It is needless to mention here more instances of their cruelty: I shall say all in a few words. The miseries of the jail, in which the prisoners are generally confined by themselves for several years, shut up in darkness, without being allowed any human converse, are so great, the cruelty of their torments so severe, and their punishments so exquisite, that they greatly exceed the cruelty of all other courts: for persons are not only burnt alive, but their mouths gagged, so that they have not the liberty to groan or cry out in those most horrible tortures; and by thus stopping up their mouths, they are in such an agony, as that they are almost strangled. But their cruelty towards the penitent and converted is most detestable: for whereas the church ought, with open arms, to embrace penitents, in imitation of the shepherd who carried the lost sheep on his shoulders, and brought it home to the sheepfold, these wretches enjoin the most grievous punishments on those whose lives they spare, which with them are only wholesome penances. For they condemn them either to wear the infamous Sambenito, or to imprisonment, or the gallies, whereby their very life is oftentimes a punishment to them; whilst others are denied the very hopes of life, especially the relapsed, who are condemned to death without mercy, though they convert themselves. And yet the sacraments are given to those who are reconciled to the church when they desire it; and thus before they are put to death they become members of the church, put in a state of salvation, and by the priests themselves most certainly assured of an heavenly crown. Can there be any greater cruelty, and more abhorrent from the spirit of Christianity, than to punish with death an erroneous person who repents, detests his error, and is now reconciled to the church? But the ecclesiastical sanctions must be satisfied, and the authority of the church preserved entire, though the laws of Jesus Christ, and the commands of the gospel are trampled under foot.