The Lepers

Once upon a time there was a leper's dungeon, but the doors were never locked and
the inmates could come and go as they pleased, though as no one outside the dungeon
was willing to have them in their company most stayed in the dungeon, but not all, as
sometimes some left it for brief periods.

Some of these who left came back and started telling the others how they had been
healed of their leprosy. But their skin was still white and cankered, full of running
sores and their hands had missing fingers and the like; not to mention the stench which spoke
more powerfully than their appearance, so that even in the dark no one could be
fooled by vain talk.. Eventually the lepers simply learned to look at the man rather
than his words, and so ignored this kind of talk, for it was endless talk, as if these
preaching lepers were trying to convince themselves of something that was simply not
true anyway. . .

But then one fine day one of the older members of the group, who was well known to
them all, returned to the dungeon after one of his periodic ventures out into the world.

His skin was a pure as a newborn child's and he did not need to say a word.

A cry of amazement arose from the lepers, and soon they asked him how he was
healed.

So he spoke briefly and effectively, and those who accepted his word (some obstinate
few insisted he never was a leper at all, but these were known to be deluded fools by
all the others) followed him out of the dungeon and were themselves cured . . . . .

The man who was really cured had something more substantial to say than the others
who merely claimed to be healed, but it was briefer and to the point and his life
matched his words. His own condition was the best defense of his utterance.

As it is written, about a Man wiser than all of us: you know them by their fruits