It must be remembered that the popes were assassinated by Catholics--murdered by the faithful--that one vicar of Christ strangled another vicar of Christ, and that these men were "the greatest rulers and the greatest statesmen of the earth." "Pope John XVI. was seized, his eyes put out, his nose cut off, his tongue torn from his mouth, and he was sent through the streets mounted on an ass, with his face to the tail. Benedict IX., a boy of less than twelve years of age, was raised to the apostolic throne. One of his successors, Victor III., declared that the life of Benedict was so shameful, so foul, so execrable, that he shuddered to describe it. He ruled like a captain of banditti. The people, unable to bear longer his adulteries, his homicides and his abominations, rose against him, and in despair of maintaining his position, he put up the papacy to auction, and it was bought by a presbyter named John, who became Gregory VI., in the year of grace 1045. Well may we ask, Were these the vicegerents of God upon earth--these, who had truly reached that goal beyond which the last effort of human wickedness cannot pass?" It may be sufficient to say that there is no crime that man can commit that has not been committed by the vicars of Christ. They have inflicted every possible torture, violated every natural right. Greater monsters the human race has not produced. Among the "some two hundred and fifty-eight" Vicars of Christ there were probably some good men. This would have happened even if the intention had been to get all bad men, for the reason that man reaches perfection neither in good nor in evil; but if they were selected by Christ himself, if they were selected by a church with a divine origin and under divine guidance, then there is no way to account for the selection of a bad one. If one hypocrite was duly elected pope--one murderer, one strangler, one starver--this demonstrates that all the popes were selected by men, and by men only, and that the claim of divine guidance is born of zeal and uttered without knowledge. But who were the vicars of Christ? How many have there been? Cardinal Manning himself does not know. He is not sure. He says: "Starting from St. Peter to Leo XIII., there have been some two hundred and fifty-eight Pontiffs claiming to be recognized by the whole Catholic unity as successors of St. Peter and Vicars of Jesus Christ." Why did he use the word "some"? Why "claiming"? Does he not positively know? Is it possible that the present Vicar of Christ is not certain as to the number of his predecessors? Is he infallible in faith and fallible in fact? Robert G. Ingersoll. II. "If we live thus tamely,-- To be thus jaded by a piece of scarlet,-- Farewell nobility." NO ONE will deny that "the pope speaks to many people in many nations; that he treats with empires and governments," and that "neither from Canterbury nor from Constantinople such a voice goes forth."