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Persecution of Prophets |
The great Prophets of religion have always been, at Their
coming, despised and rejected of men. Both They and Their
early followers have given their backs to the smiters and
sacrificed their possessions and their lives in the path of God.
Even in our own times this has been so. Since 1844 A.D., many
thousands of Bábís and Bahá’ís in Persia have suffered cruel
deaths for their faith, and many more have borne imprisonment,
exile, poverty and degradation. The latest of the great
religions has been “baptized in blood” more than its predecessors,
and martyrdoms have continued down to the present day.
With the prophets of science the same thing has happened.
Giordano Bruno was burned as a heretic in 1600 A.D. for
teaching, amongst other things, that the earth moved around
the sun. A few years later the veteran philosopher Galileo had
to abjure the same doctrine on his knees in order to escape a
similar fate. In later times, Darwin and the pioneers of modern
geology were vehemently denounced for daring to dispute the
teaching of Holy Write that the world was made in six days,
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and less than six thousand years ago! The opposition to new
scientific truth has not all come from the Church, however.
The orthodox in science have been just as hostile to progress
as the orthodox in religion. Columbus was laughed to scorn by
the so-called scientists of his day, who proved to their own
satisfaction that if ships did succeed in getting down to the
Antipodes over the side of the globe, it would be absolutely
impossible for them to get up again! Galvani, the pioneer of
electrical science, was scoffed at by his learned colleagues, and
called the “frogs’ dancing master.” Harvey, who discovered
the circulation of the blood, was ridiculed and persecuted by
his professional brethren on account of his heresy and driven
from his lecture chair. When Stephenson invented his locomotive
engine, European mathematicians of the time, instead of
opening their eyes and studying the facts, continued for years
to prove to their own satisfaction that an engine on smooth
rails could never pull a load, as the wheels would simply slip
round and round and the train make no progress. To examples
like these one might add indefinitely, both from ancient and
modern history, and even from our own times. Dr. Zamenhof,
the inventor of Esperanto, had to battle for his wonderful
international language against the same sort of ridicule, contempt,
and stupid opposition which greeted Columbus, Galvani,
and Stephenson. Even Esperanto, which was given to the
world so recently as 1887, has had its martyrs.
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