Most of the misery has been endured by the weak, the loving and the
innocent. Women have been treated like poisonous beasts, and little
children trampled upon as though they had been vermin. Numberless altars
have been reddened, even with the blood of babes; beautiful girls have
been given to slimy serpents; whole races of men doomed to centuries
of slavery, and everywhere there has been outrage beyond the power
of genius to express. During all these years the suffering have
supplicated; the withered lips of famine have prayed; the pale victims
have implored, and Heaven has been deaf and blind.