ABSTRACT
Every one reads with horror the history of the burnings, the quarterings, the thumb-screwings, the teeth-drawings, and scourgings, which were practised in the reign of Queen Mary, and which were resorted to, to compel men to believe the Catholic faith, then the established religion. The atrocities perpetrated in this bloody reign have been denominated persecution. They were committed by men celebrated above others for their piety and holiness; and who considered these cruelties necessary to the glory of God and the prosperity of the Church. The principle on which they acted was simply this—to compel men by corporeal punishment to believe in dogmas, the truth of which they could not be convinced by reason and argument. It was an abominable, ignorant, mischievous, blood-thirsty principle, detested by all liberal minds and which no man would now have the hardihood to avow.
