e it! Such scenes were not rare, and the fury and greed of the
mob were often directed against the Jews by the machinations of the
creatures of the archbishop and the government. The things I saw there
were so horrible, so shocking, that the tongue refuses to tell them; but
one poor Jewess, whose husband the wretches--our fellow
Christians--killed, and then pillaged the house, I have never forgotten!
A soldier dragged her down by her hair, while a ruffian snatched the
child from her breast and, holding it by its feet, dashed its skull
against the wall before her eyes--as you might slash a wet cloth against
a pillar to dry it--I shall never forget that handsome young mother and
her child; they come before me in my dreams at night even now.

"All these things I saw; and I shuddered to behold God's creatures,
beings endowed with reason, persecuting their fellows, plunging them into
misery, tearing them limb from limb--and why? Merciful Saviour, why? For
sheer hatred--as sure as man is the standard for all things--merely
carried away by a hideous impulse to spite their neighbor for not
thinking as they do--nay, simply for not being themselves--to hurt him,
insult him, work him woe. And these fanatics, these armies who raised the
standard of ruthlessness, of extermination, of bloodthirstiness, were
Christians, were baptized in the name of Him who bids us forgive our
enemies, who enlarged the borders of love from the home and the city and
the state to include all mankind; who raised the adulteress from the
dust, who took children into his arms, and would have more joy over a
sinner who repents than over ninety and nine just persons!--Blood, blood,
was what they craved; and did not the doctrine of Him whose followers
they boastfully called themselves grow out of the blood of Him who shed
it for all men alike,--just as that lotos flower grows out of the clear
water in the marble tank? And it was the highest guardians and keepers of
this teaching of mercy, who goaded on the fury of the mob: Patriarchs,
bishops, priests and deacons--instead of pointing to the picture of the
Shepherd who tenderly carries the lost sheep and brings it home to the
fold.

"My own times seemed to me the worst that had ever been; aye, and--as
surely as man is the standard of all things--so they are! for love is
turned to hatred, mercy to implacable hardheartedness. The thrones not
only of the temporal but of the spiritual rulers, are dripping with the