Asa H. Craig, (Asa Hollister), 1847-1934
Probably there is no institution, or name, or feature of Catholic origin, or anything representing Catholic authority, that is so little understood and so loudly and violently condemned by Protestants, as the Spanish Inquisition. So strong has become the prejudice against this institution that its name has become the synonym for all that indicates intoleration, persecution, misery, inhumanity, and the most excruciating cruelty.
Every Protestant has been taught the awful horrors recorded as having been committed by this institution, and he was also instructed by the same teachers that the penalties prescribed and exacted were authorized by the Catholic Church. Thus did the Spanish Inquisition become associated with or at least a part of the history of this Church. It seems as though Protestant historians took delight in holding up this institution as authorized by Catholic authority, and asserting that if the Catholic religion should again obtain dominion over the earth, the same results would inevitably follow.
As a proof that this is the feeling among Protestants, I may cite my own state of mind before I determined to investigate the matter for my own edification and satisfaction. While I do not claim to be highly educated, nor can I be charged with a low order of ignorance, yet I must say that in my varied researches in history, in my official duties, my extensive readings, I (ailed to find that any particular or special Protestant history of this institution existed, except that oft-repeated story that it was a tribunal of torture established by Catholic authority, and that the less we investigated it the more charitable we could be in covering up this black page in the history of the Church. I believed from what I had learned that it was a chapter so vile, so terribly inhuman, and so wretched in all its details of cruelty, that it would be far better to forget than to investigate.
In my youth I had been taught the awful tortures inflicted by this Inquisition. My nursery-books were sure to contain some harrowing tale of martyred individuals, such as pictures of men hanging by their thumbs; machines for twisting and crushing the feet and dislocating of joints; pouring boiling oil, or pitch, into the boots of the victims; cutting off hands, feet, ears, nose, tongue; skinning alive; roasting, and burning; strangling, suffocating, and other forms of cruelty. One picture in particular, which has ever haunted me, was that of a man condemned to death by quartering. This process consisted in harnessing four horses to his arms and legs and forcing them to draw in opposite directions until the limbs were torn from the body.
So vivid are these pictures and their descriptions in my imagination that to forget them, and the source from which they emanated, would be an impossibility. Today the same teachings are almost constantly kept before the children and, like myself, they grow, to maturity with the same prejudice, distrust, and ignorance of the real facts. But children cannot be blamed for harboring this feeling of horror, not even when they become men. They have had no other instruction, no other form of literature, and no means of obtaining knowledge different from this. Even Catholics remain silent, and bear this perversion of facts and their mental agony without resentment. They make no voluntary denial of these charges, and, as a natural consequence, Protestants believe that the statements are true and cannot be denied.
After I had prepared a goodly portion of the manuscript for this work I explained its object to a particular friend of mine, and I was astonished to find that his belief was that since 1500 persecution had been practiced on one side only. He believed that the history of the Catholic Church was a history of crime, bloodshed, and persecution, and that Protestantism was the meek, suffering lamb, rescued by divine power from the wickedness and corruption of the old Roman Church. “Well,” said he, “there is one chapter in the history of that religion you will have to omit, and that is the Spanish Inquisition.”
And so it is. Men of intelligence, men of great learning, and great ability to comprehend, are actually ignorant of what the Spanish Inquisition was, what power controlled it, and how it came into existence. Like my friend, they have read only books which were published more for the sake of wreaking fanatical revenge than for furthering the cause of unprejudiced education. They had become possessed of an idea, and there that idea remained. They did not care to investigate, as they were afraid they would unearth some new terrors, and seemed content to remain in silence and ignorance.
Now, before I enter into a discussion of this Inquisition, let me state to my readers that if they will study history other than that written by men whose minds are warped by fanaticism, or by those who can see no good in the Catholic Church, they will find what I have found — a new view of this institution. While it is not my intention to excuse the excesses of this tribunal, or to deny any of the awful deeds of cruelty and torture perpetrated by it, yet it is my desire to show to you that crime was never sanctioned by the Church, that bloodshed and persecution form no part of her creed, and -that in the Spanish cruelties the acts were those of the State and not of the Church.
To say that the Spanish Inquisition did not practice unmerciful cruelties upon certain classes of her people, or that it did not prosecute its work with a determined effort to destroy all opposition is to deny the facts of history. We all know that this institution did exist, that it was powerful in its influence, that it was instituted under a law of the kingdom, and that through the enforcement of the law, it became the sole creature of the State. Right here let me make this statement, and I ask you to note the difference: This tribunal was organized by the State for the purpose of detecting and punishing crime, and was not an institution established by the Church. While the Kingdom of Spain was a subdivision, or, in other words, a province under the general government of the Church, yet the king was the ruling sovereign, who directed the making of the laws of his own government. As those laws were independent of ecclesiastical authority, they cannot be charged against the Church. Although the king was supposed to obey the laws of the Church regarding the matter of faith and doctrine, yet in the government of his people he was supreme.
But you will say, was not Spain Catholic, and as such was not the Church responsible for allowing these wrongs? In the punishment of heresy, did they not follow the direction of Catholic authority? True, Spain was Catholic, and the Spanish Inquisition was a Catholic institution of that State, just as any law was a Catholic law. But because of this, are you to charge all the crimes of a people to the Church because those people belonged to that Church? If a Catholic, today, should commit a crime, must we charge the Church with the deed? If children are disobedient, are we to hold their parents accountable for the sin?
Now, before you can convict the Church of these Spanish inhumanities, you must show some proof that the Pope, or Councils, sanctioned such decrees of punishment, and that you cannot do. Not only did the head of the Church entreat for moderation, but he threatened excommunication, and the infliction of direst punishment. The Inquisitors, however, had obtained the power and would wield it to suit their own notions of justice.
In the establishment of this institution, or tribunal, Ferdinand and Isabella set before Pope Sextus IV that it was necessary for the preservation of order in their kingdom to organize an Inquisition, and under this entreaty the Pope sanctioned it, believing that it was nothing more than a Star- Chamber Tribunal for the examination of those charged with some crime. The year following its introduction, 1481, the Jews complained to the Pope of its severity, and the same Pontiff issued a Bull against the Inquisitors, and as the historian Prescott informs us, “he rebuked their intemperate zeal, and even threatened them with deprivation/’ He wrote to Ferdinand and Isabella that “Mercy towards the guilty was more pleasing to God than the severity which they were using.”
When the Pope ascertained that his commands were being disobeyed, he encouraged the sufferers to flee to Rome, where in two years he received and gave protection to four hundred and fifty refugees from Spain. But I hear someone exclaim, why did the Pope allow this wrong? If he sanctioned its adoption, why did he not set his authority against it in such a manner as to force its discontinuance? But we must remember that conditions then were far different from conditions now. The whole country was on the verge of a great religious revolt, and heresy was the greatest crime known. In less than half a century Germany, England, Switzerland, Norway, Holland, and other countries set up Protestant governments. Even France had been in the throes of civil strife, while Spain stood alone against the assaults of the Reformers. She saw the rising tide of Protestantism and sought to prevent its spread in her territory, and in establishing the Inquisition she did that which, in her judgment, would discourage this religion, and suppress that of the Jews and Turks. The laws of Spain denounced heresy as the greatest crime of the kingdom, and in its suppression she did what England has done in Ireland in persecuting the Catholics for three hundred years — sought self-preservation. As the ferocity of the Spanish Inquisition lasted only about fifteen years, although the tribunal, in various modified forms, existed many years longer, the balance-sheet of atrocities, when compared with Ireland alone, is decidedly in favor of Catholicism.
But heresy was not the only object against which the Inquisition exerted its fury. While it was organized for the ostensible purpose of preventing the spread of religious opposition, it in reality soon became the cloak which covered the oppression of the royal Court of Spain. As it was established by King Ferdinand it was held more for the purpose of promoting earthly affairs, than from motives of religious zeal. Or, as we find the fact in history, Ferdinand used its machinery, not to preserve Catholic faith, but to uphold and sustain his power in the kingdom.
The Moors and Jews were looked upon more as the enemies of the throne than as the enemies of the Church, and the despotic power of the Inquisitors was directed against those who were suspected of being against the Spanish government.
The authorities in those days knew no way of extorting confessions except by bodily pain. We of this enlightened age place our victims in the sweat-box — the Star-Chamber of the police force — and there ply the mind with agonizing questions until, through sheer exhaustion, the accused yields the truth. It may require days of this mental persecution before his physical body succumbs to the strain and he is forced to confess, or, if he is obstinate and refuses to answer the questions asked him, he is punished bodily for contempt of court. He may not have his body disfigured, for our laws prevent, but rest assured the members of this Star-Chamber will inflict correctives that will induce the victim to prefer the sweat-box rather than suffer these bodily discomforts.
But you say, this is all right; the culprit has committed a crime, and we have a right to extort a confession. Had you lived in the days of the Reformation, or any period of our world’s existence up to the nineteenth century, you would also have believed in bodily pain for the extortion of confession. Possibly you may remember something of our own history, when the Puritans of New England, the most religious Protestant denomination in existence, and who fled from persecution for the God-given privilege of worshiping according to the dictates of conscience — perhaps you may remember that these persecuted Puritans, the followers of John Calvin, meted out the same punishment for heresy that was inflicted upon them and from which they fled. Read your school history and you will find:
Question — What was the cause and result of the Salem witchcraft?
Answer — A superstition prevailed that persons were subject to the control of invisible evil spirits, and it is the accepted opinion that 200 persons were accused, 150 imprisoned, 28 condemned, 19 hanged, and one pressed to death.
What a record for these Christian Puritans on the item of superstition alone! There was not a particle of foundation for it except that evolved by the imagination of the ignorant.
But again, we find: “The Quakers were whipped, branded, had their ears cut off, their tongues bored with hot irons, and were banished under pain of death in case of their return, and actually executed on the gallows.”
Turn to your history again and ask the question, “Who was Roger Williams”? “A Puritan, who, for his liberal religious opinions, was banished from Massachusetts. When he escaped from the hands of the Puritans he fled to Rhode Island and took refuge among the Indians. Canonicus, the Narragansett Chief, gave him land to found a settlement, which he gratefully named Providence.”
Now, while we are discussing New England times, let us inquire who was Lord Baltimore, and how does he figure in American history?
“Lord Baltimore was a Catholic, who, to secure for his Churchmen a refuge from the persecutions which they were suffering in England, came to America and secured a grant of land covering considerable territory in Maryland. The Virginia colonies, under Clayborne, started a rebellion and drove Lord Baltimore, then governor of Maryland, out of the colony.
The Protestants, having obtained a majority in the Assembly, excluded Catholics from their rights, assailed their religion, and even declared them outside the protection of the law. Civil war ensued. At one time two governments were sustained— one Protestant and the other Catholic. In 1691, Lord Baltimore was entirely deprived of his rights as proprietor, and Maryland became a royal province. In 1715, the fourth Lord Baltimore recovered the government, and religious toleration was again restored.”
“To whom does the honor of having first established religious freedom in America belong”?
“To the Roman Catholics of Maryland.”
Thus, we find, even in free America, that persecution because of religious belief was carried on with much severity; and further, that the Protestants of our own country are indebted to the Catholics for setting the example of free worship.
Suppose I should tell you that, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth of England, the most revengeful of all the Protestant sovereigns, the Covenanters of Scotland were hunted like wild rabbits through forest and morass, and through mountain and valley, and shot upon sight, would you believe me? Hardly, unless you have studied the history of Scotland. Then you will find that the Catholics were not the only ones persecuted because of religion. Yet you charge the Church of Rome with the horrible executions of the Spanish government.
I must call your attention in this connection to an incident that happened in Philadelphia in 1844:
“In the religious riots of Philadelphia in 1844, several Catholic churches were burned down in the name of Protestantism, and houses were sacked. I was informed by an eyewitness that owners of houses were obliged to mark on their doors these words, ‘This house belongs to Protestants, in order to save their property from the infuriated incendiaries. For these acts I never heard of any retaliation on the part of Catholics, and I hope I never shall, no matter how formidable may be their numbers, and tempting the provocation.”
The above is by Cardinal Gibbons in “The Faith of Our Fathers.”
Again, in the same volume we find a truth expressed that it is well for all of us to consider and to ask ourselves, why is it?
“In spite of the boasted toleration of our times, it cannot be denied that there still lurks a spirit of inquisition, which does not, indeed, vent itself in physical violence, but is, nevertheless, most galling to its victims. How many persons have I met in the course of my ministry, who were ostracized by their kindred and friends, driven from home, nay, disinherited by their parents, for the sole crime of carrying out the very shibboleth of Protestantism — the exercise of private judgment, and of obeying the dictates of their conscience, by embracing the Catholic faith! Is not this the most exquisite torture that can be inflicted on refined natures?
“Ah! there is an imprisonment more lonely than the dungeon; it is the imprisonment of our most cherished thoughts in our own hearts, without a member of the family with whom to communicate.
“There is a sword more keen than the executioner’s knife; it is the envenomed tongue of obloquy and abuse/ There is a banishment less tolerable than exile from one’s country; it is the excommunication from the paternal roof, and from the affections of those we love.”
Thus, we find that, through a prejudiced line of teaching, we are taught to see the faults of Catholics more fully than those of the Protestants, and possibly we may find that the one is exaggerated, while the other is suppressed.
But let us return to the Spanish Inquisition. Like our own sweat-box, those who were suspected of crime were given into the hands of the Inquisitors, who sought to force them to divulge their connection therewith. If the victim refused to disclose his knowledge of the crime, deed, or plot, he was subjected to cruel tortures of the body. The infliction of penalties was measured according to the enormity of the crime committed and the supposed value of the information to be gained. When persons were condemned to death, such means were used as, in the judgment of the Inquisitors, was most fitting for the crime alleged against them.
Even today there are people who would have the murderer condemned to the same death as that suffered by his victim, the execution to take place on the spot where the deed was committed. While many of our people today deny the justice of taking a life for a life, yet then it was far different. They were educated to severity and to meet death by burning, by torture, or by any other prescribed mode that was in accordance with the law of the government under which they lived. This right was not questioned in those times. It was expected by everyone, and as such must be endured. If an individual preached religious opposition, he was denounced as a heretic, and as this was declared to be the greatest crime before God and man, he must abide by the law of the commonwealth.
Had this persecution for heresy been confined to Catholics, we might have some excuse to complain, but when we find that Protestants practiced it to a far greater extent, then but little should have been said except to condemn the whole. To condemn one side and ignore the other, is not just history, and it is here I make my complaint. I was brought up in ignorance regarding this question, am! all Protestant children to-day are being educated to harbor exactly the same old intolerance and to believe the same old inconsistent, hidden, and distorted facts of history, when the facts of history show that Catholics were persecuted one hundred times to the Protestants once.
This being the case, why not teach our children regarding it? Why lay this foundation of prejudice, and allow them to grow to manhood with hatred in» their hearts? If you are Christian, why not teach the truth? If you find in the conduct of your ancestors a crime against a fellow man, condemn it. When you find that John Calvin authorized the burning of Michael Servetus because he was a heretic, teach it to your children and condemn it. When you find in the history of Ireland hundreds of years of Protestant persecution, condemn it. When you find the bloody massacres of Oliver Cromwell and William of Orange, because of loyalty to Catholic faith, do not cover it up, but show to the world what Protestants were doing. When you read of the persecutions of Henry VIII, Edward VI, or Elizabeth, do not seek to believe them right because they were perpetrated by Protestant monarchs. When you teach of the Reformation, do not fail to mention the desolation of Germany, of Switzerland, o France, and of Holland. Do not fail to mention the hundreds of thousands of lives that were lost in battle, and as you do this, compare this wholesale persecution of Protestants against Catholics to the Spanish Inquisition, the only instance in the history of the Catholic Church where sanction was ever given by which crime was perpetrated, and this was done through a misconception of its power and meaning, and by the head authority of the Church was condemned within one year, and to prevent the blighting influence of an apparent Church wrong the Pope even excommunicated Inquisitors and demanded that the Inquisition should be abolished.
And yet this Inquisition was not against Protestants alone, but against the Moors and Israelites, who were not only opposed to the Catholic religion, but were seeking to restore their lost power by the overthrow of Ferdinand and the enthronement of the king of Barbary, or the Grand Turk.
The great suspicion of Ferdinand was, what plot was being laid and what torture would disclose it. Had there been only heresy to deal with there would have been no Inquisitors to extort confession through torture. Ferdinand and Isabella were the sole authors of this institution, and the stability of the throne depended upon it. As proof of this condition, we find the following historical facts:
“It was, therefore, rather a royal and political than an ecclesiastical institution. The king nominated the Inquisitors, who were equally composed of lay and clerical officials. He dismissed them at will. From the King, and not from the Pope, they derived their jurisdiction, and into the King’s coffers, and not into the Pope’s, went all the emoluments accruing from fines and confiscations. In a word, the authority of the Inquisition began and ended with the crown.” But why do we so severely condemn this Spanish Inquisition for a persecution of the Moors and Jews, when we find that even Martin Luther recommended a merciless doctrine against the Israelites? While he did not advocate a studied means of bodily torture, yet he declared that their synagogues ought to be destroyed, their houses pulled down, their prayerbooks, and even the books of the Old Testament, to be taken from them. Their rabbis ought to be forbidden to teach and be compelled to gain their livelihood by hard labor. When you teach of these Catholic Spanish horrors, why not teach at the same time what other religious denominations were doing? Therefore, if we condemn Spanish persecution, why not condemn Martin Luther, John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, Henry VIII, Elizabeth, Oliver Cromwell, William of Orange, and the entire galaxy of Reformers of that period?
“It should be borne in mind that Henry VIII, and his successors for many generations, inflicted fines, imprisonment, and death to thousands of their subjects for denying the spiritual supremacy of the temporal sovereign. This galling Inquisition lasted for nearly three hundred years, and the severity of its decrees scarcely finds a parallel in the Spanish Inquisition. Prescott avows that the administration of Elizabeth was ‘not a whit less despotic, and scarcely less sanguinary than that of Isabella. The clergy of Ireland, under Cromwell, were ordered, under pain of death, to quit their country, and theological students were obliged to pursue their studies in foreign seminaries. Any priest who dared to return to his native country forfeited his life. Whoever harbored a priest suffered death, and they who knew his hiding-place, and did not reveal it to the Inquisitors, had both ears cut off.
Besides this, we find that Protestants are worshiping at this very moment in churches wrested from Catholics in the countries of England, Ireland, Scotland, Holland, and Germany, and though of no consequence at this late day to mention these confiscated altars of worship, why conceal the truth? Why place all the odium of religious persecution and Spanish Inquisitions on the Church of Rome, when we have a field far broader which marks the religious despotism of the Protestants and their allies?
In the Cosmopolitan of February, 1895, we find a very interesting article by Julian Hawthorn, extracts of which are given below:
“Mediaeval torture was not, indeed, applied exclusively in the interests of religion; the Council of Ten and the Spanish Inquisition were organized to maintain worldly no less than heavenly order.”
“Torture was the fashionable and final theological argument, and was inflicted as opportunity served, by heretics as well as upon them. No sect, party, or community had the monopoly of it; it was a generally recognized and accepted form of persuasion or chastisement; and the constancy with which its victims endured torment was only a degree less surprising than the resolution with which its agents applied it.
“From one point of view, torture was a natural outgrowth of the lawless and savage condition of Europe and Asia during the early centuries after Christ. By way of maintaining some sort of social order, secret organizations were formed, which ruled by the terror of mystery quite as much as by their actual physical strength. Their influence was, upon the whole, beneficial; they were, in some respects, analogous to the famous vigilance committees which were a feature of our early Californian life. Their corruption, decay, and extinction were the consequence of the improvement of the social conditions which they had come into existence to control.
“These societies arrogated the right not only to inflict death, but to practice torture with a view to eliciting confession.
“During the struggle between Spain and the United Netherlands, torture was employed by both parties indifferently, and became very violent. The Dutchmen once tied a number of prisoners together in pairs, and confined them in a large room. No food was given them, and in the course of a few days they ‘were mad with hunger. At length they began to devour each other. They were kept in that room until the last man was dead. Terrible as was the Spanish Inquisition, this affair goes far to even matters between them and the Netherlanders. Another device of the latter was to strip their victim, and drag him backwards and forwards on a rope stretched taut, until he was sawn asunder.”
“The heart sickens as one reads these awful pages and calls up the spectacles which they portray. It seems to be the story of a world wholly monstrous and diabolical. And yet, all this while innocent children were being born, and young men and maidens were loving and mating, and good and happy lives were lived, and Bacon and Shakespeare wrote immortal works. It was substantially the same beautiful, various, kindly world that we now live in. Nevertheless, it is hard to avoid the notion that the powers of darkness were permitted in those ages to walk the earth more boldly and openly than to-day, and to seize their prey with less ceremony and subterfuge than at present. It was one of the long series of experiences through which mankind must needs pass before it can attain that state which is secure from the shadow of the pit.
“The story of torture is not told in vain; it has a lesson. It is evident that those who inflicted it justified their act to their own minds by arguments based upon the integrity and prosperity of the State and upon interpretations of holy writ. Religious orthodoxy in those days was essential to social order. Heretics were inevitably rebels against human as well as divine laws. Restraint and penalties were indispensable, if the community was to be preserved. On the other hand, it is doubtful whether death, or even torture, would have been inflicted on theological grounds alone. Certainly, the Roman Inquisition, which was purely a religious institution, never inflicted death; whereas, that of Spain, which was mainly political, was steeped in blood from the outset. Tenderness for the souls of the erring may have been genuine, but it would not have found such extreme expression had not secular conditions been involved with it. Be that as it may, the excuse and the precedent were Scriptural, based, it is true, upon a complete perversion of the true spirit of Scripture, but we may reasonably hold the perversion to have been an honest one.
“And in those days the ‘higher criticism’ had not yet been evolved, and men believed the Bible with an intense, if superstitious, faith. They read in the Bible that God punished sin: that, if it were persisted in, He punished it after the death of the body with an eternity of torments, compared with which the worst that man could inflict were as nothing. This served as their precedent. Their excuse was yet more plausible. Evil in man was caused by the machinations of the devil — by the suggestion and persuasion of his angels. The Inquisition, by torturing the body, aimed to cast out these devils. This accomplished, the soul would be saved from the everlasting torments of hell. Temporal pain was the severe yet merciful means of guarding against the pains to which there was no end.
“This was the theory of mediaeval torture — of salvation by the rack — and it explains much that would be else inexplicable. It was founded upon a hideous mistake, and could not outlast the development of reason. And yet this very calamity, was the means of awakening the spiritual conscience of mankind, and preparing the way for the great enlightenment to follow. Our feet, and those of our posterity, would not stand so firmly were not the rack and the pyre among the elements of-our history.”
We might even go further in the mysteries of the Spanish Inquisition by asserting, from competent authority, that a greater motive than piety, or security of kingdom, influenced the Kings; that it was the acquisition of property by confiscation from those who were victims to its persecution; and yet we are continually reminded of this terrible enactment of Catholic indignities, and that the Church urged its followers to strike deeper and longer against its enemies and thus destroy the heresy that was overrunning Europe. But if this is so, what can you say of this fact of history? “After the convening of the Council of Trent, Bartholomew Caranza, Archbishop of Toledo, was arrested by the Inquisition on a charge of heresy, and his release from prison could not be obtained either by the interposition of Pius IV, or the remonstrance of the Council.”
Is not this an evidence of the power of the Spanish Tribunal? And is it not an evidence that even ecclesiastical dignitaries were not exempt from its authority? If the Pope and the Council could not effect the deliverance of one of the highest archbishops in the kingdom, how could they control its administration in the execution of its victims, when the whole process of law was a secret institution?
Now, the fact is, my friends, that this Inquisition acted independently of the Holy See, and that not even the Catholic hierarchy could command obedience, or control. Having been instituted for political purposes no power but that of the King could cause its arrest. In Naples and Milan, which then belonged to Spain, the Pope succeeded in preventing the government from establishing its Inquisitions. And, again, we find that the number of victims has been greatly exaggerated. In the fifteen years of its most terrible reign no more than two thousand were put to death in all Spain.
While it is not my motive to speak lightly of this page of tragedies, or to excuse by any means the awful wrongs committed, yet I would have you look at the whole situation, the condition of the people of those times, their education and beliefs, the instability of government, the plots, murders, and political corruption. I ask you to examine the persecutions of Protestants as well as of Catholics, and as you view the whole history of cruelties, see them from the standpoint of then and not from the conditions of the present. Do not for a moment believe that Catholic Inquisitions of nearly four hundred years ago are Catholic institutions of today, unless you also believe that the Protestant persecutions of the same period are still being practiced. One is just as sensible as the other, and to teach your children the prejudice which follows one, and not the truth of the other, is unjust and unchristianlike.
We have no right to build up one cause by tearing down another. The days of bodily persecution are gone, never to return. The whole world has arrived at a state of existence where we are commanded to judge men by what they do, and not by what they have done. Laws against heresy have been abolished, and in its place, we have the freedom of consecrated rights. The spirit of God moves through the teachings of His children, and not by the blind fury of force. While we all preach charity and forbearance, yet let us practice it, let us prove to our children its meaning, let us speak the truth, write the truth, and teach the truth. If we find a mote in our brother’s eye, first let us cast the beam out of our own, for with a dimmed vision you have no right to render judgment against another. What has been is not what is, or what will be. We live, not in the past, but in the present. The laws of 1492 are not the laws of 1899. The kingdom of Ferdinand is not the land of Columbia, and education as imparted then, is not the education now. Then why, I ask, have you not dropped your mental persecutions, your inconsistency, your prejudices, and your intolerance? Why seek to promote what does not and cannot exist? Why not unite with Cardinal Gibbons and all say: “I heartily pray that religious intolerance may never take root in our favored land. May the only King to force our conscience be the King of kings; may the only prison erected among us for the sin of unbelief or misbelief be the prison of a troubled conscience; and may our only motive for embracing truth be, not the fear of man, but the love of truth and of God.