PERSECUTION

Oh how happy are we in these days that we are not subjected to the fierce sufferings, and the cruel persecutions, which the early christians, and even our own forefathers had to endure! How often in a Jewish family, as soon as a young man had become a follower of Christ, from that moment, none of his family would acknowledge him. He was a follower of the hated Nazarene! "A curse be upon him" said his father, and even a mother's tenderness seemed dried up, so that she could not think of him without bitterness or gall.A like thing happened also in the old Roman families. The child of a Roman noble had stepped into some little place where humble and unlettered people met to hear the gospel preached, to sing songs in the name of Jesus, and to keep holy one day in the week, and there that youthful heart had learned the story of the cross, and by the grace of God had been brought to love the Saviour. As soon as the fact was made known, the officers of justice would take the child away from the father's house, and hale the young believer off to prison. When persecution grew very hot in the old Roman times, you know how the good, and the great, and the true, the strong and the old, the young and the maiden, had alike to flee for their lives. If they remained, it was only to be dragged before the Roman praetor, and short work was made of them at the stake or the arena. Soon nothing was left of them but a heap of ashes from the martyr fire, or a few bones that the wild beasts did not care to eat.
Horrible work was wrought too when the the Roman Catholic Church had it's full power, and the officers of the Inquisition, at dead of night, knocked at the door of some christian man and demanded either himself, or his wife, or his son, or his daughter, they had to surrender themselves without a word, that they might be immured in the damp, dark vaults of that hellish institution. never to be seen again, except on some dreadful day, when they were marched out in derision to be burned alive because they would not bow down before images of ivory and wood and call those idols the Christ to whom homage and reverence should be paid. It was so in our own land during the persecutions of Queen Mary. And after that , when our noble sires would not conform to the established Church of this land, and were therefore hunted into the dens and caves of the earth, as though they had been wild beasts, instead of men of whom the world was not worthy. Many of the best and bravest of England's sons and daughters fled away to America and found another and safer home there, in New England, where the wild rocks were less flinty than the hearts of men here in England.
When days of persecution come again, will we be able to give up all? Could the husband let his wife and children go for Christ's sake? Could the children again give up the father's love? Could you wrench yourself away from all your dear ones, to prove that you truly belonged to Christ, and that you loved Him more than father or mother, husband or wife, or any of your kin? God grant that the true martyr spirit may not die out in our heart, even if, in God's gracious providence, it be not called into terrible exercise as among the brave peasants of Switzerland, or the noble covenanters of Scotland, or the old Nonconformists of England. At any rate, whatever we are called to endure, may we be true and loyal to the gospel for which our fathers bled and died. And if the times of persecution should ever come again, as come they may, may we be ready again to forsake the place of comfort, luxury and peace for our Lord Jesus Christ.