Three millions of people, men, women, and children, were
sentenced to the scaffold in three lines."
Roman Catholic writers admit that the papal church has sought to
exterminate what it calls heresy, by the power of the sword.
The _Western Watchman_ (St. Louis), Dec. 24, 1908, says:
"The church has persecuted.... Protestants were persecuted in
France and Spain with the full approval of the church
authorities. We have always defended the persecution of the
Huguenots, and the Spanish Inquisition. Wherever and whenever
there is honest Catholicity, there will be a clear distinction
drawn between truth and error, and Catholicity and all forms of
error. When she thinks it good to use physical force, she will
use it."
Prof. Alfred Baudrillart, rector of the Catholic Institute of Paris,
says:
"The Catholic Church is a respecter of conscience and of
liberty.... She has, and she loudly proclaims that she has, a
'horror of blood.' Nevertheless, when confronted by heresy, she
does not content herself with persuasion; arguments of an
intellectual and moral order appear to her insufficient, and
she has recourse to force, to corporal punishment, to torture.
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