The Last Look: A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“I nowhere find it written that we are to confess our sins to man, but always to God. ‘A broken and a contrite heart, O Lord, Thou wilt not despise.’ In the Epistle of James (chapter verse 16), he says, ‘Confess your faults to one another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed’; that is to say, if you have trespassed one against another, or if one brother has offended another. Nowhere do I find, however, that on sinners coming in faith to our blessed Lord, does He require them to confess their sins to Him before He will hear them. He says, simply, ‘Thy faith hath made thee whole; go, and sin no more.’ I find it also written, ‘Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name given among men whereby we may be saved!’ When our Lord sent out His disciples, He said to them that all those who would accept the offers of the Gospel would be forgiven, or would have their sins remitted through them, or rather through their preaching; and those who, in spite of the preaching, refused to accept the offer, would have their sins retained. Through faith in Jesus Christ only can a person obtain forgiveness of sins; and John says, ‘He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.’ This great truth a minister has the power to declare, but in no other way has he, according to the Scriptures, the right to absolve any persons from their sins. I hold that when our Lord said to His disciples, ‘Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained,’ He said it not only to all the ministers of the Gospel, but to all Christian men who go forth with the Bible in their hands, that they should declare the glorious Gospel truth that all who trust in Him, Jesus Christ, are forgiven; but that all who refuse to trust in Him still remain in their sins—their sins are retained.”

“Oh, what hideous blasphemy!” exclaimed the Inquisitor, he and his associates lifting up their hands as if in horror at what Antonio had said. “But go on, go on, fill up the measure of your iniquities. How do you interpret, ‘Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven’?”

“Much in the simple way that I interpret the previous passage. The apostles, as employed in preaching the Christian doctrine among the Jews, were to release or loose them from certain obligations of the Mosaic law; but as they were not to release them from them all, they were to pronounce what were to be retained, or by what they were still to be bound; in other words, when a thing might lawfully be done among the Jews, it was a common mode of expression to say that that thing was loosed to them, and that if anything was unlawful for them to do, it was bound to them. The meaning of the expression was thus very clear to the Jews who heard Him. So Peter understood the same expression, and he knew perfectly well that he was simply to declare, both to Jew and Gentile, what was to be believed, and what was not to be believed, thus unlocking to them the doors of the kingdom of heaven, inviting them to come in, to become subjects of Christ. Such are his keys. On the great truth which he had confessed, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ was Christ’s spiritual Church to be founded, as on a rock against which the powers of hell are never to prevail.”

“Most horrible! most horrible!” cried the Inquisitor. “Then you do not acknowledge the authority of the Church, that his Holiness the Pope is the successor of Saint Peter, that the priesthood have power to forgive sins?”

“The Scriptures speak nowhere of Saint Peter having a successor, nor does our Lord give authority to him to appoint one,” said Herezuelo, boldly. “No Church can have authority with regard to spiritual matters except such as is clearly derived from the Bible, which is equally open to all men, while the only priest a Christian can acknowledge is the one great High Priest standing at the right hand of God, ever making intercession for us.”

“Horrible! horrible!” again cried the Inquisitor. “Then, if you do not acknowledge the priesthood, you deny the doctrine of transubstantiation, the great work performed at the Mass, the chief glory of the Church?”

“Certainly, I deny that the bread and wine at the Mass are changed in any way into the body and blood of Christ, with the soul and deity, the bones and sinews,” answered Herezuelo, solemnly. “I deny that when Jesus said, ‘I am the living bread which came down from heaven,’ He was even speaking of the Last Supper, or that He intended that it should be supposed that He was to become literally bread and wine, or rather that bread and wine should become Him, any more than that He should become a door, or a shepherd, or a rock, to all of which He likens Himself. He says, ‘The words that I speak unto you they are spirit, and they are life’; and then He continues, as if he would say, ‘Come to Me, and believe on Me, for that is what I mean by eating My flesh and drinking My blood; He that cometh to Me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst. As by eating bread and drinking wine your physical body is sustained, so by believing that My body was broken for you on the accursed tree, and that My blood was shed for you, will your spiritual life be sustained; and I enjoin you to meet together occasionally to break bread and to drink wine in remembrance of Me. Moreover, I promise you that as oft as you do this in My name, through love of Me, I will be spiritually in the midst of you.’ No other construction can I put on these words of our Lord, and in that faith I am prepared to die.”

“And die you shall, audacious heretic!” exclaimed the Inquisitor, who was no other than the infamous Munebrega, Archbishop of Tarragona, who had come over from Seville in consequence of the illness of his colleague. His eyes rolled; he gnashed with his teeth in fury at finding himself unable to intimidate the prisoner—he, before whom so many men of rank and condition had been compelled to humble themselves. He remembered, too, whose husband the prisoner was—the daughter of one who had despised and rejected him. “To the rack with him! to the rack! We must learn from him what other persons hold these abominable opinions, while we teach him to abandon them himself. Spare him not: for his soul’s good his body must be afflicted.”

Antonio Herezuelo cast his eyes to heaven, and from the depths of his heart there came up a prayer, earnest, solemn, of mighty power. Not for himself he prayed—not even for the beloved wife of his bosom; but he prayed that in the fiery trial he was to undergo he might not dishonour his holy faith; that he might hold fast to the truth; that the love of Christ, by which He keeps His own, might be exhibited through him. To resist would have been useless; and yet it cost him a hard struggle to submit to the indignities to which he was subjected by the brutal executioners ordered to carry out the Inquisitor’s sentence. There he stood, full of life and strength and energy, capable of enjoying to the full all the blessings that God has bestowed in this life on man. Even the confinement to which he had been subjected had not been able sensibly to diminish the strength of his well-knit frame. In another instant he was thrown, naked, and bound hand and foot, on to the cruel rack, every sinew and muscle of his body extended to the utmost, whilst agonising wrenches were given of the most fearful character, as the screws and ropes of the horrid instrument were set in motion. Not a word did he utter; scarcely a groan escaped from his bosom, though every limb was suffering the most excruciating torture; the blood gushed from his nostrils and mouth, his eyes well nigh started from their sockets. His physical nature at length gave way, though his courage did not fail him. He fainted. Death would have been a happy release, but his torturers took pains not to allow him that boon; restoratives were administered, and consciousness again returned. The surgeon who stood by, however, gave notice that he must not be subjected, for a time, to equal torture, or he would sink under it. He was therefore removed on a blood-besprinkled stretcher to another chamber, and the inquisitors proceeded with callous indifference to examine a fresh prisoner who was now brought forward.

The person who was next led before the inquisitors was of a character very different from that of Herezuelo. A glance at the rack made him tremble in every limb. The inquisitors saw immediately that he would afford them but little trouble, though, at the same time, that he might be made useful by his giving information regarding others. He might have passed in the world in quiet times as an earnest true Christian, but now alarm for his personal safety overcame every other consideration. He at once incriminated himself, and was soon induced to bring damnatory accusations against his friends. When all the information which could thus be obtained from him was secured, he was dismissed, though still ignorant of the fate which awaited him—it might be, if victims were required, to be consigned to the flames, or perhaps to add to the sad band of penitents supposed to have recanted their errors. Such was the character of several of those accused of heresy, though by far the larger number of persons seized by the Inquisition gladly suffered death rather than deny the truth. And now another prisoner appears—a female. She is clothed in black from head to foot. As the light from the lamp which hangs from the roof falls on her countenance, it is seen to be very pale, but not enough so to detract from the beauty of those young and fair features.