The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 42
The Rack
The Rack.
This was a box like the bed of a waggon, with a windlass at each end, and ratchets to prevent slipping. Over each windlass went chains, and when some man had, for instance, denied the doctrine of the trinity, a doctrine it is necessary to believe in order to get to heaven—but, thank the Lord, you don't have to understand it. This man merely denied that three times one was one, or maybe he denied that there was ever any son in the world exactly as old as his father, or that there ever was a boy eternally older than his mother—then they put that man on the rack. Nobody has ever been persecuted for calling God bad—it has always been for calling him good. When I stand here to say that if there is a hell God is a fiend; they say that is very bad. They say I am trying to tear down the institutions of public virtue. But let me tell you one thing; there is no reformation in fear—you can scare a man so that he won't do it sometimes, but I will swear you can't scare him so bad that he won't want to do it. Then they put this man on the rack and