OF PRIESTS 125
As corpses they meant to live, in black they draped their corpse : even in their words I smell the evil sea- soning of the deadhouse.
And he who liveth nigh unto them, liveth nigh unto the black ponds from which the toad singeth its song in sweet melancholy.
In order that I might learn to believe in their Saviour they ought to sing better songs, and his dis- ciples ought to look saved-like.
I would fain see them naked : for beauty alone should preach penitence. But who in the world is persuaded by that disguised affliction ?
Verily, even their saviours have not come from freedom and the seventh heaven of freedom ! Verily, they themselves have never walked on the carpets of knowledge !
The mind of these saviours consisted of voids, but into every void they had put their illusion, their stop- gap whom they called God.
In their pity their mind was drowned, and when they swelled, and swelled over from pity, at the sur- face there always swam a great folly.
Eagerly and with much crying they drove their flock over their wooden bridge, as if there were only a single bridge into the future! Verily, those herds- men also were of the sheep !
Petty intellects and comprehensive souls these herdsmen had: but, my brethren, what small terri-
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