Excerpt from Foxe's Book of Martyrs: A Complete and Authentic Account of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive and Protestant Martyrs, in All Parts of the World; With Notes, Comments and Illustrations Foxu's martyrs are among our earliest recollections; and their spirit-stirring incidents rivetted our eyes to their pages in our earliest childhood. Here we see the great things that faith can do, and the great things that faith can suffer. Here we behold, in fact, what Bunyan has so admirably described in fiction; here is Faithful again suffering and dying; here are graphically described the reacting in all parts of the world, and in our own country in particular, of the awful tragedies of Jerusalem, in which the Savio of men was put to death, and the proto-martyr Stephen followed his holy example, dying by wicked hands, as a witness to the truth. Here in particular are seen anew the men of modern ages of whom the world was not worthy, who loved not their lives unto the death, and whose cry mingles with that of the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held: How long, 0 Lord, holy and true, dost not thou judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? These are they arrayed in white robes; these are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Here is the patience of the saints, showing the influence of pure Christianity upon the mind, and the triumphs of the real believer over the world. These sufferers truly believed the word of God, and received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth the word of God, which effectually worketh in them that believe. To them, houses and lands, wealth and honours, friends and relations, not even the dearest ties on earth, nor life itself, were of any estimation when set in competition with their love to the Saviour; and they practically illustrated in their end, the doctrine of their Divine Master, He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me while they now reap the reward promised by Him who is faithful and true. And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or chil dren, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life, Matt. Xix. 29. 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.