Bartholomew's day, the horrors of
the Inquisition, the crusades against the Albigenses and the simple
dwellers of the Vaudois valleys, have been regarded as atrocities
peculiar to the believers in papal infallibility, and the necessary
consequences of their doctrines; and hence they have looked upon the
constitutional agitation of the Irish Catholics for relief from grieveous
disabilities and unjust distinctions as a struggle merely for supremacy
or power.
Strange, that the truth to which all history so strongly testifies should
thus be overlooked,--the undeniable truth that religious bigotry and
intolerance have been confined to no single sect; that the persecuted of
one century have been the persecutors of another. In our own country,
it would be well for us to remember that at the very time when in New
England the Catholic, the Quaker, and the Baptist were banished on pain
of death, and where some even suffered that dreadful penalty, in Catholic
Maryland, under the Catholic Lord Baltimore, perfect liberty of
conscience was established, and Papist and Protestant went quietly
through the same streets to their respective altars.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25