Amid the dust of books to find her,
Content at last, for guerdon of their toil,
With the cast mantle she had left behind her.
Many in sad faith sought for her,
Many with crossed hands sighed for her,
But these, our brothers, fought for her,
At life's dear peril wrought for her,
So loved her that they died for her,
Tasting the raptured fleetness
Of her divine completeness." [141]

Socrates was condemned to drink the hemlock at Athens in his
seventy-second year, because his lofty teaching ran counter to the
prejudices and party-spirit of his age. He was charged by his accusers
with corrupting the youth of Athens by inciting them to despise the
tutelary deities of the state. He had the moral courage to brave not
only the tyranny of the judges who condemned him, but of the mob who
could not understand him. He died discoursing of the doctrine of the
immortality of the soul; his last words to his judges being, "It is now
time that we depart--I to die, you to live; but which has the better
destiny is unknown to all, except to the God."

How many great men and thinkers have been persecuted in the name of
religion! Bruno was burnt alive at Rome, because of his exposure of the
fashionable but false philosophy of his time. When the judges of the
Inquisition condemned him, to die, Bruno said proudly: "You are more
afraid to pronounce my sentence than I am to receive it."

To him succeeded Galileo, whose character as a man of science is almost
eclipsed by that of the martyr. Denounced by the priests from the
pulpit, because of the views he taught as to the motion of the earth,
he was summoned to Rome, in his seventieth year, to answer for his
heterodoxy. And he was imprisoned in the Inquisition, if he was not
actually put to the torture there. He was pursued by persecution even
when dead, the Pope refusing a tomb for his body.

Roger Bacon, the Franciscan monk, was persecuted on account of his
studies in natural philosophy, and he was charged with, dealing in
magic, because of his investigations in chemistry. His writings were
condemned, and he was thrown into prison, where he lay for ten years,
during the lives of four successive Popes. It is even averred that he
died in prison.

Ockham, the early English speculative philosopher, was excommunicated
by the Pope, and died in exile at Munich, where he was protected by the
friendship of the then Emperor of Germany.

The Inquisition