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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 unhappy 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, My 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 infants lie languishing in their sight, crying and gasping 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 derived 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

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 Ro gers 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. Sixtyseven persons were burnt in the year 1555, among whom were the famous Protestants, Bradford, Ridley, Latimer, and Philpot. In the following year, eightyfive 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 dif ferent 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 en gaged were taught to kill the children of the English, and dash out their brains against the stones. shall we say, also, of South America? It is computed, that of the natives residing in the extensive

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Spanish territory, fifteen millions were sacrificed in forty years to the genius of Popery; and it is supposed 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."

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CHAPTER X.

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 a 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, D. 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,

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 Romish 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 circumstance alone, be a delusion. With gratitude unfeigned, 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 sanctity, 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 enlightened 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. The prayer is universally offered:

"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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