count's followers, in his indignation, pursued him to the banks of the Rhone, and killed him. This crowned the misfortunes of Languedoc. It gave Innocent a pretext to proceed to bloodshed, and he took instant advantage of it. He addressed a letter to the king of France; to all the princes and most powerful barons, as well as to the metropolitan bishops, exhorting them to vengeance, and to the extirpation of heresy. All the indulgences and pardons, which were usually granted to the crusaders, were promised to those who exterminated these unbelievers. Three hundred thousand pilgrims, induced by the united motives of avarice and superstition, filled the country of the Albigenses with carnage and confusion for a number of years. The reader who is not versed in history of this kind, can scarcely conceive the scenes of baseness, perfidy, barbarity, indecency, and hypocrisy, over which Innocent presided; and which were conducted partly by his legates, and partly by the infamous Simon de Montford. Raymond VI. terrified at this storm, submitted to every thing required of him; but Raymond Roger, Viscount of Beziers, indignantly refused to give up the cause of his subjects. He encouraged them to resist; shut himself up in Carcassone, and gave Beziers to the care of his lieutenants. Beziers was taken by assault in July, 1209, and fifteen thousand inhabitants, accordto the Cistercian monk, or sixty thousand according to others, were put to the sword. This Cistercian monk was asked before the city was taken, how he could separate the heretics from the catholics? he replied, "Kill all; God will know his own!"

The brave young Viscount of Beziers did not shrink; he still defended Carcassone. Peter II. of Arragon attempted to make terms for him with his monkish besiegers, but all that they would grant was,

to allow thirteen of the inhabitants, including the count, to leave the city; the remainder were reserved for a butchery like that of Beziers. The viscount declared he would be flayed alive rather than submit to such terms. He was, at length, betrayed; poisoned in prison; four hundred of his people burnt, and fifty hanged. Simon de Montford, the most ferocious monster of all the crusaders, received from the legate, the viscount's title; and devastated the whole of the south of France with the most frightful wars. They who escaped from the sacking of the town were sacrificed by the fagot. From 1209 to 1229, nothing was seen but massacres and tortures. Religion was overthrown; knowledge extinguished; and humanity trodden under foot. In the midst of these horrors, the ancient house of Toulouse became extinct.

Connected with this melancholy history, is one of the last horrid instruments of Papal tyranny which remains to be mentioned-THE INQUISITION. These monks, Arnold Ranier and Pierre Castelnau, were followed by the notorious Spaniard, Dominic, and others, who, proceeding to seek out and execute heretics, gained the name of INQUISITORS. On their return from this infernal expedition, the Popes were so sensible of their services, that they established similar tribunals in different places. In time, Italy, Spain, and other countries, were cursed with these hellish institutions; and their history is one of the most awful horror that can affright the human soul. But these, and the Jesuits, demand a separate notice.

CHAPTER XIV.

JESUITS AND INQUISITORS.

The land in which I lived, by a fell bane
Was withered up. Tyrants dwelt side by side,
And stabled in our homes-until the chain
Stifled the captive's cry, and to abide

That blasting curse, men had no shame-all vied
In evil, slave and despot; fear with lust,
Strange fellowship through mutual hate had tied,
Like two dark serpents tangled in the dust,

Which on the paths of men their mingling poison thrust.
REVOLT OF ISLAM.

But onward moved the melancholy train
In their false creeds, in fiery pangs to die.
This was the solemn sacrifice of Spain-
Heaven's offering from the land of chivalry!
THE FOREST SANCTUARY.

We have passed rapidly through strange scenes of priestly wickedness and bloodshed,--but of all the agents of the devil which were ever spawned in the black dens of that earthly pandemonium, the Papal Church, none can compare with the Jesuits and Inquisitors.

The Jesuits arose in the latter days of popery. Their doctrines were those of popery grown to thorough ripeness. They seemed created to shew to what lengths that system could be carried, and to crown it, in conjunction with their fellow demons of

the Inquisition, with that full measure of popular indignation which should hasten its great "immedicable wound" from the hand of Luther. The Jesuits took up the favourite dogmas of the Papal Church: that the end sanctifies the means-that evil may be done that good may come of it—and pushed them to that degree which causes the good and the simple to stand in astonishment at the daring acts and adroit casuistry of " bold bad men." All oaths, all obligations, all morality, all religion, according to their creed, were to be adopted or set aside, just as it suited the object they had in view. They might cheat and lie, steal and kill, all for righteousness' sake. They embodied in practice the pithy maxims of Hudibras.

That saints may claim a dispensation
To swear and forswear on occasion,
I doubt not but it will appear

With pregnant light: the point is clear.
Oaths are but words, and words but wind;
Too feeble instruments to bind.

But saints whom oaths and vows oblige,
Know little of their privilege.

For if the devil, to serve his turn,

Can tell truth; why the saints should scorn
When it serves theirs to swear and lie,

I think there's little reason why.

Else he has a greater power than they,
Which 't were impiety to say.

They thought with him,

The Public Faith, which every one
Is bound to observe, is kept by none.
And if that go for nothing, why
Should Private Faith have such a tie?
Oaths were not purposed more than law,
To keep the good and just in awe,
But to confine the bad and sinful,
Like mortal cattle in a pinfold.

Then why should we ourselves abridge
And curtail our own privilege?

Quakers that, like dark lanterns bear
Their light within them, will not swear.
Their gospel is an accidence

By which they construe conscience.
And hold no sin so deeply red

As that of breaking Priscian's head-
The head and founder of their order,
That stirring hats held worse than murder.
These thinking they 're obliged to troth
In swearing, will not take an oath :
Like mules, who if they've not their will
To keep their own pace, stand stock still,
But they are weak, and little know
What freeborn consciences may do.

'T is the temptation of the devil
That makes all human actions evil.
For saints may do the same things by
The spirit in sincerity,

Which other men are tempted to,
And at the devil's instance do.
And yet the actions be contrary,
Just as the saints and wicked vary.
For as on land there is no beast
But in some fish at sea's expressed,
So in the wicked there's no vice
Of which the saints have not a spice:
And yet that thing that's pious in
The one, in 't other is a sin.

Is 't not ridiculous and nonsense

A saint should be a slave to conscience!

These were their precious tenets-the quintessence of the wisdom of this world, to which that of the children of light is unprofitable foolishness. Their founder, Ignatius Loyala, a Spaniard-an ominous name when connected with religion,-was a most acute and happy genius in his way. He saw the advantages which the Popes had derived from their accommodating ecclesiastical logic, and he conceived the felicitous idea of creating a sort of second series of