or
inflicting tortures, and under them concealed trap doors opening
into rayless dungeons with no outlet and whose floors were covered
with the mouldering bones of unfortunate wretches who had
mysteriously disappeared long ago and tracelessly perished there.
Sometimes these trap doors were directly above profound pits of
water, in which the victim would drown as he dropped from the
mangling hooks, racks, and pincers of the torture chamber. There
were horrible rumors current in the Middle Age of a machine called
the "Virgin," used for putting men to death; but little was known
about it, and it was generally supposed to be a fable, until, some
years ago one of the identical machines was discovered in an old
Austrian castle. It was a tall wooden woman, with a painted face,
which the victim was ordered to kiss. As he approached to offer
the salute, he trod on a spring, causing the machine to fly open,
stretch out a pair of iron arms, and draw him to its breast
covered with a hundred sharp spikes, which pierced him to death.49

Ignorance and alarm, in a suffering and benighted age, surrounded
by sounds of superstition and sights of cruelty, must needs breed
and foster a horrid faith in regard to the invisible world.
Accordingly, the common doctrine of the future life prevailing in
Christendom from the ninth century till the sixteenth was as we
have portrayed it. Of course there are exceptions to be admitted
and qualifications to be made; but, upon the whole, the picture is
faithful. Fortunately, intellect and soul could not slumber
forever, nor the mediaval nightmares always keep their torturing
seat on the bosom of humanity. Noble men arose to vindicate the
rights of reason and the divinity of conscience. The world was
circumnavigated, and its revolution around the sun was
demonstrated. A thousand truths were discovered, a thousand
inventions introduced. Papacy tottered, its prestige waned, its
infallibility sunk. The light of knowledge shone, the simplicity
of nature was seen, and the benignity of God was surmised.
Thought, throwing off many restrictions and accumulating much
material, began to grow free, and began to grow wise. And so,
before the calm, steady gaze of enlightened and cheerful reason,
the live and crawling smoke of hell, which had so long enwreathed
the mind of the time with its pendent and breathing horrors,
gradually broke up and dissolved, "Like a great superstitious
snake, uncurled From the pale temp