Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 5).djvu/378

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It is true. Alexander, the new governor, has sent out soldiers to search the houses of the brethren. Even women and children are whipped till they bleed, if they are suspected of hiding books.

The Emperor's decree applies not to Antioch only, nor even to Syria; it applies to the empire and the whole world. Every smallest word that is written concerning Christ is to be wiped out of existence, and out of the memory of believers.

Oh ye mothers, weep for yourselves and for your children!

The day will come when ye shall dispute with those ye now carry in your arms, as to what was in truth written in the lost Word of God. The day will come when your children's children shall mock at you, and shall not know who or what Christ was.

The day will come when no heart shall remember that once on a time the Saviour of the world suffered and died.

The last believer shall go in darkness to his grave, and from that hour shall Golgotha vanish away from the earth, like the place where the Garden of Eden lay.

Woe, woe, to the new Pilate! He is not content, like the first, to slay the Saviour's body. He murders the word and the faith!

[Tearing their hair and rending their garments.] Woe, woe, woe!