“That religious persecution is a greater evil than any other, is apparent, not so much from the enormous and almost incredible number of its known victims, as from the fact that the unknown must be far more numerous, and that history gives no account of those who have been spared in the body, in order that they might suffer in the mind. We hear much of martyrs and confessors— of those who were slain by the sword, or consumed in the fire; but we know little of that still larger number who, by the mere threat of persecution, have been driven into an outward abandonment of their real opinions; and who, thus forced into an apostasy the heart abhors, have passed the remainder of their lives in the practice of a constant and humiliating hypocrisy. It is this which is the real curse of religious persecution. For in this way, men being constrained to mask their thoughts, there arises a habit of securing safety by falsehood, and of purchasing impunity with deceit. In this way, fraud becomes a necessary of life; insincerity is made a daily custom; the whole tone of public feeling is vitiated, and the gross amount of vice and of error fearfully increased. Surely, then, we have reason to say, that, compared to this, all other crimes are of small account; and we may well be grateful for that increase of intellectual pursuits, which has destroyed an evil that some among us would even now willingly restore.”*
-----------------------------------------/
*Jones, Alonzo T. .
The American Sentinel: Volume 1 (pp. 317-318). Adventist Pioneer Library. Kindle Edition.
Alonzo Trévier Jones (1850 – May 12, 1923) was a Seventh-day Adventist known for his impact on the theology of the church, along with friend and associate Ellet J. Waggoner. He was a key participant in the 1888 Minneapolis General Conference Session regarded as a landmark event in the history of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alonzo_T._Jones
