The Sun.
London, England, 1820-01-14 00:00:00

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BLASPHEMY.

With many of those acts to which L rw, with a
teeessary regard to the rights of the Community,
has adjudged punishment, there are in human
nature many sources of sympathy; and this feel-
ing, not unfrequently, render& such punishment
nugatoi y, or at least greatly diminishes its efficacy
in the prevention of crime. But there is One
crime which shuts up the hearts of all against its
perpetrator, and makes them to award and to
witness his punishment, with a stein and almost
impitying spirit. This is the crime tot BLASPHEMY.
In the BLASPHEMER WC see the enemy of all the
human nice. We see him flinging poison into the
well of Life 3 nod when we think that the poor
who rup-tir 'hither in their thirst fur refreshment,
n..ry drii,k pollution to death, from a lrat corner
.it the sati,fied conscience cirn come one single
feeble whi•per, ialicting punishment on
the mereile,s destroyer
'' We fi•sit out selves sometimes driven to the stern

necessity of puling a milefActot to death, tor
some one dangerous and impaidonable clime. He
Gas tor (riled his life---and the forfeit must ot paid.
Say that he is a robber, or a miliderer, that he
has violated property. And abed blo .d. Never did
time exist, in human Society, robber and tutu--
tlerur, who had the power at being so destructive
by acts of violence rind blood to his •Idlow crea-
tures, as the BLASPHEMER. The one disregards
the Commandments ot tiod and Man. 'The other
would obliterate them—would break the tablets
on which they are eirgreven. A rilou:atid tutus
dee* lie at the door of every BLASPHitMER
" Could we Allipi.Se PAINS to !hive suffered
se-
pars►r punishment for each of all the capital
ccinies that he lids virtually committed, boar after
boor, and d.ay atter day, must the bones of the
rinirlitty wretch have h. en broken on Ihe whei.) !''
(The )f'eirder, Nu 2, Blackwood's . Edinburgh
Mugasiire, Dec. 1819.)
POPERY.
Little more than a Century ago.
_ _ _

Nov. 3, 1685.-.." The French pe-rseention of
the Protestants raging with the utmost barbarity,
exceeded even what the very heathens used ;
mimer able persons of the greatest birth and riches,
leaving all their earthly substance, and hardly es-
caping with their lives, dispersed through all the
commies of Europe. The Freud) tyrant abro-
gated the Edict of Nantes, which had been made
in favour of them, and without any cause—on a
and:Nine demolishing all their churches. banish-
ing, imprisoning, and sending to the gallies all
the Al te: s ; plundering the common people,
and exposing them to all sorts of barbarous usage
by sonldiers sent 'to mine and prey on then, tak-
ing away their children ; forcing people to the
masse, and then executing them as -telapsers ;
they burnt thrir libraries, pillaged their goods,
eate up their fields and substance, banished or
aent the people to the ;tallies, and seized on their
estates. There had now been numbered to passe
throng!' Geneva onely (and that by stealth, for
all the usual passages were strictly parried
by sea and land) 40,000 towards Switzerland.
In Holland,,-Demnark, and all about Ger marry,
were dispe:4ViViome. hundred thousands, besides
those iO.Kniland; where multitudes of all degrees
sought '.for .shelter and welcome as distressed
C ristians and Co4tessors."--(Eue/Pes Meer. I.
616.)

See the tender mero,fs of l'Apists, so little re-
moved • from our ow-tv'times, in which they ale
unchanged.