Foxe - The Book of Martyrs
The mystery of history is not completely dark, since it is a veil which only partially conceals the creative activity and spiritual forces and the operation of spiritual laws. It is commonplace to say that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church yet what we are asserting is simply that individual acts of spiritual decision bear social fruit …For the great cultural changes and historic revolutions that decide the fate of nations or the character of an age is the cumulative result of a number of spiritual decisions … the faith and insight, or the refusal and blindness, of individuals. No one can put his finger on the ultimate spiritual act that tilts the balance, and makes the external order of society assume a new form… Persecution, powerless to destroy or even to shake this new community, made it only the more sensible of its own strength, and pressed it into a more compact body.
The mystery of history is not completely dark, since it is a veil which only partially conceals the creative activity and spiritual forces and the operation of spiritual laws. It is commonplace to say that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church yet what we are asserting is simply that individual acts of spiritual decision bear social fruit …For the great cultural changes and historic revolutions that decide the fate of nations or the character of an age is the cumulative result of a number of spiritual decisions … the faith and insight, or the refusal and blindness, of individuals. No one can put his finger on the ultimate spiritual act that tilts the balance, and makes the external order of society assume a new form… Persecution, powerless to destroy or even to shake this new community, made it only the more sensible of its own strength, and pressed it into a more compact body.
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<strong>Foxe</strong>’s <strong>Book</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Martyrs</strong><br />
Three infant children <strong>of</strong> a Protestant, named Peter Fine, were covered with snow, and<br />
stifled; an elderly widow, named Judith, was beheaded, and a beautiful young woman was<br />
stripped naked, and had a stake driven through her body, <strong>of</strong> which she expired.<br />
Lucy, the wife <strong>of</strong> Peter Besson, a woman far gone in her pregnancy, who lived in one <strong>of</strong><br />
the villages <strong>of</strong> the Piedmontese valleys, determined, if possible, to escape from such dreadful<br />
scenes as everywhere surrounded her: she, accordingly took two young children, one in each<br />
hand, and set <strong>of</strong>f towards the Alps. But on the third day <strong>of</strong> the journey she was taken in<br />
labour among the mountains, and delivered <strong>of</strong> an infant, who perished through the extreme<br />
inclemency <strong>of</strong> the weather, as did the two other children; for all three were found dead by<br />
her, and herself just expiring, by the person to whom she related the above particulars.<br />
Francis Gros, the son <strong>of</strong> a clergyman, had his flesh slowly cut from his body into small<br />
pieces, and put into a dish before him; two <strong>of</strong> his children were minced before his sight; and<br />
his wife was fastened to a post, that she might behold all these cruelties practiced on her<br />
husband and <strong>of</strong>fspring. <strong>The</strong> tormentors at length being tired <strong>of</strong> exercising their cruelties, cut<br />
<strong>of</strong>f the heads <strong>of</strong> both husband and wife, and then gave the flesh <strong>of</strong> the whole family to the<br />
dogs.<br />
<strong>The</strong> sieur Thomas Margher fled to a cave, when the soldiers shut up the mouth, and he<br />
perished with famine. Judith Revelin, and seven children, were barbarously murdered in their<br />
beds; and a widow <strong>of</strong> near fourscore years <strong>of</strong> age, was hewn to pieces by soldiers.<br />
Jacob Roseno was ordered to pray to the saints, which he absolutely refused to do: some<br />
<strong>of</strong> the soldiers beat him violently with bludgeons to make him comply, but he still refusing,<br />
several <strong>of</strong> them fired at him, and lodged a great many balls in his body. As he was almost<br />
expiring, they cried to him, "Will you call upon the saints? Will you pray to the saints?" To<br />
which he answered "No! No! No!" when one <strong>of</strong> the soldiers, with a broadsword, clove his<br />
head asunder, and put an end to his sufferings in this world; for which undoubtedly, he is<br />
gloriously rewarded in the next.<br />
A soldier, attempting to ravish a young woman, named Susanna Gacquin, she made a<br />
stout resistance, and in the struggle pushed him over a precipice, when he was dashed to<br />
pieces by the fall. His comrades, instead <strong>of</strong> admiring the virtue <strong>of</strong> the young woman, and<br />
applauding her for so nobly defending her chastity, fell upon her with their swords, and cut<br />
her to pieces.<br />
Giovanni Pulhus, a poor peasant <strong>of</strong> La Torre, being apprehended as a Protestant by the<br />
soldiers, was ordered, by the marquis <strong>of</strong> Pianesta, to be executed in a place near the convent.<br />
When he came to the gallows, several monks attended, and did all they could to persuade<br />
him to renounce his religion. But he told them he never would embrace idolatry, and that he<br />
was happy at being thought worthy to suffer for the name <strong>of</strong> Christ. <strong>The</strong>y then put him in<br />
mind <strong>of</strong> what his wife and children, who depended upon his labour, would suffer after his<br />
decease; to which he replied, "I would have my wife and children, as well as myself, to<br />
consider their souls more than their bodies, and the next world before this; and with respect<br />
to the distress I may leave them in, God is merciful, and will provide for them while they are<br />
worthy <strong>of</strong> his protection." Finding the inflexibility <strong>of</strong> this poor man, the monks cried, "Turn<br />
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