A Thrilling Picture by Elliot

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 20, 1856

A Thrilling Picture.

By Elliot

In perusing the early history of the church there is nothing that more forcibly arrests the attention and appeals to the mind, than the terrible sufferings which the early Christians endured, and over which they triumphed. Let us for a moment contemplate them.

Go with me to the province of Bithynia. Its cities and villages are thronged with Christians. Every day witnesseth their increase, and the temples of the Roman gods are abandoned. Pliny is the governor of that province. An edict comes from the Emperor of Rome, demanding that Christianity be exterminated; that those who will not renounce it, who will not revile Christ and adore the heathen gods, be put first to torture and then to death. It is the command from Rome, and the arm of Rome, of appalling power, is raised to enforce it. It makes the blood run cold to imagine the conflict now to ensue, a conflict between the powers of bodily agony and the stability of regenerated hearts. A few of the timid and half converted sink from the terrible ordeal, and renounce the Saviour. The rest nerve themselves to endurance. They fast and pray, and pray and fast. They call upon Christ for help; they try to encourage one another, and look forward to the hour of trial with trembling hearts, for fear they should not be able to sustain the burden they are called to bear.

Go into the hall of judgment and witness the scene there; it is morning. Pliny is seated to judge and condemn. Ferocious Roman soldiers drag into the hall a Christian family. A father and mother, with their son and daughter, compose the trembling group. The hour of trial is come.

"Are you a Christian?" says Pliny to the father.

"I am!"

"Will you revile Christ, and worship the gods?"

"No!"

"Apply the punishment."

Bone after bone breaks beneath the dreadful wheel.

"Will you renounce Christ?"

"No!" groans the agonized Christian.

The glowing pincers are applied, and nerve after nerve is lacerated, till the whole frame is a mangled mass quivering with agony.

"Will you renounce Christ?"

"No!" feebly exclaims the exhausted sufferer.

"Take him to his death."

And as the father is hurried to the yard to be beheaded, he turns his languid eye to his fainting family, and says, "They that endure to the end shall be saved." He forgets himself and his own agony in his solicitude for his wife and children—and as the axe falls upon his neck, his lips are moving in prayer that they may be sustained.

And now the mother stands before the judge! And now will woman's nerves endure this trial! The mother's heart is a tempest of anguish for the trembling daughter at her side. And as the wheel crushes her limbs, and the flesh is torn from her bones, her only cry is, "Oh, God of mercy, help my children."

The soldiers, maddened with rage, drag her rudely to the block, and the next moment her headless trunk lies by the side of that of her husband.

And now the daughter takes the stand; trembling, fainting, praying, she clings to her Saviour. But as the wheel performs its dreadful work, and the pincers tear her youthful limbs, one dreadful shriek pierces every ear, and a frantic cry of the renunciation of Christ escapes her lips.

But the cry was but the delirium of her agony. For ere the tormentors have time to stop their work, she renounces her renunciation—she cries for forgiveness—she clings to her Saviour, and in contrition for her momentary and almost unconscious denial, forgets her pain, and terrifies her executioners by the calm, the unearthly determination with which she invites them to finish their work. They do finish it; terribly they finish it.

But let us leave this dreadful scene, not forgetting that for days, and weeks, and months, this bloody persecution raged with unsparing rapidity; and that these very sufferings, by the fortitude with which they were endured, multiplied converts to the Saviour.

Let us go from the province to the capital. It is a Roman holiday. Let us go to the Coliseum. A hundred thousand spectators crowd its vast amphitheatre, rising rank upon rank, almost to the clouds; lank, half famished lions are growling along the avenue, flashing their fierce eyes upon the multitudes beyond their reach; the impatience of the countless throng is manifested by loud murmurs, like the noise of many waters, as the expected sport is delayed.

An iron door is cautiously opened—every eye is fixed upon it. A female is thrust in, and the door closed. There is a growl and a rush, and her limbs are torn into a thousand pieces, and crumbling beneath the teeth of the contending lions. One shout from the vast multitude, louder than the ocean's tempest, rends the air—when again the door is opened, and another victim thrust in for their sport. What is the crime of the sufferers? They are Christians. They have renounced the idol gods of Rome, and have become the disciples of Jesus.

But let us turn from this dreadful spectacle, and go to the gardens. It is a lovely evening. Every tree is spangled with many colored lamps. Through the foliage, the illuminated palace turns night into day. All that Rome can give of splendor or of elegance adorns the walks. Statutes crowd the corners and hover around the fountains, and music of enchanting melody is breathed as if by magic, from every bower and grove.

But what mean those shrieks which now and then rise above the murmur of the multitude, and with awful discord pierce through the harmony of Nero's most accomplished bands?

What mean those bonfires blazing so brightly, resembling the human form convulse as if with pain, and emitting their mysterious shrieks! They are living Christians wrapped in sheets, smeared with tar and pitch, and bitumen, and fired to light the pathway of Nero's chariot, and to give a brilliance to the rejoicings of the population of Rome.

These were the trials of early Christians. The young man who then became a Christian, went to be mangled on the wheel, and to be beheaded at the block. Young man, why do you not become a Christian? Associates will revile me, you reply. If I give my heart to Christ, and consecrate my life to his service, I cannot mingle in gayety, and flutter through life in pleasure. The Roman youth who joined the church of Christ, must endure the utmost bodily agony, and lay down his life. If you, in sincerity of heart, join the friends of Jesus, you have nothing to fear but the jest of the wicked.

A day of Judgment is coming. And the pleasure-loving young man of these privileged days must stand by the side of the youthful martyrs of Rome. The youthful females of the present day, who now neglect the Saviour, must stand in the judgment by the side of their Roman sisters, who so loved the Saviour, that for his sake they would lie upon the torturing wheel, and feed the famished lion with their bodies. How will you meet the contrast!

ELLIOT. [Boston Recorder.