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Sparks, William Henry, 1800-1882

"The Memories of Fifty Years Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent i"


It has ever been the practice of the Puritan to propagate the vilest
heresies, and for the vilest purposes, under the name of philanthropy
and religion. It has burned its enemy at the stake, as, assembled
around, they sang psalms, and sanctified the vilest cruelties with the
name of God's vengeance. It was their great prototype, Cotton Mather,
who blasphemously proclaimed, after the most inhuman massacre of
several hundred Indians, that they, the Puritans of Massachusetts, "had
sent, as a savory scent to the nostrils of God, two hundred or more of
the reeking souls of the godless heathen."
This, ostensibly, was deemed a pious act, and a discharge of a pious
duty, when, in truth, the only motive was to take his home and country,
and appropriate it to their own people. It seems almost impossible to
the race to come squarely up to truth and honesty, in word or act, in
any transaction, as a man or as a people. Sinister and subtle,
expediency, and not principle, seems to be their universal rule of
action. Cold and passionless, incapable of generous emotions, he is
necessarily vindictive and cruel.


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