Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1859-02-12
From the Erie True American.
SWALLOWING A CAMEL.

SWALLOWING A CAMEL.
This io a pretentous age. Were Governments
as wisely administered as they claim; were par
ties and sccts as liberal were men as good and
were society as pure as not few pretended it
would indeed be a remarkable age. Strip lit of the
gliding Of Pretence, remove the lacker, and there
remains something to laugh and weep over alter
natsly. 1t is very good world, though, all things
considered. l, is getting more sensible every year
and may yet become very desirable Place to
"settle" in.
The Romish Hierarchy has been doing great
piece Of foolishness but Power is seldom wise in
action, since it seeks to perpetuae itself ex'
cept by grasping more than it can conveniently
hold
We have never published anything concerning
the "Mortara Abduction" as it is called. nor even
referred to it that we recollect The frantic
dcnuncaons Of Rome by such papers as the Phil
adelphia Daily News and its ik, did 50 sicken us
Of the that we retreated into temporary ST.
lence. But the case has taken on q new phase.
Government is called upon to interfere aud dc
mand the restoration Ct the young Morta-a to his
parents. The material facts of the case may be
briefly stated as follows:
ID, There lives, or lived, at Bolognc, Italy, Jew.
Mortara by name; to whom. about six years ago
child was born. Now Mortara had female serv.
ant Roman Catholic, and, as is not unfrequently
the case. aboundiDg more in zeal than in discre-
zion This servant took it upon herself to baptze
Master Edgar Mortara into the Mother Church.
clandestinely, of course. but in the judgement of
Rene, eAectualy. So Master Edgar Mortara be-
came good Catholic ere he arrived at years of
discretion.
The Pope and other high functionaries were ad.
vertiscd Of the alarming fact that member of the
true Church was living in daily intercourse with a
"dOg of jew. These functionaries laid their
heads together and decided that the soul OF Edgar
Mortara was in great and increasing peril. and il
peil would continue until the child should be tax
en- into the visible bosom of the Church. Th,
Pope nodded, the wheels of the Inquisition begar
turn, and the elder Mortara awoke one day child
less.
Those whose hearts have been attuned to the
music of little voices and the soft patter of little
feet understand how terrible to the father was thai
blow. They will understand how much more terri
BILE than death it must be to that father to think
his child as being dead to him yet living to Rome
for, Jew though he be, despised and pointed a
though the nation to which he belongs may be, he
is MAN. a FATHER, with love for his child pass
ing words to express lie petitions the Pontifcia
Rome denies to her pontfs and priests the blessed
boon of parental love. The father can hope fol
ncthing from such emotional dwGr:s The Pope il
absolute and there is no redress for the jew
The story traverses Europe, crosses the sea, and
the heart cf Professionalism heaves an indignant
and passionate throt. "a child is torn from a fa,E
er's loving arms. from his tender care and keep
ing p rings the Press. Rome outrages Religion!'
sage the Pulpit "Poloer outrdges Humanity ana
insults the Father Of rs alW--say we; it is no new
thing. Power has done that from the beginning
is doing it to-day, and will ccntnue to do to the
end of time. Nor is it n matter of wonder to any
of us. What is Mortara the Jew ?-what is Ed.
gar Mortara, that common wrong done to either
should breed this whirlwind Of honest indignation
to the utmost bound of Protesnndom
You are making the application, friendly reader
making it before we can transfer our thought to
paper. You will say that men need not to cross
the sea and sit down in the shadow of the Vatican
TO ferret out such crimes and you will say truly.
You will point to the slave shambles, to the auc.
ton block you will think of no: one, but q thouS
and children, sold from the arms of frantic moth
ers; of mothers sold away from their pleading
children and not seldom from the nursing babe
- L. r a.: -. Il,
scarcely less fair than your own daughters flung
helplessly into the arms of brutes you will think
Of these bitter outrages, rerpetrated in our COM
mon country and then-if you do not 60 out into
the world with wet checks and quivering lips, God
help you for you will need more than mortal
help ere the world will profit by your living in it.
A few will sneer at this there are some who
mistake coarseness for wit soullessness for man
hood, brute Indifference for philosophy. The jeer,
of such are scarcely less sweet to US than the
praise of the good. There is manhood in tears
which gush at the spectacle or recital OF wrong
Rear another Washington and put him in COM
mapd of hundred thousand Of such souls, and
he would fog Slavery and Iutemperance out OF the
land. Those twin monsters could make no per-
manent stand against such an army.
The world has rejected the gnat and swallowed
the camel, habitualy, for eighteen hundred years.
Ii has grown gray with grief because of the mote
in its brothers eye. Its sympathes are some
times poured into the Atlantic and into the Pacific
and it wia not see that millions perish with thirst
and famine at its very doors. 1t might be worse,
i can be better. Itneed not persist in swallowing
the camel and fretting about the mote.
But why is Government to be supplicated in be-
half Of the Mortaraf The lattor is not citizen
Of the Republic. By.whst right would II presume