MARTYRDOM.
And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment;
They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;
(Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.—Hebrews, xi. 36, 37, 38.
I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the Word of God.—Revelations, xx. 4.
The Sacred Book, its value understood,
Received the seal of martyrdom in blood.
These holy men, so full of truth and grace,
Seem, to reflection, of a different race;
Meek, modest, venerable, wise, sincere,
In such a cause they could not dare to fear;
They could not purchase earth with such a price,
Or spare a life too short to reach the skies.
From them to thee conveyed along the tide,
Their streaming hearts poured freely when they died;
Those truths which neither use nor years impair,
Invite thee, woo thee, to the bliss they share.
Cowper.
In vain the Roman lord
Waved the relentless sword,
And spread the terrors of the circling flame;
In vain the heathen sought,
If chance some lurking spot,
Might mar the lustre of the Christian name:
The Eternal Spirit, by His fruits confessed,
In life secured from stains, and steel’d in death, the breast.
Bishop Mant.
The Son of God is gone to war,
A kingly crown to gain;
His blood-red banner streams afar;
Who follows in his train?
—Who best can drink his cup of woe,
Triumphant over pain;
Who boldest bears his cross below,—
The martyr first, whose eagle-eye
Could pierce beyond the grave;
Who saw his Master in the sky,
And call’d on him to save:
Like him, with pardon on his tongue,
In midst of mortal pain,
He pray’d for them who did the wrong:
—Who follows in the train?
Heber.
When persecution’s torrent blaze
Wraps the unshrinking martyr’s head,
When fade all earthly flowers and bays,
When summer friends are gone and fled,
Is he alone in that dark hour,
Who owns the Lord of love and power?
Or waves there not around his brow,
A wand no human arm may wield,
Fraught with a spell no angels know,
His steps to guide, his soul to shield?
Thou, Saviour, art his Charmed Bower,
His Magic Ring, his Rock, his Tower.
Keble.
In rendering to the Lord what is the Lord’s,
Doth not the thought of violence bring shame?
Think ye, He gave the branching forest-tree
To furnish fagots for the funeral pyre,
Or bid His sunrise light the world, to see
Pale, tortured victims perish there by fire?
Mrs. Norton.
The blood of martyrs, living still,
Makes the ground pregnant where it flows,
And for their temporary ill
Thereon eternal triumph grows.
J. A. Heraud.
Thy children, even as martyrs perished:
Those first-loved fruits that sprang from thee,
From which thy heart was doomed to sever,
In praise of God, shall bloom for ever,
Unhurt, untouched, by tyranny.
Vondel.