ISO 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 



delivered up to Xerxes the treasure of the tem 

 ple of Dulymaon, with which they had been in 

 trusted !* When he entered the city of Tyre, 

 after a siege of seven months, he gave orders to 

 kill all the inhabitants, except those who had fled 

 to the teroples, and set fire to every part of the 

 city. Eight thousand men were barbarously 

 slaughtered ; and two thousand more remaining, 

 after the soldiers had been glutted with slaughter, 

 he fixed two thousand crosses along the sea 

 shore,! and caused them all to be crucified. 



War has given rise to the most shocking and 

 unnatural crimes, the idea of which might never 

 otherwise have entered into the human mind. 

 Lathyrus, after an engagement with Alexander, 

 king of the Jews, on the banks of the river Jor 

 dan, the same evening he gained the battle, in 

 going to take up his quarters in the neighbour 

 ing villages, he found them full of women and 

 children, and caused them all to be put to the 

 sword, and their bodies to be cut to pieces, and 

 put into cauldrons in order to their being dress 

 ed, as if he intended to make his army sup 

 upon them. His design was to have it believed, 

 that his troops ate human flesh, to spread the 

 greater terror throughout the surrounding coun 

 try, t 



Even under the pretext of religion, and of the 

 Christian religion too, the most shocking barba 

 rities have been committed. Under the pretence 

 of vindicating the cause of Him who, in the 

 midst of cruel sufferings from men, prayed, &quot; Fa 

 ther, forgive them, for they know not what they 

 do,&quot; the crusaders . hurried forward towards 

 Jerusalem, wading through seas of blood. When 

 their banners were hoisted on a principal emi 

 nence of Antioch, they commenced their butche 

 ry of the sleeping inhabitants. The dignity of 

 age, the helplessness of youth, and the beauty of 

 the weaker sex, were disregarded by these 

 sanctimonious savages. Houses were no sanc 

 tuaries ; and the sight of a mosque added new 

 virulence to cruelty. The number of Turks 

 massacred, on this night of frantic fury, was at 

 least ten thousand. After every species of habi 

 tation, from the marble palace to the meanest 

 hovel, had been converted into a scene of slaugh 

 ter; when the narrow streets and the spacious 

 squares were all alike disfigured with human 

 gore, and crowded with mangled carcasses, then 

 the assassins turned robbers, and became as mer 

 cenary as they had been merciless. When Je 

 rusalem was taken by these furious fanatics, they 

 suffered none to escape the slaughter : &quot; Yet, 

 after they had glutted themselves with blood and 

 carnage, they immediately became devout pil 

 grims, and in religious transports, ran barefooted 

 to visit the holy sepulchre.&quot; In what light 

 must that religion appear to Eastern Infidels 

 which is supposed to lead to the perpetration of 



Rollln s Ancient Hist. * Ibid. t Ibid. 

 { Millet s Elements of Gen. Hist. 



such enormities ? And how ivyfu) .y z.re tba 

 mild precepts and doctrines of Christianity mis 

 represented, when desperadoes oi lais description 

 dare assume the Christian name 



Even the finer feelings of the female sex have 

 been blunted, and, in many instances, quite ex 

 tirpated by the mad schemes of ambition, and 

 the practices connected with war. Towards the 

 beginning of the thirteenth century, a Queen 

 of Hungary took the sign of the cross, and em- 

 barked in the mad expeditions of the crusaders, 

 as did likewise fifty thousand children and a 

 crowd of priests; because, according to the Scrip 

 ture, &quot; God has made children the instruments 

 of his glory. &quot;|| Cleopatra, daughter of Ptol 

 emy Philometer, in order to gratify her restless 

 ambition of reigning alone and uncontrolled in 

 her dominions, killed her son Seleucus, with her 

 own hand, by plunging a dagger into his breast. 

 She had been the wife of three Kings of Syria 

 and the mother of four, and had occasioned the 

 death of two of her husbands. She prepared a 

 poisoned draught to destroy Grypus another of 

 her sons ; but her intention having been sus 

 pected, she was compelled to swallow the deadly 

 potion she had prepared, which took immediate 

 effect, and delivered the world from this female 

 monster. The Carthaginians were in the prac 

 tice of offering human sacrifices to their god Sa 

 turn, when they were defeated in war, in order 

 to propitiate the wrath of this deity. At first, 

 children were inhumanly burned, either in a fiery 

 furnace, like those in the valley of Hinnom, so 

 frequently mentioned in Scripture, or in a flam 

 ing statue of Saturn. The cries of these un 

 happy victims were drowned by the uninterrupt 

 ed noise of drums and trumpets. Mothers made 

 it a merit, and a part of their religion, to view 

 the barbarous spectacle with dry eyes, and with 

 out so much as a groan ; and if a tear or sigh 

 stole from them, the sacrifice was considered as 

 less acceptable to the deity. This savage dis 

 position was carried to such excess, that even 

 mothers would endeavour, with embraces and 

 kisses to hush the cries of their children, lest 

 they should anger the god.1T When Carthage 

 was taken by the Romans, the wife of Asdrubal, 

 the Carthaginian general, who had submitted to 

 the Romans, mounted to the upper part, of one 

 of the temples which had been set on fire ; and, 

 placing herself, with her two children, in sight of 

 her husband, uttered the most bitter imprecations 

 against him. &quot; Base coward (said she) the 

 mean things thou hast done to save thv life shall 

 not avail thee ; thou shalt die this instant, at 

 least in thy two children.&quot; Having thus spoken, 

 she stabbed both the infants with a danger, and 

 while they were yet struggling for life, threw 

 them both from the top of the temple, an&amp;lt;l Jhec 

 leaped down after them into the flames !* * 



B Millet s Elem. 1T Roilin s An. Hist- 

 * Ency. Brit. Art. Uurthagc. 



