Castile, the kingdom of Isabella, had till then refused admission to the Inquisition. At one time its introduction was recommended, and the whole populace arose in rebellion. Isabella herself trembled at the very mention of it. But in an evil hour _Thomas de Torquemada_, "condemned to infamous immortality by the signal part which he performed in the tragedy of the Inquisition," became her confessor. That man--if "man" I may name him--that vilest blot upon the history of religion, of Spain, of civilization, was the fiend incarnate. His very name still represents the superlative of maniacal fanaticism. He labored hard to infuse into the pure mind of the noble hearted Isabella a fanaticism as fiendish as was his. And still she recoiled from the thought of introducing the monstrous slaughtering institution in her domains. Torquemada brought the weight of the entire church to bear upon her conscience, and still she refused. The fiend was not yet baffled. He influenced her husband, the crafty and greedy Ferdinand of Aragon, to advocate his cause. The husband prevailed. On the 2nd day of January, 1481, the Inquisition commenced operation in the city of Seville, with Thomas de Torquemada as Inquisitor General of Castile and Aragon. A few years later it found its way into every prominent town of Spain, and confined itself everywhere almost wholly to the Jews. The severity, and savage alacrity of it, may best be learned from the appalling fact that during the eighteen years of Torquemada's ministry an average of more than 6,000 convicted persons suffered annually from this cruel tribunal by burning, or by condemnation to life long slavery, or by endless torture, making an average of nearly seventeen a day, and the entire number punished during its existence in Spain, from 1481 to 1808, amounted to 340,000 persons.[39] [39] There is a Roman Catholic periodical entitled _La Bandera Catholica_ (The Catholic Banner) which is published in Barcelona, Spain; and on July 29th, 1883, it published an article which caused one almost to think he was living in the sixteenth instead of the nineteenth century. The writer of the article imagines the burning stake is a thing of the near future. He says, "Thank God, at last we have turned toward the times when heretical doctrines were persecuted as they should be, and when those who propagated them were punished with exemplary punishment.