{70} At the massacre of Levaur four hundred persons were piled together and burned. The embassador, in making up his dispatches to the pope, said that "they made a wonderful blaze, and then went to burn everlastingly in hell." It was hoped that these horrors would so terrify men that they would never again dare to use the God-given power of reason. The soil had been steeped with the blood of men and the air polluted by their burnings; yet all this did not stifle the truth, nor prevent its growth. Hoping still to effect this, that infernal institution, the Inquisition, was established. Its projectors intended it not only to put an end to public teaching, but also to private thought. When once the Inquisition seized its victim, no person, not even the nearest relative, could converse with him, write to him or intercede for him. He was lost to public view until the hour for his torture or execution had arrived. In Spain alone more than three hundred and forty thousand passed through its terrible ordeal. But this fearful tribunal did not fail to draw upon itself the indignation of men. Such outrages against humanity cannot be perpetrated without bringing retribution in the end. The great forces which were then at work in society, were well illustrated in the characters of the two leading actors. On one side stands Innocent III., his hands red with the blood of his fellow-men, and hesitating at no atrocity in order to accomplish his purposes. On the other, was Frederick II., emperor of Germany and Italy. Frederick's early life had been spent in familiar intercourse with Jews and Arabs. In a Saracen university he had received his education; and to his many other accomplishments, he added the speaking of the Arabic as fluently as a Saracen. Jewish and Saracen philosophers had taught him to sneer at the pretensions of the church of Rome: as might be expected he soon came in conflict with her authority.