Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1875 — The Martyrs to Truth. [ARTICLE]

The Martyrs to Truth.

When we remember how hard it has always been to establish a new principle, or even to introduce a new thought to the public mind; how many centuries of discussion have been required to eradicate ingrained errors, uproot inborn prejudices, and change long-cherished opinions, and how fierce and bloody have been the struggles between new truths and old errors in all ages; and when we see how rapidly at the present time new doctrines, new arts, new sciences and new systems in all departments of human research, involving all the relations and all the interests of human beings, are “ bursting into birth,” how can we help desiring to remain yet a little longer on this beautiful footstool, unless we are sick and miserable? By the way, the sick and miserable are generally more afraid and more unwilling to die (morbid “ cautiousness” and “ vitativeness”) than are the healthy and happy. It is the persons who have the most to live for—the most to give and the least to get — who are the most ready to die, other things being equal. These are the martyrs to truth and the saviors of mankind. But the world knows them not. The world is still too prone to applaud its deceivers and reward its destroyers, while it persecutes its teachers and crucifies its saviors. Socrates conceived the idea of the immortality of the soul. He offered to give to the world what he regarded as a new truth, and the world put him to death. Confucius taught the upper and lower classes of China that their interests were mutual, and both classes repudiated him. Tycho Brahe, Galileo and Servetus advanced what they sincerely believed to be important truths, and vis conseroatrix burnt them at the stake. A greater than all ot these taught the people to do to others as they would have others do unto them, and for this He was crucified between two thieves. How strange that in all ages differences of opinion, which are unavoidable, have been punished with more severity than have vices and crimes, which are voluntary!— Science of Health.