“ My

faces, they sluiced them with water; and putting
over their heads kettle-drums, turned upside down,
they made a continual din upon them, till the un-
happy creatures, thus abused, lost their senses. At
Negropelisse, a town near Montauban, they hung up
Isaac Favin, a Protestant citizen of that place, by
his armpits, and tormented him a whole night by
tearing his flesh with pincers. They made a great
fire around a boy, twelve years of age, who, with
hands and eyes lifted up to heaven, cried out,
God, help me!” and when they found the youth
resolved to die, rather than renounce his religion,
they snatched him from the fire just as he was on the
point of being burnt. In several places the soldiers
applied red hot irons to the hands and feet of men,
and to the breasts of women. Mothers that gave
suck they bound to posts, and let their perishing in-
fants lie languishing in their sight, crying and gasp-
ing for life. Some they bound before a great fire,
and, when half dead, let them go. Amidst a thousand
other till then unheard-of cruelties, they hung up
men and women by the hair, and some by their feet,
on hooks in chimneys, and smoked them with wisps
of wet hay till they were suffocated. Others they
plunged repeatedly into wells; and many they
bound, and then with a funnel forced them to drink
wine till the fumes destroyed their reason, when they
made them say they were Catholics. If any, to escape
these barbarities, endeavoured to save themselves by
flight, they were pursued into the fields and woods,
where they were shot like wild beasts. On these
scenes the Popish Clergy feasted their eyes, and de-
rived astonishing amusement from them.
Nor did England escape.

Though Wickliffe, the first Reformer, died peaceably in his bed, yet such was the malice of persecuting Rome, that his bones were ordered to be dug up, and cast on a dunghill. The

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remains of that excellent man, which had rested undisturbed four-and-forty years, were accordingly disinterred; his bones were burnt, and the ashes cast into an adjacent brook. In the reign of Henry the Eighth, Bilney and many Reformers were burnt; and when Queen Mary came to the throne, persecution was let loose with ten-fold terror. Hooper and Rogers were burned in a slow fire. Saunders was cruelly tormented at the stake a long time before he expired. Taylor was put into a barrel of pitch, and fire was set to it. Ferrar, Bishop of St. David's, with seven other illustrious persons, were sought out and burnt by the infamous Bonner, in a few days. Sixty. seven persons were burnt in the year 1555, among whom were the famous Protestants, Bradford, Ridley, Latimer, and Philpot. In the following year, eighty five persons were burnt. Ireland has also been drenched with the blood of Protestants, nearly fifty thousand of whom were murdered in a few days in different parts of the kingdom, in the reign of Charles the First. The persecution began in October, 1641. Having secured the principal gentlemen, and seized their effects, the common people were murdered in cold blood : thousands were forced to fly from their houses and settlements, naked and destitute, into the bogs and woods, where they perished through cold and hunger. Some were tortured to death ; many hundreds were drowned in rivers ; some had their throats cut ; and, among a few of the villains concerned, it was deemed sport to try who could make the deepest wound in the body of an Englishman. Young women were abused in the presence of their nearest relations : nay, the children of the furies thus engaged were taught to kill the children of the English, and dash out their brains against the stones. What shall we say, also, of South America ? It is computed, that of the natives residing in the extensive

Spanish territory, fifteen millions were sacrificed in
forty years to the genius of Popery; and it is sup-
posed that, at different times, not fewer than fifty
millions of Protestants have been the victims of the
persecutions of the Papists, and put to death for their
religious profession. Such is mystic Babylon! “ And
I saw under the altar the souls of them that were
slain for the word of God, and for the testimony
which they held : and they cried with a loud voice,
saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou
not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell
on the earth ? And in her was found the blood of
prophets, and of saints, and of all them that were
slain upon the earth.”

Saunders time has

- Dari naitri

132

CHAPTER X.

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No one, I apprehend, will wonder, that at the close of the preceding view, my mind was at rest as to the course most advisable. A voice seemed to sound in my ears, “ Come out of her, my people

, that ye be not partaker in her sins.” Infallibility is attached to the Pope, though it is known that for å hundred and fifty years together the Popes were apostates rather than Apostles, and were frequently thrust into the Papal chair by the intrigues and trickery of harlots. Besides, some of these infallible personages occasionally quarrelled, not only with all the world beside, but with each other, and sometimes with themselves. The Council of Nice, A. D. 325, decreed, with an anathema, as usual, that no new Article whatever should be added to the creed. Twelve hundred years after, the Council of Trent added twelve new Articles, coupled with another anathema, on all who would not embrace them. Here then are two sets of gentlemen, all equally infallible, and all equally opposed to each other. Nei. ther can I find any passage in the word of God that justifies the invocation of angels and saints. I think it better to draw nigh to God by Christ, through the influence of the Holy Spirit, to the exclusion of all other agencies, whether in heaven or earth. Equally senseless is the practice of resorting to relics, of whatever kind they be. Beads, salt, boxes, scapulars, and such like trumpery, appear to me as vile deceptions. Neither do I approve of the doctrine of penances :

it smacks of human merit, and works of supererogation,

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which are not only contrary to scriptural truth, but
impossible in themselves. We are taught to love
God with all our heart, and mind, and soul, and
strength, and our neighbour as ourself. Can man do
more than this? And yet something more must be
done, before we talk of merit. But if all were fair
and smooth, and nothing contradictory or absurd
could be found in the general tenets of the Ronish
Church, her persecuting spirit alone would decide my
judgment. Here there can be no mistake ; and if
the Bible be true, Papacy must, from that circum-
stance alone, be a delusion. With gratitude un-
feigned, I thank God, who has delivered me from
such antichristian articles of faith. I entirely reject
them, persuaded that they are the mere invention of
crafty men, who, under the pretence of superior sanc-
tity, are among the most consummate hypocrites on
earth ; and heartily rejoice that though such articles
were once the terror, they are now the sport of en-
lightened society. Glorious and important inroads
have been made in the empire of superstition; and the
intercessions of the saints will continue to arise for
the extension of genuine truth; to be accompanied,
we trust, with the speedy and final fall of those, who
for ages have plagued the human race.
is universally offered :

The prayer

“Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones

Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold ;
E'en them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones.
Forget not; in thy book record their groans,
Who were thy sheep; and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piemontese, that roll'd
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To heaven. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sown
O’er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway
The triple tyrant; that from these may grow

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