“But these three replies form but one; they are the three sides of a prism, which, united, give the entire ray of truth. In truth, Catholicism is the father, the Inquisition and tyranny the daughters. We are not the first to pen these words; we only repeat what we have read in the lines we are now going to submit to the perusal of our readers. It is sufficient for us to have pointed out the connection of the different causes which will be assigned by our authorities. “That Catholicism produced the Inquisition, a tribunal of priests, judging heretics, it is unnecessary to demonstrate, for the very nature of the institution renders it evident. The ruling idea of Catholicism, the principle of authority, was the germ of the Inquisition. It was impossible that the Romish Church should not extend its principle to its penal code; it does not doubt in matters of faith, neither does it doubt in criminal matters. This is the reason why, in the church, the accused and the guilty have but one and the same appellation. Whoever is arraigned at her tribunal has heaven and earth against him; the interrogatory is already a species of torture. When the church accuses, she seems already convinced; all her efforts tend to extort the confession of the crime, which, in virtue of her infallibility, she discovers in darkness; from this anticipated conviction of the guilt of the accused are produced all those ambushes and snares laid for the purpose of obtaining, by surprise, the confession of the accused. The names of the witnesses are concealed or falsified. Everywhere, in the most trifling details, it is strikingly evident that, truth is on one side, and the demon on the other.” [See Tardiff, pp. 139, 140.] In the second place, that Catholicism has produced the Spanish absolutism of the Catholic kings is sufficiently shown by the very name given to these kings. “Another no less deplorable consequence of the position of the clergy in Spain and Portugal is, that they have no sooner confounded the cause of religion with that of despotism, than this error, producing its consequences, leads to a monstrous abuse of the word of God. Political fury has invaded the pulpit and stained it with abject and sacrilegious adulation.... The lips, whose mission is to speak peace, charity and mutual love, have spoken the language of hatred and vengeance; horrible vows, abominable threats in the presence of the tabernacles in which abides the Son of Man, who sacrificed his life for the salvation of his brethren.” [Affairs de Rome, pp. 250 to 254.] “Spain, since Phillip II., has remained closed and uninfluenced by the ordinary progress of the human mind elsewhere. The monkish and despotic spirit has long preserved itself in the midst of ignorance, without, indeed, acquiring strength from abroad, but at the same time without permitting the intelligence of the nation to borrow foreign arms against it.” [Idem, p. 53.]