(20) A sixth class claim to have reached such a degree of sanctity that sin cannot affect them. Yet, if you treat one of them with disrespect, he will bear a grudge against you for years, and if one of them be deprived of a morsel of food which he thinks his due, the whole world will appear dark and narrow to him. Even if any of them do really conquer their passions, they have no right to make such a claim, for the prophets, the highest of human kind, constantly confessed and bewailed their sins. Some of them had such a dread of sin that they even abstained from lawful things; thus, it is related of the Prophet that, one day, when a date had been brought to him he would not eat it, as he was not sure that it had been lawfully obtained. Whereas these free-livers will swallow gallons of wine and claim (I shudder as I write) to be superior to the Prophet whose sanctity was endangered by a date, while theirs is unaffected by all that wine! Surely they deserve that the devil should drag them down to perdition. Real saints know that he who does not master his appetites does not deserve the name of a man, and that the true Moslem is one who will cheerfully acknowledge the limits imposed by the Law. He who endeavours, on whatever pretext, to ignore its obligations is certainly under Satanic influence, and should be talked to, not with a pen, but with a sword. These pseudo-mystics sometimes pretend to be drowned in a sea of wonder, but if you ask them what they are wondering at they do not know. They should be told to wonder as much as they please, but at the same time to remember that the Almighty is their Creator and that they are His servants.

(35) Now I shall fall into the School of the Master in his uPontificalibus, who will ask out of what the Beasts, Fowls, Fishes, and Worms were made; for he will have it, that all of them were made out of the Earth, and will prove it out of Moses, and he understands as much of Moses as of Paradise, which he will have to be altogether corporeal. Therefore there is a gross Deadness in the Understanding; and though I write plain enough, yet I shall be still dumb to that deadened Soul which is void of Understanding, and yet I cannot help it; for it is said, You must be born anew, if you will see the Kingdom of God. Would you know [out of what the Beasts are made,] then lay aside your Bonnet of Pride that is in your Mind, and walk along into the paradisical Garden of Roses, and there you shall find an Herb; if you eat of it, your Eyes will be opened, so that you shall see and know what Moses has wrote.