An Appeal to the Christian Women of the SouthGrimké, Angelina Emily
Religion
An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South
Grimké, Angelina Emily
Slavery -- United States
But this is not all. Roman _women_ were burnt at the stake, _their_
delicate limbs were torn joint from joint by the ferocious beasts of
the Amphitheatre, and tossed by the wild bull in his fury, for the
diversion of that idolatrous, warlike, and slaveholding people. Yes,
_women_ suffered under the ten persecutions of heathen Rome, with the
most unshrinking constancy and fortitude; not all the entreaties of
friends, nor the claims of new born infancy, nor the cruel threats
of enemies could make _them_ sprinkle one grain of incense upon the
altars of Roman idols. Come now with me to the beautiful valleys of
Piedmont. Whose blood stains the green sward, and decks the wild
flowers with colors not their own, and smokes on the sword of
persecuting France? It is _woman's_, as well as man's? Yes, _women_
were accounted as sheep for the slaughter, and were cut down as the
tender saplings of the wood But time would fail me, to tell of all
those hundreds and thousands of _women_, who perished in the Low
countries of Holland, when Alva's sword of vengeance was unsheathed
against the Protestants, when the Catholic Inquisitions of Europe
became the merciless executioners of vindictive wrath, upon those
who dared to worship God, instead of bowing down in unholy adoration
before "my Lord God the _Pope_," and when England, too, burnt her Ann
Ascoes at the stake of martyrdom. Suffice it to say, that the Church,
after having been driven from Judea to Rome, and from Rome to
Piedmont, and from Piedmont to England, and from England to Holland,
at last stretched her fainting wings over the dark bosom of the
Atlantic, and found on the shores of a great wilderness, a refuge from
tyranny and oppression--as she thought, but _even here_, (the warm
blush of shame mantles my cheek as I write it,) _even here, woman_ was
beaten and banished, imprisoned, and hung upon the gallows, a trophy
to the Cross.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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