“W. N.’s” JUSTIFICATION IN REPLY TO “VERITAS.”

Marlborough Express, Volume IV, Issue 154, 23 January 1869, Page 4

“W. N.’s” JUSTIFICATION IN REPLY TO “VERITAS.”

“ Let truth and fabeh'iod grapple. Whoever knew Truth pul lo lire worst, ia a fair and open eu ouuter.”— .M II.ToNTo the Editor of the Marlborough' Express. Sir, —I was once told by a wounded soldier that the Maori who shot at and killed Lieut. Blackburn was up a tree, and that as soon as seen he was brought down riddled with bullets, and that one of the men present was about to kick the carcase when a sailor interfered, and in the true spirit of a British sailor, said “No, d n it, don’t kick him, he’s dead enough.” Now Sir, your correspondent O.N.E. is dead enough in an argumentative sense, for hard names are simply a refuge for the destitute in argument, and I will admit I expected many more, but as he has let me down very gently, I won’t kick even a dead ass ; but if the ass is dead, I have wakened the lion ; hark how ho roars ! two mortal columns see him! with mane and tail erect, demanding my authority, and the page of history. Patience, good Mr. Lion, and you shall have both ; and if you get more than you want or bargained for, blame me not, but remember, he who in pasing by meddles with another man’s porridge generally scalds his own fingers. My author is W. E. H. Lecky, M.A., the book, the “Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe,” Longman and Co., London, 1866 ; the authorities you will get as we go along. On pages 18, 19, and 20 you will find ; “ It is not necessary to follow in detail the prosecuting laws of ilie first century of the Church’s power, and indeed such a lask would be intolerably tedious on account of the activity that was displayed in this department of legislation. The Theodosian code, which was compiled under Tneodosius the younger, contains ho less than sixty-six enactments • gainst heretics, besides many others against pagans. Je»s, apostates, and magicians. It is sufficient to say that at first the Arian measures seem to have been rather more severe than the catholic ones, but that the scope of tile latter was steadily enlarged, and their severity increased till they reached a point that lias seldom been surpassed. First, the pagans wore deprived of offices in the State, then their secret sacrifices were prohibited, then every kind of divination was forbidden, then the public sacrifices were suppressed, and finally the temples were destroyed, their images broken, and the entire worship condemned (a). The enforcement o( these measures in die country districts was the last, the most difficult and the most melancholy scene of the drama. For in those days when means of communication were very few, and ignorance very general, it was possible lor a religious movement to gu n a complete ascendency in the towns, while the pe ,sants weie scarcely aware of its existence. In their calm retreats the paroxysms of change were seldom felt. They still continued with unfaltering confidence to worship the old gods, whim a new faith had attracted tin* educated to its banner, or when scepticism was withering the beliefs of ihe past. Multitudes hud probably scarcely realised the existence of chii tiamty when the edict arrived which doomed their temples to dcsti uctiun. Lib mins. who. as tic minis'er of Julian, had exhibited a spirit of tolerance even more remarkable than that of his master, pleaded the peasants’ cause with courage, dignity, and pathos. 'I lie temple, lie said, was to them the very eye ol nature, the symbol and manifestation of a present deny, the solace of uli their troubles, the holiest of all their joys. If it was overthrown, their dearest associations would he annihilated, ties thut linked them with the dead would tin severed, the po try of life, the consolation of labour, the source of faith would he destroys i ( b). Rut these pleas were unavailing. Under Theodosius the Ureal all the temples were razed to the ground , and the forms ot pagan worship absolutely prohibited (c). Such was the persecuting spirit displayed by the Christians of the fourth and filth centuries. “ That the Church ot Rome has shed more innocent blood than any other instiiiitioii that has ever existed among mankind will he qne tinned by no protectant who has a competent knowledge of history, The memorials indeed of many of her persecutors are now so scanty that it is impossible to form a complete conception of the multitude of her victims, and it is q die certain that no powers of imagination can adequately realise their sufferings. L ©rente, who hud free access to the archives of the .-punish Inquisition, assures us that by that tribunal alone more than 31,000 persons were burnt, and more than 290,000 condemned to punishment less severe than death {d). The number of those who were put to deaih for their religion in the Netherlands alone in the reign of Charles V. has been estimated by a very high authority at 50,000 (e), and at least half as in my perished under his son ( f ). And when to these memorable instances we add the innumeiable less conspicuous executions that took place, from the victims of Charlemagne to the freethinkers of the seventeenth century —when we recollect that after the mission of Dominic —the area of the persecution comprised nearly the whole of Christendom, and that its triumph was in many districts so complete as to destroy every memorial of the contest, the most callous nature must recoil with horror from the spectacle. For these a>rocilies were not perpetrated in the brief paroxysms of a reign ot terror, or by the hand of obscure sectaries. hut were inflicted by a triumphant church witu every circumstance of solemnity and deliberation. Nor did the victims perish by a brief and painless death, but one which was carefully selected as among ilie most poignant that man can suffer. They were burnt alive, not (infrequently by slow tiro (g). They were burnt alive after their constancy had been tried by ihe most excruciating agonies that minds futile in torture could devise (g) This was die physical torment inflicted on those who ilareit t.» exeieise Ilieir reason in the pursuit <>i 11 U l ll ; hut what language can describe, ami wind nnaginal;on cun convene (lie mental lortnre tlid accompanied it For in tim.-e davs the familj was liivi ed agau.st itself. Tint lay ol conviction often fell upon a single mourner, leaving ad others untouched. The victims who died for he i Say were

not like those who died for witchcraft—solitary and doting women— but were usually men in the midst of active life, and often in the first flush of youthful enthusiasm ; and those who loved them best were firmly convinced that their agonies upon earth were b it the prelude of eternal agonies hereafter (A). This was especially the case with weak women, who felt most acutely the sufferings of others, and around whose minds the clergy had most successfully wound their toils. It is horrible, it is appalling to reflect what the mother, the wife, the sister, the daughter, of the heretic must have suffered from this teaching. She saw the body of him who was dearer to her than life dislocated, and writhing, and quivering with pain ; she watched the slow fire creeping from limb to limb, till it had swathed him in a sheet of agony ; and when at last the scream of anguish had died away, she was told that all this was acceptable to the God she served, and was but a faint image of the sufferings l-Te would inflict through eternity upon the dead. Nothing was wanting to give emphasis to the doctrine. It rang from every pulpit; it was painted on every altar. The Spanish heretic was led to the flames in a dress covered with representations of devils and frightful tortures to remind the spectators to the very last of the doom that awaited him. All this is yery horrible, hut it is only a small part of the misery which the persecuting spirit of Rome has produced. For, judging by the ordinary measure of human courage for every man that dared to avow his principles at the stake, there must have been multitudes that believed by such an avowal alone they could save their souls, but who were nevertheless scared either by the prospect of their own sufferings, (i) or of the destitution of their children, wbo passed their lives in one long series of hypocritical observance and studied falsehoods, and at last, with minds degraded by habitual deception, sank hopeless and terrorstricken into the grave (j). And besides all these things, we have to remember that the spirit that was manifested in acts of detail persecution has often swept over a far wider sphere, and produced sufferings not perhaps so excruciating, but far more extensive. We have to recollect those frightful massacres—perhaps the most fearful the world has ever seen—the massacre of the Albigeneses, which a hope had instigated, or the massacre of St. Bartholomew, for which a Pope returned solemn thanks to Heaven. We have to recollect those religious wars which re-produced themselves century after century with scarcely diminished fury, which turned Syria into an Aceldama; which inundated with blood the fairest lands of Europe ; which blasted the prosperity, and paralised the intellect of many a noble nation, and which planted animosities in Europe that two hundred years have been unable altogether to destroy. Nor should we forget the hardening effects that must have been produced on the minds of the spectators, wbo at every royal marriage in Spain were regaled by the public executions of heretics, or who were summoned to the great square of Toulouse to contemplate the struggles of four hundred witches in the flames. When we add together all these various forms of suffering, and estimate all their aggravations ; when we think that the victims of these persecutions were usually men who were not only entirely guiltless, but who proved themselves by their very deaths to be endowed with the most transcendent and heroic virtues ; and when we still further consider that all this was but a part of one vast conspiracy to check the development of the human mind, and to destroy that spirit of impartial and unrestrained energy which all modern researches prove to be the very first condition of progress as of truth ; when we consider all these things, it can he surely no exaggeration to say that the church of Rome has inflicted a greater amount nf unmerited suffering than any other religion that ever existed among mankind. To complete the picture it is only necessary to add that these things were done in the name of the Teacher, who said, ‘ By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, that ye love one another.’ “ But while the pre-eminent atrocities of the persecutions of the Church of Rome is fully admitted,’ nothing can be more grossly disingenuous or untrue than to represent persecutions as her peculiar taint. She persecuted to the full extent of the power of her clergy, and that power was very great. The persecution of which every Protestant Church was guilty was measured by the same rule, but clerical influence in protestant countries was comparatively weak. The protestant persecutions were never so sanguinary as those of the catholics, hut the principle was affirmed quite as strongly ; was acted on quite as pertinaciously by the clergy. In Germany, at the time of the Protestation of Spires, when the name of protestant was assumed, the Lutheran princes absolutely prohibited the celebration of mass within their dominions. In England a similar measure was passed as early as Edward VI. (k). On the accession of Elizabeth, and before the catholics had given any signs of discontent, a law was made prohibiting any religious service other than the prayer-book, the penalty for the third offence being imprisonment for life, while another law imposed a fine on anyone who abstained from the Anglican service. The Presbyterians through along succession of reigns were imprisoned, branded, mutilated, scourged, and exposed in the pillory. M any catholics, under false pretences, were tortured and hung. Anabaptists and Arlans were burnt alive (I). In Ireland the religion of the immense majority of the people was banned and prescribed, and when in 1626 the Government manifested some slight wish to grant it partial relief, nearly all the Irish protestant bishops, under the presidency of Usher, assembled to protest in a solemn resolution against the indulgence. The religion of papists, they said, is superstitious ; their faith and doctrine erroneonsaud heretical; their church in respect of both apostatical. To give them, therefore, a toleration, or to consent that they may freely exercise their religion, and profess their faith and doctrine, is a grevions sin (m) . la Scotland during nearly the whole period that the Stuarts were on the throne of England, a persecution rivaling in atrocity almost any on record was directed by the English Government, at the instigation of the Scotch bishops, and with the approbation of the English Church, against all who repudiated episcopacy. If a co venticle was hold in a house, tiie preacher was liable to he put to death. If it was held m the open air, both minister and people inenrre 1 the same fate. The preshyterians were hunted like criminals over the mountains. Their ears were torn from

the roots ; they were with hot irons ; their fingers were wrenched asunder by the thumbkins the bones of their legs were shattered in the boots ' women were scourged publicly through the streets ; multitudes were transported to Barbadoes; infuriated soldiers were let loose upon them, and encouraged to exercise all their ingenuity in torturing them (n). Nor was it only the British Government, or the zealous advocates of episcopacy who manifested this spirit. When the Reformation triumphed in Scotland, one of its first fruits was a law prohibiting any priest from celebrating, or any worshipper, from hearing mass under pain of confiscation of his goods for the first offence, of exile for the second, and death for the third (o).

Enough of this ; I am sick of these revolting details. I have quoted enough to justify my assertion “that Rome was converted by the sword.” I would not have noticed the Jesuitical two columns ; but Veritas might have thought I could not; as for that hacknied passage from Josephus, it has been proved over and over again to belong to the list of pious frauds. I am, &c., W.N.