e! indelible
disgrace! not here, not even here, could compunction or humanity find a
friend--

"Would not those white hairs move pity?"--

No!--the murderers dart after them: the pious suppliants kneel--but they
rise no more! They pray--and their prayers ascend to heaven, unheard on
earth! Groans resound through the vaulted roof--Mangled carcases strew
the consecrated ground--derided, while wounded; insulted, while
slaughtered--they are cleft in twain--their savage destroyers joy in
their cries----Blood, agony, and death close the fatal scene!

And ye, O ye who hear it, revere the immortal faith that, proof against
this consummate barbarity, preferred its most baneful rage, to uttering
one deviating word! And then, while your hearts bleed fresh with
sympathy, will ye not call out, "O could they have been rescued! had
pitying Heaven but spared the final blow, and, snatching them from their
dread assassins, cast them, despoiled, forlorn, friendless, on this our
happy isle, with what transport would we have welcomed and cherished
them! sought balm for their lacerated hearts, and studied to have
alleviated their exile, by giving to it every character of a second and
endearing home. Our nation would have been honoured by affording refuge
to such perfection; every family would have been blessed with whom such
pilgrims associated; our domestics would have vied with each other to
shew them kindness and respect; our poor would have contributed their
mite to assist them; our children would have relinquished some enjoyment
to have fed them!"

Let not reflection stop here, nor this merciful regret be unavailing:
extend it a little farther, and mark the question to which it leads:
can ye, wish this for those who are gone, and not practice it for those
who remain? Sufferers in the same cause, bred in the same faith, and
firm in the same principles; the banished men now amongst us would have
shared a similar fate, if seized upon the same spot. Venerate them,
then, O Christians of every denomination, as the representatives of
those who have been slain; and let the same generous feeling which would
call to life those murdered martyrs, protect their yet existing
brethren, and save them, at every risk, and by every exertion, from an
end as painful and more lingering; as unnatural, though less violent.

Come forth, then, O ye Females, blest with affluence! spare from your
luxuries, diminish from your pleasures, solicit with your best