Though no effort was spared to obtain a written confession of heresy, the accused might in the last resort be condemned without it. Only in one way could he be certain of saving his life, and that was by a full confession at once, accompanied by a recantation of his errors and abject submission to the church. Then his life would be spared, but more likely than not it would be spent in some dungeon; only in rare cases was one who once fell into the clutches of the Inquisition suffered to return to his home and estate; and in those rare cases he was subject to life-long espionage and harassment.

When the process was completed and the accused was found guilty of heresy—which was the normal ending of a case the inquisitors handed the heretic over to the civil power for punishment, with a hypocritical recommendation to mercy. But woe to the secular authority that heeded the recommendation! If a magistrate failed for twelve months to put to death a condemned heretic, the refusal itself constituted heresy, and he became subject to the kind offices of the Inquisition. Even if he were excommunicated, the magistrate must do his duty. The church, with characteristic evasion of the truth, claims to this day that it has never put a heretic to death. The claim is technically correct, if we except those who died in its dungeons and torture-chambers; but the church coerced the civil power into becoming its executioner, and therefore its moral responsibility is the same. When the heretic was dead, the vengeance of the church was not sated. All his lands and goods were confiscated, his blood was attainted, his family were beggared, if they did not share his fate, and his name was blotted out of existence-life, property, titles, all disappeared.

We must not think of the Inquisition as the instrument of wicked men solely, or even mainly, though its

satanic origin seems to be stamped all over it. But saintly Bernard was a more bitter persecutor than the infamous Borgias; Innocent III., the purest of the medieval popes, must be called the father of the Inquisition. In fact, the more pious a medieval Catholic was, the more he believed with all his heart and soul in the church and her sacraments, the more he was impelled to persecute. Such men hunted down heresy, not because they hated the heretic, but because they loved the souls of men, whose eternal salvation they believed to be endangered. It is an awful warning to all the succeeding ages of the fathomless iniquity into which a perverted conscience may lead men whose greatest desire is the glory of God.

The names of few of these martyrs have been preserved, but the complaints of their obstinacy and obduracy that abound in the Catholic writings of the period are the convincing testimony to their heroic constancy. They saw the truth clearly and were loyal to it at every cost. They were slain by tens of thousands; a remnant of them were driven into inaccessible mountain fastnesses, where they maintained themselves and their faith for centuries; they became a "hidden seed" in many parts of Europe. By her system of vigor and rigor the Roman Church won a temporary triumph: heresy was apparently suppressed; the reformation of the church was postponed for three centuries.

CHAPTER IX

THE OLD EVANGELICAL PARTY

HERE were protestants before Protestantism, re

were

formers before the Reformation-not only individual protestants, as we have already seen, but protestant bodies. The corruption of the primitive churches and the development of Roman Catholicism was a logical process that extended over a period of centuries. As the church diverged more and more widely from the faith once delivered to the saints, as the papacy gradually extended its power over all Europe, except where the Greek Church successfully resisted its claims, it was inevitable that this tyranny should, from time to time, provoke revolts; that against this apostasy there should be periodic reactions toward a purer faith. From the beginning of the twelfth century these uprisings within the church became more numerous, until the various protests combined their forces, in large part unconsciously, to form the movement since known as the Reformation. It is a curious fact that each of these revolts against the corrupt doctrine and life of the church had an independent origin within the church itself. There may have been, there doubtless was, some connection between these various revolts, some connection also between them and the earlier heresies and schisms, so called, in the church. Though one may feel morally certain of this fact, actual proof of it is not possible; all trace of the connection has disappeared, and there is little reason to hope that proofs will ever be recovered.

But if we may not trace, by unbroken historical

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