to the flames; this primate held a commission with "some others, to
examine and search after all anabaptists, heretics, or contemners of the
book of Common Prayer" ("Students' History of England," D. Hume, p. 291,
ed. 1868).

In Switzerland, Calvin burned Servetus. In America, the Puritans carried
on the same hateful tradition, and whipped the harmless Quakers from
town to town. Wherever the cross has gone, whether held by Roman
Catholic, by Lutheran, by Calvinist, by Episcopalian, by Presbyterian,
by Protestant dissenter, it has been dipped in human blood, and has
broken human hearts. Its effect on Europe was destructive, barbarising,
deadly, until the dawning light of science scattered the thick black
clouds which issued from the cross. One indisputable fact, pregnant with
instruction, is the extremely low rate of increase of the population of
Europe during the centuries when Christianity was supreme. "What, then,
does this stationary condition of the population mean? It means, food
obtained with hardship, insufficient clothing, personal uncleanness,
cabins that could not keep out the weather, the destructive effects of
cold and heat, miasm, want of sanitary provisions, absence of
physicians, uselessness of shrine cure, the deceptiveness of miracles,
in which society was putting its trust; or, to sum up a long catalogue
of sorrows, wants and sufferings in one term--it means a high
death-rate. But, more, it means deficient births. And what does that
point out? Marriage postponed, licentious life, private wickedness,
demoralized society" (Draper's "Conflict of Religion and Science," p.
263). "The surface of the Continent was for the most part covered with
pathless forests; here and there it was dotted with monasteries and
towns. In the lowlands and along the river courses were fens, sometimes
hundreds of miles in extent, exhaling their pestiferous miasms, and
spreading agues far and wide." In towns there was "no attempt made at
drainage, but the putrefying garbage and rubbish were simply thrown out
of the door. Men, women, and children slept in the same apartment; not
unfrequently domestic animals were their companions; in such a confusion
of the family it was impossible that modesty and morality could be
maintained. The bed was usually a bag of straw; a wooden log served as a
pillow. Personal cleanliness was utterly unknown; great officers of
state, even dignitaries so high as the Archbishop of Canterbury, swarmed
wi