76 The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan
[ 077 ] their mountain homes. Inquisitors were put upon their track, and the scene of innocent Abel falling before the murderous Cain was often repeated. Again and again were their fertile lands laid waste, their dwellings and chapels swept away, so that where once were flourishing fields and the homes of an innocent, industrious people, there remained only a desert. As the ravenous beast is rendered more furious by the taste of blood, so the rage of the papists was kindled to greater intensity by the sufferings of their victims. Many of these witnesses for a pure faith were pursued across the mountains, and hunted down in the valleys where they were hidden, shut in by mighty forests and pinnacles of rock. No charge could be brought against the moral character of this proscribed class. Even their enemies declared them to be a peaceable, quiet, pious people. Their grand offense was that they would not worship God according to the will of the pope. For this crime, every humiliation, insult, and torture that men or devils could invent was heaped upon them.
When Rome at one time determined to exterminate the hated sect, a bull was issued by the pope, condemning them as heretics, and delivering them to slaughter. 107 They were not accused as idlers, or dishonest, or disorderly; but it was declared that they had an appearance of piety and sanctity that seduced“ the sheep of the true fold.” Therefore the pope ordered“ that malicious and abominable sect of malignants,” if they“ refuse to abjure, to be crushed like venomous snakes.” 108 Did this haughty potentate expect to meet those words again? Did he know that they were registered in the books of heaven, to confront him at the judgment?“ Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren,” said Jesus,“ ye have done it unto Me.” 109
This bull called upon all members of the church to join the
107 See Appendix. 108 Wylie, b. 16, ch. 1. 109 Matt. 25:40.