I approved of this reply. Parouba liked it; but Birton was not moved. I read in John's eyes that he was still doubtful. Birton rejoined in these terms:
BIRTON.--Since you have made use of common arguments, with a few novel remarks, I may be allowed to follow your plan. If so good and powerful a God existed, surely he would not have suffered evil to enter the world, nor have devoted his creatures to grief and crime. If he cannot prevent evil, he is not almighty; if he will not, he is cruel.
The annals of the Brahmins only extend back 8,000 years; those of the Chinese only 5,000. Our knowledge is but of yesterday; but, in that brief space, all is horror. Murder has been the practice from one end of the earth to the other; and men have been weak enough to give to those men who slew the greatest number of their fellow creatures, the titles of heroes, demi-gods, and even gods.
In America there were left two great nations, beginning to enjoy the sweets of peace and civilization, when the Spaniards came there to slay eleven millions. They hunted men down with dogs; and King Ferdinand of Castile gave those dogs pensions for their services.
The heroes who subdued the New World, massacred innocent and helpless babes, murdered peaceable and defenceless Indians, and committed the most inhuman barbarities! They roasted King Guatimozin, in Mexico, on a gridiron. They hastened to Peru to convert the Inca, Atahualpa. A priest, named Almagro, son of a priest condemned to be hanged in Spain for highway robbery, went there with one Pizarro, to inform the Emperor of the Peruvians, by the voice of another priest, that a third priest, named Alexander IV., polluted by incest, assassination, and homicide, had given, with his full consent (_proprio motu_) and with full power, not only Peru, but one half of the New World, to the King of Spain; and that Atahualpa ought instantly to submit, under pain of suffering the indignation of the apostles Peter and Paul. But as this king knew as little of Latin as the priest who read the papal bull, he was instantly declared heretical and incredulous.
They burned Atahualpa, as they had burned Guatimozin. They slew his people; and all to gain that hard and yellow earth which has only served to depopulate and impoverish Spain; for it has made her neglect the cultivation of the earth, which really nourishes man.