to this no doubt
stand political crimes. Even America hanged old women for witchcraft, a
crime they could not commit. Practically all the victims of religious
and political persecution have been guiltless of any real crimes, and
among them were always many of the noblest of their age.

Every general change of religious or political ideas bears its quota of
crimes. For whatever the religious or political organization, it always
uses every means in its power to perpetuate itself. This is as true of
republics as of monarchies, although the severity of punishment and the
amount of heresy permitted change from time to time. Each age is sure
that it has the true religion and the God-given political organization.
In every age the accepted religion is true, and the king and the state
can do no wrong.

One thing only seems to be sure. Human nature does not change. Whether
it was the theological systems of the ancient world fighting to keep
Christianity out, or Christianity fighting to preserve itself, the same
cruel, bigoted, fanatical majority has been found to do its will, and
the same reasons and excuses have served the law from the earliest
times down to today.

A letter of the younger Pliny, who was then governor of Bythinia-Pontus,
a province of Rome, asking the Emperor Trajan for instructions in
dealing with the early Christians shows how persistent are intolerance
and bigotry. This might have been written yesterday to seek advice in
the suppression of opinion and punishment for sedition in any of the
most advanced governments of the modern world, as it was in the most
advanced of the ancient world. The letter is here reproduced as an
interesting exhibit of human nature and it fixity.

Pliny, the younger, was born in 61 A.D. and became governor of the
province of Bythinia-Pontus about the year 112 A.D. under the Emperor
Trajan. In the discharge of his duties as governor, Pliny discovered
that the conversion of many of his subjects to Christianity had resulted
in a falling off of trade in the victims usually purchased for
sacrifices at the temples and in other commodities used in connection
with pagan worship. As a good governor, Pliny sought to remedy this
economic situation, and his plan was to restore his subjects to their
old forms of worship. Thus he was brought into contact with
Christianity. The following letters, one from Pliny to Trajan, and the
other, Trajan's reply, show the situation. These documents are f