingenious men struggling with their whole force and industry, for a long course of weeks, to do at bottom this; to stretch out the old Formula and Law phraseology, so that it may cover the new, contradictory, entirely uncoverable thing? Whereby the poor formula does but _crack_ and one's honesty along with it. The thing that is palpably _hot_, burning, wilt thou prove it by a syllogism to be a freezing mixture? This of stretching out formulas till they crack is, especially in times of swift change, one of the sorrowfullest tasks poor humanity has." Was it not this very formula-stretching that Jesus satirized in more playful vein,--this formula-stretching that existed in old times and that still exists,--when he said: "No man putteth a piece of new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then, both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old"? You can not patch up old terms with new meanings. The new meaning agreeth not with the old term. "And no man putteth new wine into old wine-skins; else the new wine will burst the wine-skins and be spilled, and the wine-skins shall perish. But new wine must be put into new wine-skins, and both are preserved." The man who tries to put new senses into old words, new ideas into old formulas, is like a man who cuts up a new garment to mend an old; like one who puts wine not yet done fermenting into a skin whose capacity admits no further strain. He spoils his new coat and he loses his new wine. With such illustrations as these, illustrations embodying a figure or comparison or situation essentially amusing, was Jesus wont to temper his rebukes. II. The sense of humor in Jesus enabled him to detect pretension, imposture, hypocrisy, and expose them to the derision of mankind.