history, demand that, instead of taking a distant glance at the gloomy tragedies of remote times, we should look into the heart in search of those deep sunken motives whence the worst atrocities might take their spring. The man is indeed to be envied whose spirit contains no such elements as might enable him to institute an analysis of this sort. Few will make the profession; and perhaps among those who would, there may be one or more that, if actually drawn into the eddy of turbulent passions, would be found foremost in deeds of violence; for it is certain that the prime impulses of a sanguinary fanaticism act and re-act one upon another until an emotion is generated which quite bears down the gentler feelings of our nature.

The offence given to self-love, and the wound inflicted upon pride by resistance in matters of opinion, is deep in proportion, not simply to the importance of the question debated, but to its obscurity also; for in this case a secret dread of being at length overthrown and humbled, adds asperity to arrogance. It is obvious then that no subject can equal religion in furnishing occasion to these keen resentments. The vastness and unlimited range of the matters it is concerned with-the infinite importance of its capital truths, and the readiness with which the weight of what is substantial may be made over to what is not so-even to the most trivial of its adjuncts, fit it well to impart the utmost

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vehemence to whatever feelings attend the contests of mind with mind. All this hardly needs to be affirmed; nor can we wonder to see the bitterness of ordinary strife assuming when religion is the subject of controversy, a solemn virulence, such as makes secular contentions seem vapid and trivial. Common hatred now rises to an immortal abhorrence; wrath swells to execration, and every ill wish breaks out in anathemas.

That feelings so strong should vent themselves in vindictive acts, when opportunity serves, is only natural; and we might, without advancing further, account in this manner solely for the cruelties in which religious discords have so often terminated. But there seems to be something yet deeper in the tendency to employ torments and death as, means of persuasion. It should be expected that a course of action so preposterous as that of destroying men in professed love to their souls,' will be found to take its rise from a sheer absurdity :- such, for example, as that of putting an antagonist into the position with which we associate the idea of atrocious crimes in order to confirm ourselves

There is no cruelty comparable to that which wraps itself in a villanous hypocrisy. The Romish Church (nor that alone) has always professed the tenderest regard to the spiritual welfare of those whom she was about to let drop into her fires. And thus the Holy Office, in the instructions which guide its agents, provides that—" If a prisoner falls sick, the inquisitors must carefully provide him with every assistance, and more particularly attend to all that relates to HIS SOUL." See Llorente.

in the belief that he is indeed an atrocious criminal. This we grant is reasoning in a circle; but it is a logic not strange to the human mind. A secret influence not to be resisted, impels us to do homage to the primary elements of virtue, even when most we are violating its particular precepts. This homage, although tacit, and rendered unconsciously, is not the less real in its effects. We can in no case hate and curse our fellow-men until after we have wrought ourselves up to the persuasion that they are condign objects of such treatment. But in the instance of religious animosities such a persuasion is not ordinarily to be attained, except in a circuitous track. Even the slenderest pretext for charging upon our opponent moral delinquencies is often wanting on the contrary, perhaps a life and temper absolutely blameless put to shame every attempted calumny. Woe to our victim if this be the case, for then the cruel work of vilifying him must be so much the more elaborate! To establish to our own satisfaction the guilt of our enemy by the method of argument-by fair inference and evidence, is a process too slow to keep pace with the velocity of the vindictive passions. What then remains but by the forms of law-if law be at our bidding, and by the sword of justiceif justice be our obsequious servant, to consign the hated impugner of our will to the class of malefactors ?-When once we have looked upon

him covered with ignominy-and if we can but see him pale with the paleness which a dungeon sheds on the face-and if we do but catch the clanking of a chain about his neck which a Barabbas yesterday wore; yes, and if we hear him groaning under torments that are the necessary schooling of obdurate wickedness-then we can fill up with ease what before was wanting to tranquillize a just revenge. The circle of our ideas is complete, our moral instincts come round to their close; we breathe again, and by inflicting those heavy injuries which are presumptive evidence of demerit, we prove to ourselves, as well as to the world, that the object of our hatred was indeed worthy of detestation!

A mode of reasoning analogous to this (if reasoning it should be called) is not of rare occurrence. "The man must be odious, or should I thus maltreat him?" and then greater outrages must be committed, if it be only to justify the first assault. The bystanders in a common quarrel may often follow angry spirits around a circle of this sort. -Perhaps in the first burst of resentment a much more grievous imputation of bad motives was advanced than the facts of the case would at all sustain; or indeed than the accuser had himself seriously intended. But his position is now taken, and hatred can make no backward step. At once to bring over to his side the sentiments of others, and to fill out his own vindictive emotions, he goes on to

deal with his antagonist as if the exaggerated indictment were fully established. Then, from the overt act of vengeance an inference is brought back upon the demerit of its object.

Religious rancour once generated, whether in the manner we have described, or in some other which we have failed to penetrate, gets aggravation from incidental causes, some of which demand to be mentioned. Such as arise from specific opinions we shall presently have occasion to speak of. To look then to external causes, one of the most ordinary and obvious is the mixed feeling of jealousy and interested pride that floats about the purlieus of every despotism, and especially of every religious despotism. It is trite to say that cruelty is produced or exasperated by the consciousness of impotence; and as the foundations of spiritual tyranny are less ostensible, and more precarious than those of secular government, its alarms will be more vivid, its jealousies more envenomed, and its modes of procedure more rigorous and intemperate. The natural temper of men being supposed the same, it can hardly happen otherwise than that the rod or staff of ghostly supremacy should be a more terrible engine than the sceptre and the sword of temporal power. Must we not admit too, and may we not admit without offence, that, if once he gives way to the taste for cruelty, the man of