But you will perhaps say, such a course of conduct would inevitably
expose us to great suffering. Yes! my christian friends, I believe it
would, but this will _not_ excuse you or any one else for the neglect of
_duty_. If Prophets and Apostles, Martyrs, and Reformers had not been
willing to suffer for the truth's sake, where would the world have been
now? If they had said, we cannot speak the truth, we cannot do what we
believe is right, because the _laws of our country or public opinion are
against us_, where would our holy religion have been now? The Prophets
were stoned, imprisoned, and killed by the Jews. And why? Because they
exposed and openly rebuked public sins; they opposed public opinion; had
they held their peace, they all might have lived in ease and died in
favor with a wicked generation. Why were the Apostles persecuted from
city to city, stoned, incarcerated, beaten, and crucified? Because they
dared to _speak the truth_; to tell the Jews, boldly and fearlessly,
that _they_ were the _murderers_ of the Lord of Glory, and that, however
great a stumbling-block the Cross might be to them, there was no other
name given under heaven by which men could be saved, but the name of
Jesus. Because they declared, even at Athens, the seat of learning and
refinement, the self-evident truth, that "they be no gods that are made
with men's hands," and exposed to the Grecians the foolishness of
worldly wisdom, and the impossibility of salvation but through Christ,
whom they despised on account of the ignominious death he died. Because
at Rome, the proud mistress of the world, they thundered out the terrors
of the law upon that idolatrous, war-making, and slave-holding
community. Why were the martyrs stretched upon the rack, gibbetted and
burnt, the scorn and diversion of a Nero, whilst their tarred and
burning bodies sent up a light which illuminated the Roman capital? Why
were the Waldenses hunted like wild beasts upon the mountains of
Piedmont, and slain with the sword of the Duke of Savoy and the proud