Perhaps we were spared victory for our souls' sake. When a progressive friend told me that liberal bishops were screamed at, spat upon, and had objects hurled at them, I asked for a specific example. He drew a blank. Perhaps it was being done by some non-Episcopalians, he said. If he called conservatives hateful, they must have done something .
Progressives turn out to be traditionalists after all.
Unfounded rumors swept many a medieval town until a synagogue was in flames. I am reminded of the second-century account of the martyrs of Lyons. They wrote that persecution began with a whisper campaign, then grew to social ostracism, and finally arrest, trial and execution. By the time the Christians were in prison, the rumors of things they'd done had grown so bizarre that the prisoners didn't believe some of them were even physically possible. But the good people of Lyons were so horrified to find these monsters in their midst that the cruelest tortures they could devise seemed scantly sufficient.