Now he fawns, and then he frowns; now he sooths, and then he looks dark and angry; sometimes affects to pity and to pray, at other times, insults and bullies; and talks of racks and dungeons, flames, and the damnation of hell. One while, he lays his hand upon his heart, and sheds tears; and promises and protests, he desires not the death of a sinner; but would rather that he would turn and live; and all that he can do, he will do, for the discharge, and even for the preferment, of his imprisoned brother. Another while, he discovers himself as deaf as a rock, false as the wind, and cruel as the poison of asps.

Its

6. The court of Inquisition, although it was not the parent, has beer the nurse and guardian of ignorance and superstition wherever it has prevailed. It was introduced into Spain, or promoted there, by Ferdinand and Isabella; and was principally intended to prevent the relapse of the Jews and Moors, who had been converted, or who pretended to be converted, to the faith of the Church of Rome. jurisdiction, however, was not confined to the Jews and Moors; but extended to all those, who in their practice or opinions, differed from the established Church. In the united kingdom of Castile and Arragon, there were 18 different Inquisitorial courts, having each its counsellors, termed apostolical inquisitors, its secretaries, serjeants, and other officers; and besides these, there were 20,000 familiars dispersed throughout the kingdom, who acted as spies and informers, and were employed to apprehend all suspected persons, and commit them for trial, to the prisons which belonged to the Inquisition. By these familiars, persons were seized on bare suspicion, and, in contradiction to the established rules of equity, they were put to the torture, tried and condemned by the Inquisitors, without being confronted, either with their accusers, or with the witnesses on whose evidence they were condemned. The punishments inflicted were more or less dreadful, according to the caprice and humor of the judges. The unhappy victims were either strangled, or committed to the flames, or loaded with chains, and shut up in dungeons during life-their effects confiscated, and their families stigmatized with infamy.

Who promoted the courts of Inquisition in Spain ?-How many were they?

7. This institution was, no doubt, well calculated to produce a uniformity of religious professions; but it had a tendency also to destroy the sweets of social life, to banish all freedom of thought and speech, to disturb men's minds with the most disquieting apprehensions, and to produce the most intolerable slavery, by reducing persons of all ranks in life to a state of abject dependence upon priests; whose integrity, were it even greater than that of other men, though in every false profession of religion it is less, must have been corrupted by the uncontrolled authority which they were allowed to exercise. By this tribunal, a visible change was wrought in the temper of the people; and reserve, distrust, and jealousy, became the distinguishing characteristics of a Spaniard. It confirmed and perpetuated the reign of ignorance and superstition, inflamed to rage religious bigotry, and by the cruel spectacles to which, in the execution of its decrees, it familiarized the people, it nourished in them that ferocious spirit which, in the Netherlands and America, they manifested by the deeds that have fixed an indelible reproach upon the Spanish name.

8. Authors of undoubted credit affirm, and without the least exaggeration, that millions of persons have been ruined by this horrible court. Moors were banished, a million at a time. Six or eight hundred thousand Jews were driven away at once, and their immense riches seized by their accusers, and distributed among their persecutors, while thousands dissembled and professed themselves Christians, only to be harassed in future. Heretics of all ranks and of various denominations were imprisoned and burnt, or fled into other countries. The gloom of despotism overshadowed all Spain. The people at first reasoned, and then rebelled, and murder♦ ed the Inquisitors; the aged murmured and died; the nex generation repined and complained; but their successor were completely tamed by education; and until very latel the Spaniards have been trained up by their priests to shud der at the thought of thinking for themselves.

9. A simple narrative of the proceedings of the Inquis tion has shocked the world, and the cruelty of it has becom

What tendency had the Inquisition ?-What number of persons have been ruined by this court?-What has most fully displayed to the eyes of mankind the temper of the papal religion?

proverbial. Nothing ever displayed so fully to the eyes of mankind the spirit and temper of the papal religion. Let us hear the description which Voltaire, a very competent witness, gives of it. "Their form of proceeding is an infallible way to destroy whomsoever the Inquisitors wish. The prisoners are not confronted with the accuser or informer. Nor is their any informer or witness, who is not listened to: a public convict, a notorious malefactor, an infamous person, a child, are in holy office, though no where else, credible accusers and witnesses. Even the son may depose against his father, the wife against her husband." The wretched prisoner is no more made acquainted with his crime than with his accuser, and were he told the one, it might possibly lead him to guess the other.

10. To avoid this, he is compelled, by tedious confinement in a noisome dungeon, where he never sees a face but the jailer's, and is not permitted the use of either books or pen and ink-or should confinement alone not be sufficient, he is compelled, by the most excruciating tortures, to inform against himself, to discover and confess the crime laid to his charge, of which he is often ignorant. This procedure, unheard of till the institution of this court, makes the whole kingdom tremble. Suspicion reigns in every breast. Friendship and quietness are at an end. The brother dreads his brother; the father his son. Hence taciturnity has become the characteristic of a nation, endued with all the vivacity natural to the inhabitants of a warm and fruitful climate. To this tribunal we must likewise impute that profound ignorance of sound philosophy, in which Spain lies buried, while Germany, England, France, and even Italy, have discovered so many truths, and enlarged the sphere of our knowledge. Never is human nature so debased as where ignorance is armed with power.

11. But these melancholy effects of the Inquisition are a trifle when compared with those public sacrifices, called Auto da Fé, or Act of Faith, and to the shocking barbarities that precede them. A priest in a white surplice, or a monk who has vowed meekness and humility, causes his

What is the prisoner compelled to do by the inquisitorial courts? -What is the ignorance of philosophy in Spain to be imputed to? -When is human nature most debased?—By what name are the pub. lic sacrifices called?

fellow creatures to be put to the torture in a dismal dungeon. A stage is erected in the public market place, where the condemned prisoners are conducted to the stake, attended with a train of monks and religious confraternities. They sing psalms, say mass, and butcher mankind. Were a native of

Asia to come to Madrid upon a day of an execution of this sort, it would be impossible for him to tell whether it were a rejoicing, a religious feast, a sacrifice, or a massacre; and yet it is all these together! The kings, whose presence alone in other cases is the harbinger of mercy, assist at this spectacle, uncovered, seated lower than the Inquisitors, and are spectators of their subjects expiring in the flames.

12. The following is an account of an Auto da Fé, performed at Madrid in the year 1682. The officers of the Inquisition, preceded by trumpets, kettle-drums, and their banner, marched on the 30th of May, in cavalcade, to the palace of the great square, where they declared by proclamation, that on the 30th of June the sentence of the prisoners would be put in execution. There had not been a spectacle of this kind at Madrid for several years before, for which reason it was expected by the inhabitants with as much im. patience as a day of the greatest festivity and triumph. When the day appointed arrived, a prodigious number of people appeared, dressed as splendid as their respective circumstances would admit. In the great square was raised a high scaffold, and thither, from seven in the morning till the evening, were brought criminals of both sexes; all the Inquisitions in the kingdom sending their prisoners to Madrid.

13. There was among those who were to suffer, a young Jewess of exquisite beauty, and but seventeen years of age. Being on the same side of the scaffold where the queen was seated, she addressed her in the following pathetic speech; "Great queen! will not your royal presence be of some service to me in my miserable condition? have regard to my youth; and oh! consider that I am about to die for professing a religion imbibed from my earliest infancy!" Her majesty seemed greatly to pity her distress, but turned away her eyes, as she did not dare to speak a word in behalf of a person who had been declared a heretic by the Inquisition

14. Mass now began, in the midst of which the priest

At what time, and where was an Auto da Fé performed?

came from the altar, placed near the scaffold, and seated himself in a chair prepared for that purpose. Then the chief Inquisitor descended from the amphitheatre, dressed in his cope, and having a mitre on his head; after bowing to the altar, he advanced towards the king's balcony, and went up to it, attended by some of his officers carrying a cross and the gospels, with a book containing the oath by which the kings of Spain oblige themselves to protect the Catholic faith, to extirpate heretics, and support, with all their power, the prosecutions and decrees of the Inquisition. On the approach of the Inquisitor, and on his presenting this book to the king, his majesty rose up, bare-headed, and swore to maintain the oath, which was read to him by one of his counsellors; after which the king continued standing till the Inquisitor had returned to his place, when the secretary of the holy office mounted a sort of pulpit, and administered a like oath to the counsellors and the whole assembly.

15. The mass was begun about twelve at noon, and did not end until nine in the evening, being protracted by a proclamation of the sentences of the several criminals which were all separately rehearsed aloud one after the other. Next followed the burning of twenty-one men and women, whose intrepidity in suffering that horrid death was astonishing; some even thrusting their hands and feet into the flames with the most dauntless fortitude. The situation of the king was so near to the criminals that their dying groans were very audible to him; he could not, however, be absent from this dreadful scene, as it is esteemed a religious one; and his coronation oath obliges him to give a sanction by his presence to all the acts of the tribunal.

PLYMOUTH COLONY.

1. NEW ENGLAND owes its origin, as a civil and Christian community, to a congregation of Puritans under the pastora care of the Rev. John Robinson. Not being tolerated in the exercise of that religious liberty which they reckoned

What number of persons were burnt?-What does the coronation oath of the king oblige him to do?-To whom does New-England owe its origin, as a religious and civil community?