So may the Devil I Respite their souls from Heaven!"; Hellas, 657, "Bask in the [deep] blue noon divine"; Julian and Maddalo, 218, where "Moans, shrieks, and curses, and blaspheming prayers" is absent in the earlier editions though required for the rhyme; so lines 299-301 of the Letter to Maria Gisborne.
"But the Christians offer up prayers for them, that they may turn from their error; and when one of them turns, he is ashamed before the Christians of the deeds that were done by him, and he confesses to God saying: ` In ignorance I did these things '; and he cleanses his heart, and his sins are forgiven him, because he did them in ignorance in former time, when he was blaspheming the true knowledge of the Christians."
In the first centuries of the Christian era, apostasy was most commonly induced by persecution, and was indicated by some outward act, such as offering incense to a heathen deity or blaspheming the name of Christ.'
- Much has been made of the execution (1697) at Edinburgh of the student Thomas Aikenhead, convicted of blaspheming the Trinity.
A counter fanaticism was aroused in them, and for years the Martyrs of Cordoba continued to force the often reluctant cadis to behead them, by blaspheming the Prophet.
