326 THE BIDDLE OF THE UNIVEKSE. 



given to the world by that religion, but were success- 

 fully developed in the critical period when classical 

 antiquity was hastening to its doom. The Papacy, 

 however, has attempted to convert all those virtues 

 into the direct contrary, and still to hang out the sign 

 of the old firm. Instead of Christian charity, it intro- 

 duced a fanatical hatred of the followers of all other 

 religions; with fire and sword it has pursued, not 

 only the heathen, but every Christian sect that dared 

 resist the imposition of ultramontane dogma. Tri- 

 bunals for heretics were erected all over Europe, 

 yielding unnumbered victims, whose torments seemed 

 only to fill their persecutors, with all their Christian 

 charity, with a peculiar satisfaction. The power of 

 Rome was directed mercilessly for centuries against 

 everything that stood in its way. Under the notorious 

 Torquemada (1481-98), in Spain alone 8,000 heretics 

 were burnt alive and 90,000 punished with the con- 

 fiscation of their goods and the most grievous eccle- 

 siastical fines ; in the Netherlands, under the rule of 

 Charles V., at least 50,000 men fell victims to the 

 clerical bloodthirst. And while the heavens resounded 

 with the cry of the martyrs, the wealth of half the 

 world was pouring into Rome, to which the whole of 

 Christianity paid tribute, and the self-styled represen- 

 tatives of God on earth and their accomplices (not 

 infrequently Atheists themselves) wallowed in pleasure 

 and vice of every description. " And all these privi- 

 leges," said the frivolous, syphilitic Pope, Leo X., 

 " have been secured to us by the fable of Jesus 

 Christ." 



Yet, with all the discipline of the Church and the 

 fear of God, the condition of European society was 

 pitiable. Feudalism, serfdom, the grace of God, and 



