Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/227

214 left there strew the sand; the horses they have houghed crawl around and bite the ground moistened with human blood, in the slow agonies of starvation to which they were doomed. "What is all this for?" I ask. And Joshua, the son of Nun, answers, "It is an act of religion. We have the commandment of God. He told me in Hebrew words, 'Hough the horses, destroy the towns, kill the men, kill the women, kill the children, kill the babes newly born,’ These are descendants of Canaan, whom God cursed. Glory to God!" And all the filibustering army lift up their Hebrew voices and cry, "Glory to God!" with one terrific shout.

Next, I make a long stride, and I find a knot of Roman soldiers surrounding a young man whom they have nailed to a cross. His head has fallen to one side—he is just dead. It is eighteen hundred and twenty-one years ago, last Thursday. A wealthy, educated looking priest stands by, very joyful, and I ask him, "Who is this man?" And he answers, "O, he is a miserable fellow from Nazareth in Galilee. His name was Jesus. Don't you see it up there?" "Why did you kill him ? Was he a murderer?" "A murderer! Murder was nothing to his crime." "Was he a kidnapper? A deceitful politician, who got office and abused it for the people's harm? Or a hypocritical priest, who thought one thing in his study, and proclaimed just the opposite in the temple?" "O no! He was an infidel. He said religion was nothing but piety and morality; or, as he called it, loving God and your neighbour as yourselves. He said man was greater than the Sabbath, more than this temple, and that religion would save a man, without burning the blood of goats, and bulls, and sheep. Besides, he spoke against the priesthood—against us, and said we would compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he had done it, we had made him twice as much a child of hell as ourselves." "Was there no other way to deal with such a man?" asks the visitor. "We tried to argue him down, but it was of no use. He beat us in every argument before the accursed people, who know not the law; and the more we abused him, the more would the silly people flock after him, revere him, and love him. Why, he said we were graves, that appear not, and men stumble into them;