How times have changed, between the older ages and the new! Some
seventeen or eighteen centuries ago, the ignorant men of Rome were wont
to put Christians in the arena of the Coliseum yonder, and turn the wild
beasts in upon them, for show. It was for a lesson as well. It was to
teach the people to abhor and fear the new doctrine the followers of
Christ were teaching. The beasts tore the victims limb from limb and
made poor mangled corpses of them in the twinkling of an eye. But when
the Christians came into power, when the holy Mother Church became
mistress of the barbarians, she taught them the error of their ways by
no such means. No, she put them in this pleasant Inquisition and pointed
to the Blessed Redeemer, who was so gentle and so merciful toward all
men, and they urged the barbarians to love him; and they did all they
could to persuade them to love and honor him—first by twisting their
thumbs out of joint with a screw; then by nipping their flesh with
pincers—red-hot ones, because they are the most comfortable in cold
weather; then by skinning them alive a little, and finally by roasting
them in public. They always convinced those barbarians. The true
religion, properly administered, as the good Mother Church used to
administer it, is very, very soothing. It is wonderfully persuasive
also. There is a great difference between feeding parties to wild beasts
and stirring up their finer feelings in an Inquisition. One is the
system of degraded barbarians, the other of enlightened civilized
people. It is a great pity the playful Inquisition is no more.