Above all, the cruelty of the "holy office" to those whom it pronounces penitent, is most detestable. Instead of embracing them with open arms, it inflicts the most grievous punishments on those whom, in the plenitude of its power, it permits to live; whilst others, also believed to be converted to the faith of the Romish Church, are nevertheless doomed to suffer an ignominious death. To these unhappy persons, the sacraments are given, if desired; thus acknowledging that they are "put in a state of salvation, received into the bosom of the Church, and assured of a heavenly crown!" What greater cruelty, then, can be conceived, and what more abhorrent to the mild spirit of the gospel of peace, than to punish with death a person who repents, and is reconciled to the Church? Yet, such are the iniquitous doings of the Inquisition! such the laws by which that blood-thirsty tribunal is governed—laws which must be carried into effect, in despite of the precepts of Jehovah, and the injunctions of the Great Head of the Church, every one of which are trampled under foot! "The Inquisition, model most complete, Of perfect wickedness, where deeds were done, Deeds! let them ne'er be named—and sat and planned Deliberately, and with most musing pains, How, to extremest thrill of agony, The flesh, the blood, and souls of holy men, Her victims, might be wrought; and when she saw New tortures of her labouring fancy born, She leaped for joy, and made great haste to try Their force—well pleased to hear a deeper groan. The supplicating hand of innocence, That made the tiger mild, and, in its wrath, The lion pause, the groans of suffering most Severe, were nought to her; she laughed at groans, No music pleased her more, and no repast So sweet to her, as blood of men redeemed By blood of Christ. Ambition's self, though mad, And nursed on human gore, with her compared, Was merciful." Nay, the Inquisitors themselves though they impiously assume the title of "holy," have almost uniformly been the most worthless and abandoned of characters. Crimes of the blackest hue have been perpetrated by these guardians of the faith, without a blush; and as they feared not God, so neither did they regard man—the laws of magistrates and kings being trampled on by them with impunity. These are indeed weighty charges, but the following testimonies by Roman Catholics themselves, given at different periods, will prove them to be no less weighty than just.