et was only over in order that a similar slaughter in London might
begin. Let those who have a stomach for more blood and tears follow out
the hell upon earth that James Stuart and George Jeffreys together let
loose on the best life of England in their now fast-shortening day. Was
Judge Jeffreys, some of you will ask me, born and bred in hell? Was the
devil his father, and original sin his mother? Or, was he not the very
devil himself come to earth for a season in English flesh? No, my
brethren, not so. Judge Jeffreys was one of ourselves. Little George
Jeffreys was born and brought up in a happy English home. He was
baptised and confirmed in an English church. He took honours in an
English university. He ate dinners, was called to the bar, conducted
cases, and took silk in an English court of justice. And in the ripeness
of his years and of his services, he wore the honourable ermine and sat
upon the envied wool-sack of an English sovereign. It would have been
far less awful and far less alarming to think of, had Judge Jeffreys
been, as you supposed, a pure devil let loose on the Church of Christ and
the awakening liberty of England. But some innocent soul will ask me
next whether there has ever been any other monster on the face of the
earth like Judge Jeffreys; and whether by any possibility there are any
such monsters anywhere in our own day. Yes, truth compels me to reply.
Yes, there are, plenty, too many. Only their environment, nowadays, as
our naturalists say, does not permit them to grow to such strength and
dimensions as those of James Stuart, and George Jeffreys, his favourite
judge. At the same time, be not deceived by your own deceitful heart,
nor by any other deceiver's smooth speeches. Judge Jeffreys is in
yourself, only circumstances have not yet let him fully show himself in
you. Still, if you look close enough and deep enough into your own
hearts, you will see the same wicked light glancing sometimes there that
used so to terrify Judge Jeffreys' prisoners when they saw it in his
wicked eyes. If you lay your ear close enough to your own heart, you
will sometimes hear something of that same hiss with which that human
serpent sentenced to torture and to death the men and the women who would
not submit to his command. The same savage laughter also will sometimes
all but escape your lips as you think of how your enemy has been made to
suffer in body and in estate. O yes, the very same hell