Did Atheists thus act, did they perpetrate, connive at, or tolerate such atrocities as were brought to light during the Andover inquiry, such cold blooded heartlessness would at once be laid to the account of their principles. Oh yes, Christians are forward to judge of trees by their fruit, except the tree called Christianity. Their great 'prophet' argued that if the tree is good the fruit will be good; but when their own religion is in question they give such argument the slip. The vices of the Atheist they ascribe to his creed. The vices of the Christian to anything but his creed. Let professors of Christianity be convicted of gross criminality, and lo its apologists say such professors are not Christians. Let fanatical Christians commit excesses which admit not of open justification, and the apologist of Christianity coolly assures us such conduct is mere rust on the body of his religion—moss which grows on the stock of his piety.
It has been computed that the Spaniards in America destroyed in about forty-five years ten millions of human creatures, and this with a view of converting them to Christianity. Bartholomew Casa, who made this computation, affirms that they (the Spaniards) hanged those unhappy people thirteen in a row, in honour of the thirteen Apostles, and that they also gave their infants to be devoured by dogs. [75:1]
Corsini, another religious author, tells us the Spaniards destroyed more than fifteen millions of American aborigines, and calculates that the blood of these devoted victims, added to that of the slaves destroyed in the mines, where they were compelled to labour, would weigh as much as all the gold and silver that had been dug out of them.
If these or similar horrors were perpetrated by Atheists, who can doubt that Roman Catholics would at once ascribe them to the pestiferous influence of Atheistical principles. And the Author of this Apology is of opinion that they would be justified in so doing. When whole nations of professed irreligionists shall be found conquering a country, and hanging the aborigines of that country thirteen in a row, in honour of some thirteen apostles of Atheism, their barbarity may fairly be ascribed to their creed. Habit does much, and perhaps much of our virtue, or its opposite is contingent on temperament; but no people entertaining correct speculative opinions could possibly act, or tolerate, atrocities like these. But strange to say, neither Roman Catholic, nor any other denomination of Christians, will submit to be tried to the same standard they deem so just when applied to Atheists. Now sauce for the goose every body knows is equally sauce for the gander, and it is difficult to discover the consistency or the honesty of men, who trace to their creed the crimes or merest peccadilloes of Atheists, and will not trace to their creed the shocking barbarity of Christians. To understand such men is easy; to admire them is impossible; for their conduct in this particular palpably shocks every principle of truth and fairness. Why impute to Atheism the vices or follies of its Apostles, while refusing to admit that the vices or follies of Christians should be imputed to Christianity. Of both folly and vice it is notorious professing Christians have 'the lion's share.' Yet the apologists of Christianity, who would fain have us believe the lives of Atheists a consequence of Atheism, will by no means believe that the lives of Christians are a consequence of Christianity.
Let no one suppose the Author of this Apology is prepared to allow that Atheists are men of cruel dispositions or vicious. He will not say with Coleridge that only men of good hearts and strong heads can be Atheists, but he is quite ready to maintain that the generality of Atheists are men of mild, generous, peaceable studious dispositions, who desire the overthrow of superstition, or true religion as its devotees call it, because convinced a superstitious people never can be enlightened, virtuous, free, or happy. Their love of whatever helps on civilisation and disgust of war are testified to even by opponents. We may learn from the writings of Lord Bacon not only his opinion that Atheism leaves men to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation, all which, he justly observes, may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but the fact that 'the times inclined to Atheism (as the times of Augustus Caesar) were civil times.' Nay, he expressly declared 'Atheism did never perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves as looking no further.' [76:1] Can the same be said of religion? Will any one have the hardihood to say religion did never perturb states, or that the times inclined to religion (as the times of Oliver Cromwell) were civil times, or that it makes man wary of themselves as looking no further? During times inclined to religion more than one hundred thousand witches were condemned to die by Christian tribunals in accordance with the holy text, thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. During times inclined to religion it was usual to burn, broil, bake, or otherwise murder heretics for the glory of God, and at the same time to spare the vilest malefactors. During times inclined to religion, it has been computed that in Spain alone no less than 32,382 people were, by the faithful, burnt alive; 17,690 degraded and burnt in effigy; and all the goods and chattels of the enormous number of 291,450 consigned to the chancery of the Inquisition. [77:1] In short, during those 'good old times,' men yielded themselves up to practices so strangely compounded of cruelty and absurdity, that one finds it difficult to believe accounts of them, however well authenticated.
Speaking of the bigotted fury of certain ecclesiastics, Hippolyto Joseph de Costa, in his 'Narrative of the persecution' he suffered while lodged gratis by the Portuguese Inquisition for the pretended crime of Free Masonry, says, it would exceed the bounds of credulity, had not facts in corroboration of it been so established by witnesses, that nothing can shake them. Among ecclesiastics of this denomination we may mention that Pontiff, who, from a vile principle of hate for his predecessor, to whom he had been an enemy, as soon as he ascended the Papal chair directed the corpse to be taken out from the grave, had the fingers and the head cut off and thrown into the sea, ordered the remainder of the body to be burnt to ashes and excommunicated the soul. Could revenge be carried farther than in this instance? The institution itself of the inquisition and the cruelty with which its members persecute those whom they suspect of tenets different from their own, may well excite surprise. In their eyes the tortures and the death of their fancied enemies are a mere amusement. They burn some of their prisoners alive, render their memories infamous, and prosecute their children and all the connections of these unhappy sufferers; they deprive orphans of the inheritance of their parents, dishonour families in every possible shape, and at length have recourse to the auto da fe, [77:2] on which occasion, while the miserable wretches are lingering in torments, the members of the inquisition not only feast their eyes with this Infernal spectacle, but regale themselves with their friends at the expense of their unhappy victims. Such are the practises of the Inquisition.
When those Spanish Christians who amused themselves by hanging poor wretches, thirteen in a row, in honour of the thirteen apostles, were taunted with cruelty, they boldly affirmed that as God had not redeemed with his blood the souls of the Indians, no difference should be made between them and the lowest of beasts. In Irvings history of New York is a letter written, we are told, by a Spanish priest, to his superior in Spain, which, 'among other curiosities, contain this question—'Can any one have the presumption to say these savage pagans have yielded anything more than an inconsiderable recompense to their benefactors, in surrendering to them a little pitiful tract of this dirty sublunary planet in exchange for a glorious inheritance hereafter.'
Such is the conceit as well as cruelty of men who imagine themselves the vicegerents and avengers of Deity. In His name they burn, and slay, and rob without compunction or remorse; nay, when like Sir Giles Overreach, their ears are pierced by widows cries, and undone orphans wash with tears their thresholds, they only think what 'tis to make themselves acceptable in the sight of God. Believing pious ends justify any means, they glory in conduct the most repugnant to every principle of decency, equity, and humanity.
In the cathedral of Saragossa, is a magnificent tomb, raised, in honor of a famous inquisitor; around it are six pillars, to each of which is chained a Moor preparatory to his being burnt. And if additional evidence were needed of human folly, and stupid disposition, like dray horses to go perpetually, on 'one's nose in t'others tail,' we have it in the astounding fact, that when the Spanish Cortes proposed the abolition of the Inquisition, the populace of Spain considered such proposal, 'an infringement of their liberties.' [78:1] We have it on respectable authority, that Torquemada in the space of fourteen years that he wielded the chief inquisitorial powers, robbed, or otherwise persecuted eighty thousand persons, of whom about six thousand were committed to the flames.
Inquisitors made no secret of their hatred towards heretics; to destroy them they considered a sacred duty. Far from ashamed of their cruelty towards heretics, they gloried in it, as undeniable evidence of their enthusiasm in the cause of Christ. Simoncas, one of their most esteemed writers, said, 'the heretics deserve not merely one death, but many deaths; because a single death is the punishment of an ordinary heretic; but these (the heretics) are deserving of punishment without mercy, and particularly the teachers of the Lutheran heresy, who must by no means be spared.' Pegma, another of their writers, insists, that dogmatical heretics should be punished with death, even though they gave the most unequivocal proof of their repentance.