ld be placed; in the lower,
the feet; and through the iron ring, at the centre, the head of the
victim would be forced, and in that position the man would be thrown
upon the earth, and the strain upon the muscle would produce such agony
that insanity took pity. And this was done to keep people from going
to Hell--to convince that man that he had made a mistake in his
logic--and it was done, too, by Protestants--Protestants that
persecuted to the extent of their power, and that is as much as
Catholicism ever did. They would persecute now if they had the power.
There is not a man in this vast audience who will say that the church
should have temporal power. There is not one of you but what believes
in the eternal divorce of church and state. Is it possible that the
only people who are fit to go to heaven are the only people not fit to
rule mankind?

I saw at the same time the rack. This was a box like the bed of a
wagon, with a windlass at each end, and ratchets to prevent slipping.
Over each windlass went chains, and when some man had, for instance,
denied the doctrine of the trinity, a doctrine it is necessary to
believe in order to get to Heaven--but, thank the Lord, you don't have
to understand it. This man merely denied that three times one was one,
or maybe he denied that there was ever any Son in the world exactly as
old as his father, or that there ever was a boy eternally older than
his mother--then they put that man on the rack. Nobody had ever been
persecuted for calling God bad--it has always been for calling him
good. When I stand here to say that, if there is a Hell, God is a
fiend, they say that is very bad. They say I am trying to tear down
the institutions of public virtue. But let me tell you one thing:
there is no reformation in fear--you can scare a man so that he won't
do it sometimes, but I will swear you can't scare him so bad that he
won't want to do it. Then they put this man on the rack and priests
began turning these levers, and kept turning until the ankles, the
hips, the shoulders, the elbows, the wrists, and all the joints of the
victim were dislocated, and he was wet with agony, and standing by was
a physician to feel his pulse. What for? To save his life? Yes. In
mercy? No. But in order that they might have the pleasure of racking
him once more. And this was the Christian spirit. This was done in the
name of civilization, in the name of religion, and all these wretches
who