Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/287

Rh Some ministers have been silent; others have spoken out in favour of the lower law, and in derision of the higher law. Here is a famous minister* the very chief of his denomination, reported in the newspapers to have said that he would surrender his own mother to Slavery rather than have the Union dissolved! I believe him this time. A few years ago that minister printed, in the organ of his sect, that the existence of God was "not a certainty!" He did not mean to say that he doubted or disbelieved it, only that it was "not a certainty!" I should suppose that ho had gone further in that direction, and thought the non-existence of God was "a certainty." But he is not quite original in this proposed sacrifice. He has been preceded and outbid by a Spanish Catholic; Here is the story, in Señor de Castro's History of the Spanish Protestants, written this very year. I can tell the story shorter than it is there related. In 1581, there lived a man in Yalladolid, who had two Protestant daughters, being himself a Catholic. The Inquisition was in full blast, and its fiery furnace heated seven times hotter than before. This man, according to the commandment of the priests and Pope, complained to the inquisitors against his daughters, who were summoned to appear before them. They Were tried, and condemned to be mimed alive, at his suggestion. He furnished the accusation, brought forward the evidence, and was the only witness in the case. That Was not all. After this condemnation, he went round his own estates, and from selected trees out down morsels of wood, and carried them to the city to use in burning his own daughters. He was allowed to do this, and of course the priest commended him for his piety and love of God! Thus, in 1581, in Valladolid, a father, at noon-day, with wood from his own estate, on his own complaint and evidence, with his own hands, burned his two daughters alive; and the Catholic Church said, "Well done!" Now, in my opinion, the Hidalgo of Valladolid a little surpasses the Unitarian Doctor of Divinity. I do not know what re-