nd
black pages of the Church. One name stands out in the list of the
pontiffs of this century, which is almost unparalleled in its infamy; it
is that of Roderic Borgia, Pope Alexander VI. Foully vicious, cruel, and
bloodthirsty, he is startlingly bad, even for a pope. Among his children
are found the names of Caesar and Lucretia Borgia, names whose very
mention recalls a list of horrible crimes. Alexander died A.D. 1503,
from swallowing, by mistake, a poison which he and his son Caesar had
prepared for others. Turning to the heretics, we see great lives cut
short by the terrible blows of the inquisition:--Savanarola, the brave
Italian preacher, the reformer monk, tortured and burned A.D. 1498; John
Huss, the enemy of the papacy, burned A.D. 1415, in direct violation of
the safe conduct granted him; Jerome, of Prague, the friend and
companion of Huss, burned A.D. 1416. Myriads of their unhappy followers
shared their fate in every European land. But to Spain belongs the
terrible pre-eminence of cruelty in this last century before the
Reformation. In the year 1478 a bull of Pope Sixtus IV. established the
Inquisition in Spain. "In the first year of the operation of the
Inquisition, 1481, two thousand victims were burnt in Andalusia; besides
these, many thousands were dug up from their graves and burnt; seventeen
thousand were fined or imprisoned for life. Whoever of the persecuted
race could flee, escaped for his life. Torquemada, now appointed
Inquisitor-General for Castile and Leon, illustrated his office by his
ferocity. Anonymous accusations were received, the accused was not
confronted by witnesses, torture was relied upon for conviction; it was
inflicted in vaults where no one could hear the cries of the tormented.
As, in pretended mercy, it was forbidden to inflict torture a second
time, with horrible duplicity it was affirmed that the torment had not
been completed at first, but had only been suspended out of charity
until the following day! The families of the convicted were plunged into
irretrievable ruin.... This frantic priest destroyed Hebrew Bibles
wherever he could find them, and burnt six thousand volumes of Oriental
literature at Salamanca, under an imputation that they inculcated
Judaism" (Draper's "Conflict of Science and Religion," p. 146).
Torquemada was, indeed, a worthy successor of Moses. During his eighteen
years of power, his list of victims is as follows:--

Burnt at the stake alive..............