cause of the Church cannot be
defended. The accusation of wrongdoing made against the enemies they
are trying to reduce to silence comes back with equal force against
the friends they are trying to defend.

It does not follow that because the Inquisition of Calvin and the
French Revolutionists merits the reprobation of mankind, the
Inquisition of the Catholic Church must needs escape all censure. On
the contrary, the unfortunate comparison made between them naturally
leads one to think that both deserve equal blame. To our mind, there
is only one way of defending the attitude of the Catholic Church in
the Middle Ages toward the Inquisition. We must examine and judge
this institution objectively, from the standpoint of morality,
justice, and religion, instead of comparing its excesses with the
blameworthy actions of other tribunals.

No historian worthy of the name has as yet undertaken to treat the
Inquisition from this objective standpoint. In the seventeenth
century, a scholarly priest, Jacques Marsollier, canon of the Uzes,
published at Cologne (Paris), in 1693, a _Histoire de l'Inquisition
et de son Origine_. But his work, as a critic has pointed out, is
"not so much a history of the Inquisition, as a thesis written with a
strong Gallican bias, which details with evident delight the
cruelties of the Holy Office." The illustrations are taken from
Philip Limborch's _Historia Inquisitionis_.[1]

[1] Paul Fredericq, _Historiographie de l'Inquisition_, p. xiv.
Introduction to the French translation of Lea's book on the
Inquisition.

Henry Charles Lea, already known by his other works on religious
history, published in New York, in 1888, three large volumes entitled
_A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages._ This work has
received as a rule a most flattering reception at the hands of the
European press, and has been translated into French.[1] One can say
without exaggeration that it is "the most extensive, the most
profound, and the most thorough history of the Inquisition that we
possess."[2]

[1] _Histoire de l'Inquisition au moyen age_, Solomon Reinach. Paris,
Fischbacher, 1900-1903.

[2] Paul Fredericq, loc. cit., p. xxiv.

It is far, however, from being the last word of historical criticism.
And I am not speaking here of the changes in detail that may result
from the discovery of new documents. We have plenty of material at
hand to enable us to form an accurate notion of the institution
itself. Lea