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Updated: May 26, 2025
The first chapter in the history of the early Church is the torments of the martyrs. The English Reformation had no great dignity or life until the funeral pyres were lighted. Men had placidly accepted new opinions, and had Bibles to instruct them; but it was to be seen how far they would make sacrifices to maintain them.
After brief ceremonies by a large body of yellow-robed Buddhist priests, the King set fire to the end of a long fuse, which in turn ignited the three pyres simultaneously, the ascending clouds of smoke being greeted by the roll of drums and the crash of saluting cannon.
A large number of relatives and friends of those who had long been traveling yonder, thereupon piously approached the pyres, and deposited letters, flowers and other souvenirs that were to re-appear in the other worlds, the same as the souls of the bodies that were about to dissolve in brilliant flames, were to re-appear in a new body.
Behind the mass of people rose the deep and brooding forest, before them extended the boundless sea, above them spread the starry firmament. The tribes did not step beyond the last avenue of Karnak. They left a wide space between themselves and the altar. The large crowd remained silent. At the feet of the sacrificial stones rose three pyres.
The boat passed beyond the fumes of the pyres, and came up to the ghat, at the request of Lord Tremlyn. A multitude of hideous-looking cripples, humpbacks, and beggars made an onslaught on the steamer; and the boys and gentlemen pelted them with coppers, with which they had been forewarned to supply themselves. It was fun to them, and the mendicants enjoyed it quite as much.
Everywhere the funeral pyres of the Inquisition flared to the skies, the air was rent by the despairing shrieks of martyrs enveloped in flames or racked by tortures, the prisons overflowed with Marranos, all instruments of torture were vigorously plied. At last the hour of redemption struck: in 1492 all Jews were driven from Spain, and a few years later from Portugal.
It was yet hardly night when the pyres were lighted on the little hills and a warm glow was thrown over all the city, made warmer by roseate-hued homes and the ruddy stones and velvety dust of the streets. At midnight the Dakoon was to be brought to the Tomb with the Blue Dome.
Some, when they hear of it, picture to themselves Pope Clement VI. at Avignon, sitting in that vast palace that overlooks the Rhone, the stench of corpses mastered for him by the fragrant smoke of aromatic logs burning in huge pyres round about him night and day. Nay! Hadn't he a son, Andronicus, who died of it? How did it come to pass that Gibbon did not so much as allude to it?
For two days they journeyed through desolation, in a burnt-out world where nothing had colour except the sad violet sky which at evening flamed with terrible sunsets, cruelly beautiful as funeral pyres.
While you gaze, another flashes upon you, and another, and another, and at length the whole horizon is filled with gigantic pyres. The stupendous vision has risen so suddenly, that you almost look if you may see the seraph which has flown round and kindled these mighty torches. The glory is inexpressible, and on a scale so vast, that you have no words to describe it.
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