The Pharisees and the Sadducees in our day, who fancy themselves wiser than the Creeds, and the Prayer Book, and the Church Catechism, do not know.

Practically all of his earlier writings, like the short story, The Sadducee of Amsterdam (1833), as well as the essays entitled Public Characters (1835), On the Philosophy of History (1836), and Contemporaries (1837), are evidence of the intense interest of the author in the social, philosophical, and political leaders of the time.

The Pharisees and Sadducees at last were taught the lesson of not resorting to arms, however widely they might differ.

The proud Sadducees of Nazareth, of Capharnaum, of Thirza, of Gabara, of Jotapata, and of Silo, whom Jesus had so often reproved before the people, were actually dying for revenge.

So that this objection is like that of the Sadducees to our Savior, concerning a woman that had seven husbands: they ask, "whose wife of the seven shall she be at the resurrection?"