The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-01-30
(c0Heiudsd:J
VII: REMARK.

| 1t Is f1SnC TO JuuSO sA ~ -
traits, and side by side with the odlum
cast upon the Inquisition, to learn the
happy results which it produced. Now
II can not be denied that, to great
extent at least, it is due to the In
| ouisition that several countries of Eu-
rope have preserved the faith untaint-
ed for centuries, and in particular, that
thew have been saved from the per-
| nicious invasion of intoierant and
sanguinary Professionalism. Voltaire,
| that bitter enemy of the Inquisition
and of the Catholic Church, was can
did enough to write: During the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, at
the time of the Inquisition, the nation
of SPAIN DID NOT WITNESS IN
HER MIDST THE BLOODY .REVO-
LUTIONS, THE CONSPIRACIES
AGAINST THE THRONE, AND THE
TERRIBLE DISASTERS THAT DES-
OLATED THE OTHER ROYAL
HOUSES OF EUROPE. No King was
assassinated as in France, no royal
head was felled by the hand of the
excutioner as in England. - The
Spanish Inquisition, Notwithstanding
all it's rigors and excuses, which We
freely admit, and the cause of which
we have already adduced, can say this
much in its defense. The Spanish gov
eminent saw that all Europe was in
flames and all hands reeking with
blood wherever heresy and schism
arose and the unity of faith had been
lost The Peasants war, the Thirty
Years war, the excuses of the Ana
baptists' seditions in France; the
cruelties that desolated the Neither
lands; the wholesale butcheries in Eng
land, particularly under Henry VIII.
and Elizabeth; the high handed meas
ures, exiles, confscations and murders
with which the Catholic faith was ex
terminated, root and branch, from the
people of Sweden, Norway and Den
mark, taught the other European Gath
Ollie nations lessons not to be easily
forgotten. The Spanish rulers, seeing
this determined to spare Spain these
and similar terrors, by preserving, at
all cost, the unity of the faith among
that intensely Catholic people, and by
stamping out and excluding from the
realm even the first germ of Protestant
rebellion, which proselytizing zealots
were trying to disseminate in the Span
ish Peninsula. The Inquisition was the
means devised for the purpose. Spain
therefore owes to the Inquisition, not
withstanding its abuses, the preserva-
ton of the Catholic faith, the preserva-
tion of national and religious unity,
and an unbroken internal peace at a
time when, in consequence of Prot
estant rebellion against the authority
of Rome other parts of Err ope were
bleeding under the curse of civil and
religious wars. How can we blame that
tribunal for the death and tortures of
few obstinate heretics, when we see
that thereby the whole of Spain
was saved from interminable civil
wars, and all the horrors that charac-
terized the religious fanaticism of the
sectarians of northern Europe?
A brief reference to another kind of |
Inquisition will not be here out of
place. The penal laws against Catho-
lies passed in England and her colo
MES, in Scotland, Holland, Sweden, |
Denmark, Switzerland and Germany, |
have never been collected yet; but |
such as have been brought together at |
times present a revolving picture. THE
STUDY OF WHICH WOULD MAKE
CERTAIN PEOPLE BLUSH AND
CHANGE SOME POPULAR IDEAS.
And, please notice well, in these
States the CATHOLIC RELIGION
WAS AT HOME, was III possession
for many hundreds of years. Catho |
lies, therefore, were not introducing 7
new religious creeds, assailing exist I
ing institutions, or disturbing the pub
lie peace. THEY WE'RE INOFFEND-
ING IAW-ABIDING CITIZENS, |
WHO SIMPLY ASKED TO BE AL
LOWED TO RETAIN THE FAITH
AND PRACTICES HANDED DOWN
TO THEM BY THEIR FOREFATH-
ERS, EVEN FROM THE. VERY IN
OF CHRISTIANITY
INTO THEIR LAND.
'EConsider, writes Joseph de Ma
istre, ''the Thirty Years war, lit up
by the infammatory harangues of
Luther; the unheard of atrocities of
the Anabaptists and the Peasants, the
civil wars of France, England, Elan
ders, the massacre of St Bartholomew,
the massacre of Merindol aud the
Cevennes; the murder of Mary Stuart.
Henry Ill, Henry ", Charles l.. of
the Prince of Orange A ship could
float in the blood which the Reformers
caused to be shed. Do not tell us that
the Inquisition produced this or that
abuse; for this is not the question.
In pronouncing sentence over the
Spanish 1nquisition, the important
thing to know is, whether, during the
three last centuries, there has been.
because of the Inquisition, more peace