AN ANCIENT PARALLEL TO THE " MILITANTS."
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—The following passage from the Decline and Fall may perhaps be of interest as affording a kind of parallel to the activities of the militant suffragettes. It relates to the Donatists, the fanatical sect who prepared the ruin of Christianity in North Africa:— "The rage of the Donatists was inflamed by a frenzy of a very extraordinary kind, and which, if it really prevailed among them in so extravagant a degree, cannot surely be paralleled in any country or any age. Many of these fanatics were possessed with the horror of life and the desire of martyrdom. . . . Sometimes they rudely disturbed the festivals, and profaned the Temples of Paganism, with the design of exciting the most jealous of the idolaters to revenge the insulted honour of their gods. They sometimes forced their way into the Courts of Justice and com- pelled the affrighted Judge to give orders for their immediate execution. They frequently stopped travellers on the public highways, and obliged them to inflict the stroke of martyrdom, by the promise of a reward if they consented, and by the threat of instant death. if they refused to grant so very singular a favour."
Verily there is no new thing under the sun. The Donatists, however, seem to have been favourably distinguished from the " militants " by the fact that they preferred to disturb and pollute pagan festivals and temples.—I am, Sir, &c.,.
Boroughbridge, York.
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