There, lo, those who will not be turned from their faith, of
which God--lauded be his holy name!--keepeth very many, he
suffereth to dwell still in peace. But yet is their peace for all
that not very peaceable. For he suffereth them to have no lands of
their own, honourable offices they bear none; with occasions of his
wars, he plucketh them unto the bare bones with taxes and tallages.
Their children he chooseth where he will in their youth, and taketh
them from their parents, conveying them whither he will, where
their friends never see them after, and abuseth them as he will.
Some young maidens he maketh harlots, some young men he bringeth up
in war, and some young children he causeth to be gelded--not their
stones cut out as the custom was of old, but their whole members
cut off by the body; how few escape and live he little careth, for
he will have enough! And all whom he so taketh young, to any use of
his own, are betaken unto such Turks or false renegades to keep,
that they are turned from the faith of Christ every one. Or else
they are so handled that, as for this world, they come to an evil
end. For, besides many other contumelies and despites that the
Turks and the false renegade Christians many times do to good
Christian people who still persevere and abide by the faith, they
find the means sometimes to make some false knaves say that they
heard such-and-such a Christian man speak opprobrious words against
Mahomet.
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