Public characters in the political as well as religious would be often dogged
and goaded by a host of people, many of whom are nondescripts.
They snap at the heels and yelp at the progress of successful men. They throw stones at the life march. They bushwhack. At times they imitate the Indian and light the fires of the torture stake.
Perhaps they prefer the Dark Age methods and hunt for thumb-screws and body-racks of false accusations.
They turn the wheel of insinuation, and begin the stretching of the joints and sinews of patience. At such times, when fagged, worn and exhausted, the overloaded and persecuted man has given a groan or cry, or let fall an expression of repining or complaint.
Instantly it is seized upon by detractors to describe and prove the true character of the victim; when the same criticizing and judging parties had utterly failed to see the real being. They had only beheld a
part of his life, and a very small portion of it at that. They failed to take in the months and years of patient endurance and silent submission to conditions that in themselves were simply intolerable.
They judged a fellow-creature by a solitary cry of anguish upon the cross, as a fresh sponge of vinegar or gall was pressed to the lips or another spear was thrust into the quivering side.
Living Illustrations by B. Carradine
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