New-York tribune., 1888-04-15


put Charles upon the throne, and he abandoned
| her to death OF the stake. The English had some
| ground for hating her. for she had defeated their
| most famous captains and thwarted their most
ambitious schemes. The Inquisition however,
played most base and abject part in the disgrace
| full episode.
Among the most interesting chapters IN the
| present volume Of Mr.. Lea's history are those
which treat of the rise and persecution of witch-
craft Here the Inquisition was thoroughly at
home, for the methods to be followed were almost
| precisely the same as had been employed in tho
extirpation of heresy. 1t probably troubled them
| in no way that these methods tended directly TO
the creation Of the evil they were attacking.
The prospect Of an increase in the number of burn
ings was never known to discourage an earnest
Inqusitor. The history Of superstition, however,
contains nothing more instructive than the witch-
craft record and in particular the growth Of the
hallucination known as The Sabbat. 1t has been
conjectured by some investigators Of this phase
Of sorcery that the idea Of the Sabbat rested prl-
marily upon visions resulting from the use OK
certain drugs, presumably opiates, which threw
those taking them into frances, whose memories
were confounded with actual occurrences mr.
Lea says nothing Of the ointments, which were
certainly employed in sorcery, at least far back
is made by Springer. Bodin, Wierus and Reginald
Scot though these writers by no means hold iden-
tcal views on the effects of the unguents But
II In some cases there was tangible basis for the
idea Of the Sabbat, it is not doubtful that when
the witch mania was more fully developed the
application of torture was almost always enough
to evoke the desired confessions, that thousands
OF poor ignorant wretches simply repeated the
legends which were in all mouths.
When everything not strictly regular was liable
to be considered the effect of sorcery or witch
craft when every sick child every ailing cow
or horse, every failure Of crops, every stress of
weather every mischance in business, every ac-
cident, was attributed to the exercise Of super
natural power for malignant purposes, witches
and sCrcerers could not but multiply. 1t is an
indication of the intellectual duness of the period
that 1t was long before the actual impotence
Of the alleged witches struck people as inconsis-
tent with the powers ascribed to them. The old
woman who was accused Of controlling the
weather of exercising the power of death by her
mere glance, Of destroying her enemies and their
possessions, of transporting herself through the
air invisibly, Of changing her form at pleasure,
when taken into custody proved incapable Of
helping herself at all 1t became necessary to
invent special theories to explain this impotence.
witches of their powers 1t was further declared
that Satan always abandoned his subjects when
they were in trouble. That these puerilities
should be accepted shows the prevalent creduEty
of the age. The Inquisition burned witches by
scores Of thousands, but it is clear that it never
could have extirpated witchcraft That ceased only
when belief in it disappeared. Nothing was
easier than to create witches by the rack and
the stake, and yet plain as this appears now,
it required two hundred years Of fire and blood
to teach it to our ancestors
So much had the Inquisition done to establish
Its detestable principles But those principles
were of no use against evil living Virtue
was not demanded by the Church of the Middle
Ages. Faith was the sole requirement. Mr.
Lea, in his final chatper reviews the dialectical
frivolites of the Schools, by which the substance
of Christianity was eliminated, and the Sentences
of Peter Lombard and the refneIaents of Thomas
Aquinas were substituted for the Gospel All
this prodigious squandering Of wit and learning
was regarded with complaisant approval by
Church which forbade the laity to read the Script
ufes; which put theology before religion, which
tolerated every crime in the calendar and made
objectionable sins Of the least doubts concerning
speculative and baseless conjectures Of Popes and
Doctors Mr.. Lea sums up against this inquisi-
tOral machinery of this corrupt Church as fol-
lows: 4" 1t introduced system Of jurisprudence
which infected the criminal law OF all the lands
subjected to its influence, and rendered the admin
istration of penal justice cruel mocllery for
centuries 1t furnished the Holy See with a
powerful weapon in aid of political aggraudize
ment it tempted secular sovereigns to initiate
the example, and IL prostituted the
name of religion to the vilest
temporal ends. 1t stimulated the masked sensi-
tiveness TO doctrinal alterations until the most
trifing dissidence was capable Of arOusing insane
fury, and of convulsing Europe from end to end.
On the other hand when atheism became fashion
able in high places, its thunders were mute.
Energetic only in evil, when its powers might
have been used on the side of virtue it held It's
hand and gave the people to understand that the
only sins demanding repression were doubt as to
the accuracy of the Churchs knowledge Of the
unknown and attendance on the Sabbat In Its
long career Of blood and fire, the only credit
which II can claim is the suppression Of the per-
nicious dogmas Of the Cathari; and in this its
agency was superhuous, for those dOgmas carried
in themselves the seeds OF self-destruction and
might more wisely have been left to selfextinc-
ton. Thus the Judgment Of impartial history
must be that the Inquisition was the mOnstrous
offspring Of mistaken zeal, utilized by selfish
greed and lust of power to smother the higher
aspirations of humanity and stimulate its baser
appetltes
This is tremendous Indictment but the truth
Of every word Of it is demonstrated in the pages
Of this history More than tlat it must bc said
that Mr. Lea has handled the immense accumu-
ation Of damning evidence in his hands with a
careful and judicial moderation and thorough
ness of research deserving of the highest praise
and emitting his work TO the fullest confidence.
Nor could the persistent exercise Of the strong
selfrestraint he has shown have been easy to him
For it may safely be asserted that in the long
catalogue Of human error there is no chapter SO
consistently and inhumanly black and perfdious
as that which includes the doings Of the Inquisi-
ton Simply TO register the acts Of that most
abominable institution is indeed to condemn it,