and the Christian World; and that on the Monday after, solemn mass should be celebrated in the church of Minerva, at which, the Pope Gregory Thirteenth, and Cardinals were present; and that a jubilee should be published throughout the whole Christian World, and the cause of it declared to be, to return thanks to God for the extirpation of the enemies of the truth and church in France.

In the evening, the cannon of St. Angelo were fired to testify the public joy; the whole city illuminated with bonfires; and no one sign of rejoicing omitted that was usually made for the greatest victories obtained in favor of the Roman Church!!!

22.

AUTO DE FE, OR ACT OF FAITH.

"Act of Faith (Auto de Fe) in the Romish Church, is a solemn day held by the Inquisition for the punishment of heretics and the absolution of the innocent accused. They usually contrive the Auto to fall on some great festival, that the execution may pass with the more awe, and it is always on a Sunday. The Auto de Fe may

be called the last act of the Inquisitorial tragedy; it is a kind of goal-delivery, appointed as often as a competent number of prisoners in the Inquisition are convicted of heresy, either by their own voluntary or extorted confession, or on the evidence of certain witnesses. The process is this :-In the morning they are brought into the great hall, where they have a certain habit put on, which they are to wear in the procession, and by which they know their doom. The procession is led up by the Dominican friars, after which come the penitents, being all in black coats without sleeves, and barefooted, with a wax candle in their hands. These are followed by the penitents who have narrowly escaped being burnt, who over their black coats have flames painted, with their points turned downwards. Next come the negative or relapsed, who are to be burnt, having flames painted on their habits pointing upwards. After these, come such as profess doctrinés contrary to the faith of Rome, who besides having flames painted upwards, have their picture painted on their breasts, with dogs, serpents, and devils, all openmouthed, about it. Each prisoner is attended with a familiar of the Inquisition; and those to

be burnt, have also a Jesuit on each hand, who are continually preaching to them to abjure. After the prisoners, comes a troop of familiars on horseback; and after them the Inquisitors, and other officers of the court on mules: last of all, the Inquisitor General on a white horse led by two men.

A scaffold is erected large enough for two or three thousand people; at one end of which are the prisoners, at the other the Inquisitors. After a sermon made up of encomiums of the Inquisition, and invectives against heretics, a priest ascends a desk near the scaffold, and, having taken the abjuration of the penitents, recites the final sentence of those who are to be put to death, and delivers them to the secular arm, earnestly beseeching at the same time, the secular power not to touch their blood, or put their lives in danger!!! The prisoners, being thus in the hands of the civil magistrate, are presently loaded with chains, and carried first to the secular gaol, and from thence, in an hour or two, brought before the civil judge; who, after asking in what religion they intend to die, pronounces sentence on such as declare they die in the communion of the Church of Rome, that they