pportable than those of his mind. His dislocated limbs, the
nails torn from his hands and feet, and his fingers mashed and broken
by the pressure of screws, were far surpassed in anguish by the
agitation of his soul and vehemence of his terrors. He saw that,
guilty or innocent, his Judges were bent upon condemning him: The
remembrance of what his denial had already cost him terrified him at
the idea of being again applied to the question, and almost engaged him
to confess his crimes. Then again the consequences of his confession
flashed before him, and rendered him once more irresolute. His death
would be inevitable, and that a death the most dreadful: He had
listened to Matilda's doom, and doubted not that a similar was reserved
for him. He shuddered at the approaching Auto da Fe, at the idea of
perishing in flames, and only escaping from indurable torments to pass
into others more subtile and ever-lasting! With affright did He bend
his mind's eye on the space beyond the grave; nor could hide from
himself how justly he ought to dread Heaven's vengeance. In this
Labyrinth of terrors, fain would He have taken his refuge in the gloom
of Atheism: Fain would He have denied the soul's immortality; have
persuaded himself that when his eyes once closed, they would never more
open, and that the same moment would annihilate his soul and body.
Even this resource was refused to him. To permit his being blind to
the fallacy of this belief, his knowledge was too extensive, his
understanding too solid and just. He could not help feeling the
existence of a God. Those truths, once his comfort, now presented
themselves before him in the clearest light; But they only served to
drive him to distraction. They destroyed his ill-grounded hopes of
escaping punishment; and dispelled by the irresistible brightness of
Truth and convinction, Philosophy's deceitful vapours faded away like a
dream.

In anguish almost too great for mortal frame to bear, He expected the
time when He was again to be examined. He busied himself in planning
ineffectual schemes for escaping both present and future punishment.
Of the first there was no possibility; Of the second Despair made him
neglect the only means. While Reason forced him to acknowledge a God's
existence, Conscience made him doubt the infinity of his goodness. He
disbelieved that a Sinner like him could find mercy. He had not been
deceived into error: Ignorance could furnish him with n