And so it went. We have few reliable statistics upon the
subject, but on the whole, the Protestants tired of this game
long before the Catholics, and the greater part of honest men
and women who were burned and hanged and decapitated on
account of their religious beliefs fell as victims of the very
energetic but also very drastic church of Rome.
For tolerance (and please remember this when you grow
older), is of very recent origin and even the people of our own
so-called ``modern world'' are apt to be tolerant only upon such
matters as do not interest them very much. They are tolerant
towards a native of Africa, and do not care whether he becomes
a Buddhist or a Mohammedan, because neither Buddhism nor
Mohammedanism means anything to them. But when they
hear that their neighbour who was a Republican and believed
in a high protective tariff, has joined the Socialist party and
now wants to repeal all tariff laws, their tolerance ceases and
they use almost the same words as those employed by a kindly
Catholic (or Protestant) of the seventeenth century, who was
informed that his best friend whom he had always respected
and loved had fallen a victim to the terrible heresies of the
Protestant (or Catholic) church.
``Heresy'' until a very short time ago was regarded as a
disease. Nowadays when we see a man neglecting the personal
cleanliness of his body and his home and exposing himself
and his children to the dangers of typhoid fever or another
preventable disease, we send for the board-of-health and the
health officer calls upon the police to aid him in removing this
person who is a danger to the safety of the entire community.
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