But this is an argument which will recoil upon those who
advance it. Are there no instances upon record of mild, zealous,
and amiable men who preached to the savages of America that
they ought to worship the Virgin Mary? and did they not
cheerfully die by the most excruciating torments to prove it? Yes
certainly! and let any Protestant Christian read the accounts of the
preaching, sufferings, deaths, aye! and miracles too, of the Roman
Catholic missionaries in Asia, and America; and then let him
candidly answer whether he is willing to rest the issue of his
controversy with the Papists upon the argument of martyrdom? We
all know the power of enthusiasm upon a susceptible mind; and we
have read of, and perhaps sees, its effects in producing martyrdoms
among people of all religions, in all parts of the world. Nay, more,
such is the power of this principle, that even now, women in India
burn themselves alive on the funeral piles of their husbands, to
prove, as they say, their love for them, and their determination to
accompany them to the other world; when it is well known, that
they burn themselves from the impulse of vanity, and the fear of
disgrace, if they should not do so. Nay, more still, so little support
does martyrdom yield to truth, that there are more martyrdoms in
honour of the false, ridiculous, and abominable idols of Hindostan,
than any where else. You may see men hooked through the ribs,
and supported, and whirled round in the air in honour of their gods,
clapping their hands, and testifying pleasure, instead of crying out
with pain. You may see in that country, the misguided enthusiastic
worshippers of misshapen idols prostrate their bodied before the
enormous wheels of the car of Seeva, and piously suffering
themselves to be crushed in pieces by the rolling mass. And any
man who has been upon the banks of the Ganges, can tell you of
the Yoguis, and of their self-inflicted torments, compared to which,
even the cross is almost a bed of roses. Indeed the argument of
martyrdom will support any religion; and it has, in fact, been
cheerfully undergone by enthusiasts and zealots of all religions, in
testimony of the firm belief of the sufferers not only in the
absurdities of Popery, and Brachinanism, but of every, even
the most monstrous system that ever disgraced the human
understanding. There have been martyrs for Atheism itself.

This argument of martyrdom has been more particularly applied to
the Apostles