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Show A LES iON FROM HISTORY. ' When Home waa at the -nith of il? , lory aii'l power, a new R-litfiuiw sect sprunx up in a comparatively obscure ; anl ruiuoLo provinoo of that vast empire, em-pire, lu jijumlcr walrom the luwor walk of lile; its profrre.-.s was marked hy the wildest aceu-atkm aai ri.it him and liis follower; ami lieibre it ap peareJ to have a fair foot hold auion ineu he was seized, uharireJ with treason, trea-son, and was executed in the harhar ous manner in whieli slaves and the vilest malefactors were then put to death. But it grew in proportion a itjj adherents were persecuted. With occasional season of peace and quiet, in which they continued the work of making proselytes, the mo.it savage cruelties were perpetrated on them for nearly a couple of centuries; and yet the faith they represented increased in importance and gained converts, until its symbol was home inscribed on the banners of kins, and myriad hosts marched to battle, animated by a mad fanaticism, under tho call of priests of a religion that had been strangely altered alter-ed from tho time when its founder, the Savior of mankind, was bound to the cross in Judea, and suffered the mar-tjrdom mar-tjrdom of an excruciating death. That religion was Christianity. It was decried by philosophers in its early days as ridiculously absurd; and its believers be-lievers were despised and derided as much as ever the Mormons havo been eighteen centuries later. Rome tried to crush out tho new faith, just as it tried to crush out Judaism after Jerusalem Jeru-salem fell before Titus; but Judaism still lives, and the greatest fame of Rome to-day is, that it has been the scat of a Christian pontiff lor more centuries than it existed as tho great secular power of the earth. Why did Rome fail? Devout Christians will say because of tho divinity in Christianity. But there are millions in Christendom , to-day, and wo presume in the congress of the United States there is a major ity, who do not believe there is any divinity in Christianity. Rome failed to crush out that strange and new faith, that was ridiculous in the estimation esti-mation of Rome's philosophers and orators, repugnant to her emperors, provincial rulers, satraps and judges, and blasphemous to the Pharisees of Jewry, for the same reason that the secular arm of power has ever failed to crush out any faith because humanity revolts against coercion of mind, and while it may bear the chains of the serf, will meet martyrdom rather than submit to a despotism that would coerce religious thought. We commend this lessuu to our federal legislators, now that numerous bills with more or less plausibly-sounding plausibly-sounding titles will be presented to them aimed at tho people of Utah. And we draw tho comparison between tho past and the present, because, while most people imagine the early Cnristians were persecuted by pagan Rome on account of their religious faith, it is just as well to understand that the principal persecutions they suffered were based ostensibly on political politi-cal grounds. This thing of trying to legislate a faith out of esisteuco is not new by any means ; but every time that a people have been deprived of the rights cDjoyed by their fellow citizens, because of their religion, the ultimate ulti-mate result has been in their favor, however much they may have been compelled to enduro in the meantime, , This is the handwriting of history; it is ; written on the pages of time by the; pen of eternal truth, and its characters; can never be obliterated. |
