The spectacle inflamed me, being a sectarian myself. I felt ashamed that I was not showing an equal zeal for _my_ party. I, too, longed to fight, to kill, to be killed, for my religion. And, anon! the opportunity presented itself. I saw, looking up the street to my right, a group of my fellow-believers, who, like myself, shut out of their own church by the orthodox authorities, armed with whips loaded with lead and with clubs, were entering a house. I followed them. As we went in, we commanded the head of the family and his wife to appear. When they did, we asked them if it was true that in their prayers to Mary they had refrained from the use of the words, "The mother of God." They hesitated to give a direct answer, whereupon we used the club, and then, the scourge. Then they said they believed in and revered the blessed virgin, but would not, even if we killed them, say that she was the mother of God. This obstinacy exasperated us and we felt it to be our religious duty, for the honor of our divine Queen, to perpetrate such cruelties upon them as would shock your gentle ears to hear. We held them over slowly burning fires, flung lime into their eyes, applied roasted eggs and hot irons to the sensitive parts of their bodies, and even gagged them to force the sacrament into their mouths.....As we went from house to house, bent upon our mission, I remember an expression of one of the party who said to the poor woman who was begging for mercy: "What! shall I be guilty of defrauding the vengeance of God of its victims?" A sudden chill ran down my back. I felt my flesh creep. Like a drop of poison the thought embodied in those words perverted whatever of pity or humanity was left in me, and I felt that I was only helping to secure victims with which to feed the vengeance of God! [Illustration: Trinity in XIII Century.] I was willing to be a monster for the glory of God!