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Excerpt from The Martyred Fool: A Novel The prosperous and rising settlement of Koollala, so far as it was visible from the root of the big gum-tree on which the small boy sat, consisted of ten or a dozen houses built of weatherboard, and set on stilts, to save them from the rain which occasionally rushed down from the sur rounding heights, or the waters which occasionally tres passed from the creek below. The rudely split planks Of which these scattered tenements were built had once been white, but were now purple gray, rusty gray, green gray, from exposure to all sorts of weather. Everywhere among the scattered houses were evidences of a rough cultivation, but in all the unfenced fields great charred stems of trees stood up like monuments of ruin, and the prosperous and rising settlement looked at least as much like a graveyard as a village. The land had been cleared to the water's edge, but behind the knoll on which the small boy sat, sinking in sombre bowl after sombre bowl of foliage, lay the unbroken primeval forest. The waters of the creek ran five or six hundred feet higher than the land in their immediate neighborhood, but many a thousand years ago they had been caught in a cleft Of granite, and unable to break through that strong boundary, still held their first course toward the greater waters of the ocean. What with cold and what with hunger, what with a certain eerie sense of loneliness and a certain bitter chafing against the world at large, the small boy gritted his teeth and had to close his eyelids very tight and hard to prevent the flow of tears. People are apt to think little of the sentimental woes Of children, but Evan Rhys, aetat. Seven, was as full of despair and rageagainst the world as he could well have been if he had been seven and twenty. He clenched his red fists tightly in his ragged pockets, set his teeth hard, and squeezed his eyelids as closely as they would go, and the whole declara tion of the infant soul was in favor of no surrender. As he sat thus, a boy on a pony, approached the creek from the civilized side, and after staring about him a while, sighted an old and stubborn antagonist. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
In this engrossing exploration of martyrdom, Lacey Baldwin Smith takes us on a riveting journey through history as he examines one of the most baffling characteristics of the human species: its willingness to die to sanctify a deity, to defend a cause, or simply to prove a point. In telling the stories of his chosen martyrs, by delving into their psyches, politics, and remarkable personalities, he illuminates the complex and elusive subject of martyrdom as it has evolved over two and a half millennia. The story starts with Socrates, the Western world's first recorded martyr, and moves on to Judaic and early Christian martyrs: the Maccabees and their heroic suffering; Jesus of Nazareth and the impact of the crucifixion on his message; and Saint Perpetua, who died spectacularly in a Roman amphitheater. The narrative then transports us to England: to Archbishop Thomas Becket and his sensational murder at the altar of his own cathedral in Canterbury; to Sir Thomas More, who died Henry VIII's "good servant but God's first" ; to the Protestant martyrs under Catholic Mary Tudor; and to Charles I, the only English king to be tried and executed as a traitor. The concluding chapters cover modern martyrdom as it has become increasingly secularized and entangled with treason. They include John Brown, whose "body lies a-mouldering in the grave but whose soul" goes marching on, Mahatma Gandhi and his school for martyrs, the Holocaust and its impact on modern Jewish thought, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Hitler, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg's execution for giving secret information about the atomic bomb to the USSR. The book ends with the troubling figure of SS Lieutenant Kurt Gerstein and the ultimate question: Is there such a person as a totally disinterested martyr? Fools and traitors to some, heroes to others, all the men and women who appear here have helped shape our definition of martyrdom. The questions Lacey Baldwin Smith raises, and the way he brings the past to life, make this a uniquely compelling book.
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This engrossing exploration of martyrdom examines one of the most baffling characteristics of the human species: its willingness to die to sanctify a deity, to defend a cause, or simply to prove a point. In telling the stories of his chosen martyrs, by delving into their psyches, politics, & remarkable personalities, Smith illuminates the complex & elusive subject of martyrdom as it has evolved over two & a half millennia. He discusses Socrates; Judaic & early Christian martyrs: the Maccabees & their heroic suffering; Jesus of Nazareth; St. Perpetua; English Archbishop Thomas Becket; Sir Thomas More; & the Protestant martyrs under Catholic Mary Tudor. Also covers modern martyrdom as it has become increasingly entangled with treason.