times, the brave but once. Among the females who suffered were four nuns; one in her twentyfirst year. They were steady to the protestant belief, but were strangled before being committed to the flames. Cazalla the elder, when passing before the princess, on his way to execution, implored her protection for the helpless orphans of his sister, who was to suffer with him. The re quest must have been useless; for what could have been expected from hearts that could behold and hear these things without breaking ?" "Terrible as it is to hear of these things," said Edward, "I can imagine death less frightful to the sufferers than life, especially when the agony of their mind, previous to the last sentence, is considered." "Deep as our sympathy is," said Ellen, " for those who died, I feel more for those who could bear to live, and to renounce their principles. Can you tell us, papa, any thing of the fate of the Protestants of Seville ?" They evinced, as a body," said Mr. Delville, "the most heroic firmness. Twenty-seven out of thirty-five persons dared to die rather than deny their principles: of these, thirteen were females. Arias, who had betrayed his friends and denied his faith, suffered at last, and expiated at the stake his former cowardice. One story is too touching to be withheld, painful as it is. A priest, named Their Gonsalez, had, among other proselytes, converted his two sisters to the protestant faith. They were all confined in the dungeons of the Inquisition. The torture, repeatedly applied, could not draw from them the least evidence against their religious associates. Every artifice was employed to obtain a recantation from the young women. reply to these solicitations was wonderfully simple and affecting: We will die in the faith of our brother he is too clever to be wrong, and too good to deceive us.' The three stakes at which they died were near each other; and they sang the 109th Psalm till the flames smothered their voices, and removed them to another and better world, to sing their Redeemer's praise." A pause of deep feeling followed; and Mr. Delville was about to dismiss the subject, when Ellen enquired if he could tell them any further particulars of the unfortunate Maria Gomez, who had so unintentionally betrayed the protestant cause. 66 Yes," replied her father; "and her fate is not less tragic than the rest. No sooner had she recovered her reason, than the protestant doctrines resumed their former influence over her mind. Her widowed sister, Leonor Gomez, and her three unmarried daughters, deeply shared her religious feelings. One of these young women being arrested, every effort of cruelty and deceit was employed to extort a confession implicating her mother, aunt, and sisters. But she endured the rack in perfect silence. An inquisitor, irritated by this extraordinary firmness, took the resolution of entrapping the hapless prisoner, by affecting a decided interest in her favour. He gave her private audiences, where his tone of paternal affection soon melted a heart which had been so long fed with tears and bitterness. She was made to believe that all danger would be removed from her dear relatives, if the judge, who seemed bent on saving her, was put at once in possession of the whole truth. A declaration of this kind was all that the evidence wanted to render it complete, and the five female relatives were condemned to the flames. Without the least sign of weakness, subterfuge, or wavering, the helpless creatures prepared themselves to die. They comforted each other on the scaffold; the young thanking the old for their cares and religious instruction, and they pointing to heaven, where, within a few brief moments, they all firmly hoped to embrace in never ending happiness." 66 "Weep not, my dear Ellen," said Mrs. Delville : they are not objects of our pity. May we die the death of the righteous, and may our last end be like theirs." "And these are the people," said Frank, "that Edward prefers to the French." "Never," replied his brother, "was a nation FRENCH PERSECUTIONS. 333 more sullied with blood than the French people. None have more bitterly persecuted the reformers. It was the French troops who aided the Piedmontese in their horrible massacres of the unoffending Vaudois." "Indeed!" 66 Aye, indeed, Frank. Do you remember Milton's lines, so deeply expressive of his indignation ?" Not I!" said Frank. "I know nothing of your poetry! It is too grave, friend, for me." "This is indeed worth hearing, Frank," said Ellen; and at the request of her elder brother she repeated, with great feeling, the celebrated Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones D 34 66 RESULTS OF THE INQUISITION. Such, you see, my children," said Mr. Delville, "has been in all ages the persecution of the true faith, when it arose in the bosom of the Roman Catholic church. Scenes so revolting to humanity, as the Inquisition presented with all the pomp and circumstance of national exhibitions, could not have been tolerated by a noble and generous people, but for the existence of those prejudices against all enemies of the faith, which we have already traced to their hatred of the Moors. This prejudice has been acted on to such a monstrous extent as to have become a gigantic evil, fatal to the independence, the humanity, the character, and best interests of the Spanish nation. Their punishment is sufficiently obvious and severe. God has already revenged upon the land, a hundred fold, the righteous blood of his slaughtered saints." |