coram me. Hæc autem dicit Dominus: numquid ad interrogandum me venistis? Vivo ego, dicit Dominus, quia non respondebo vobis. Sequitur autem, si judicas eos, abominationes patrum illorum ostende illis. In quibus verbis ostendit Deus, quare noluerit respondere illis, quia nondum scilicet abominationes suas et patrum suorum audierant. Quare cum idem Dei Spiritus sit, qui tunc dabat responsa, et quem nunc nos sedentes coram Domino invocamus, quid nobis faciendum sit, ut propria responsa habeamus, ex his videtis . . . . Quia vero nonnullos nunc videmus, sua primum peccata, et nostri ordinis graviter deflentes, atque Dei misericordiam omnibus votis implorantes, ideo quidem in maxima spe sumus, advenisse, quem invocamus, Dei Spiritum."-Concilia per Labbeum et Gossartium, Tom. XIV. p. 738.

It is clear that the legates grounded their hopes of inspiration for the Council, on the marks of repentance which they perceived in some of its members. Must then Roman Catholics ascertain the spiritual condition of their oracles, before they admit them to the privilege of infallibility? It should seem, however, that the Popes are not subject to such restrictions in the use of their infallible sanction; else, a man with the moral tact of Alexander VI. would have been subject to strange mistakes, in calculating the fitness of the bishops in council, to receive an inspiration totally dependent on moral character.

F.-Page 123.

CASE OF A SPANISH PROTESTANT PRIEST, IMFRISONED BY THE INQUISITION IN 1802.

Since the execution of the unhappy woman whose death I mention in the 5th Letter, the Spanish Inquisitors seemed less disposed to shed blood. It is also true that men were also much more averse to sacrifice their lives to their religious views, than at the time of the Reformation. Spain, which in the 16th century gave a host of martyrs to Protestant Christianity*, has, of late, produced but one instance of the power of the Scriptures "in an honest and good heart." This most interesting case is related by the secretary of the Inquisition of Madrid, Llorente, in his History of the Spanish Inquisition, Vol. IV. p. 127.

Don Miguel Juan Antonio Solano, a native of Verdun, in Arragon, was vicar of Esco, in the diocese of Jaca. His benevolence and exemplary conduct endeared him to his parishioners. Though educated according to the Aristotelian system, and the school divinity, which was very lately prevalent at many of the Spanish universities; the natural strength of his mind led him to study pure mathematics, and mechanics, by himself. The goodness of his heart combined with his inventive talents in the work of fertilizing a dale, or rather a mere ravine, belonging to the inhabitants of his parish, which lay waste for want of irrigation. Without any help

*See Art. 9 of No. 57 of the Quarterly Review, in which the author of the present work gave an account of the Spanish Reformers, and their sufferings.

from the government, and with no mechanical means but the spades of the peasants, he succeeded in diverting the waters of a mountain streamlet upon the slip of vegetable soil which had been deposited in the glen.

A long and severe illness, which made him a cripple for life, withdrew the good vicar of Esco from these active pursuits, and limited his employment to the perusal of the few books which his little library afforded. Fortunately the Bible was one of them. Solano read the records of revelation with a sincere desire to embrace religious truth, as he found it there; and having gradually cleared and arranged his views, drew up a little system of divinity, which agreed in the main points with fundamental tenets of the Protestant churches. His conviction of the Roman Catholic errors became so strong, that he determined to lay his book before the bishop of the diocese, asking his pastoral help and advice upon that most important subject. An answer to his arguments was promised; but despairing after a lapse of time to obtain it, Solano applied to the faculty of divinity of the University of Saragossa. The reverend doctors sent the book to the Inquisition, and the infirm vicar of Esco was lodged in the prisons of the holy tribunal of Saragossa. This happened in 1802. It seems that some humane persons contrived his escape soon after, and conveyed him to Oleron, the nearest French town. But Solano, having taken time to consider his case, came to the heroic resolution of asserting the truth in the very face of death; and returned of his own accord to the inquisitorial prisons.

The Inquisitor General, at that time, was Arce, archbishop of Santiago, an intimate friend of the Prince of Peace; and one strongly suspected of secret infidelity. When the sentence of the Aragonese tribunal, condemning Solano to die by fire, was presented to the supreme court for confirmation, Arce,

shocked at the idea of an auto-da-fe, contrived every method to delay the execution. A fresh examination of witnesses was ordered; during which the inquisitors entreated Solano to avert his now imminent danger. Nothing, however, could move him. He said he well knew the death that awaited him ; but no human fear would ever make him swerve from the truth. The first sentence being confirmed, nothing remained but the exequatur of the supreme. Arce, however, suspended it, and ordered an inquiry into the mental sanity of the prisoner. As nothing appeared to support this plea, Solano would have died at the stake, had not Providence snatched him from the hands of the papal defenders of the faith. A dangerous illness seized him in the prison, where he had lingered three years. The efforts to convert him were, on this occasion, renewed with increased ardour. "The inquisitors," says Llorente, " gave it in charge to the most able divines of Saragossa to reclaim Solano ; and even requested Don Miguel Suarez de Santander, auxiliary bishop of that town, and apostolic missionary (now, like myself, a refugee in France), to exhort him, with all the tenderness and goodness of a Christian minister, which are so natural to that worthy prelate. The vicar showed a grateful sense of all that was done for him; but declared that he could not renounce his religious persuasion without offending God by acting treacherously against the truth. On the twenty-first day of his illness, the physician warned him of approaching death, urging him to improve the short time which he had to live. I am in the hands of God,' answered Solano, and have nothing else to do.' Thus died, in 1805, the vicar of Esco. He was denied Christian burial, and his body privately interred within the inclosure of the Inquisition, near the back-gate of the building, towards the Ebro. The inquisitors reported all that had taken place to the supreme

R

tribunal, whose members approved their conduct, and stopt further proceedings, in order to avoid the necessity of burning the deceased, in effigy."

H.-Page 127.

The account of nuns and friars which Erasmus gives in the dialogue from which I borrowed the passage in the text, so perfectly agrees with all I know of them-the arts by which girls are now drawn into monasteries are so similar to those which he describes-and the reasons he uses to dissuade the young enthusiast from sacrificing her liberty, are so applicable to every case of that kind in our days, that I hope the reader will pardon me for inserting the whole dialogue, in the elegant translation of my excellent friend the Rev. Robert Butler; to whom I am also indebted for the following notice of the alarm which those delightful compositions, the Colloquies, excited in the University of Paris.

"The faculty of theology passed a general censure in 1526 upon the Colloquies of Erasmus, as upon a work in which the fasts and abstinences of the Church of Rome are slighted, the suffrages of the Holy Virgin and of the saints are derided, virginity is set below matrimony, Christians are discouraged from monkery, and grammatical is preferred to theological erudition. Therefore it is decreed that the perusal of this wicked book be forbidden to all, more especially to young folks; and that it be entirely suppressed if it be possible."From Dupin, as quoted in Jortin's History of Erasmus, p. 298.

Vol. I.