“After the sermon, two readers went up, one after the other, into the same pulpit, and, between them, they read the processes and pronounced the sentences, the person standing before them, with the alcayde, and holding a lighted taper in his hand.  Dellon, in turn, heard the cause of his long-suffering.  He had maintained the invalidity of baptismus flaminis, or desire to be baptised, when there is no one to administer the rite of baptism by water.  He had said that images ought not to be adored, and that an ivory crucifix was a piece of ivory.  He had spoken contemptuously of the Inquisition.  And, above all, he had an ill intention.  His punishment was to be confiscation of his property, banishment from India, and five years’ service in the galleys in Portugal, with penance, as the inquisitors might enjoin.  As all the prisoners were excommunicate, the inquisitor, after the sentence had been pronounced, put on his alb and stole, walked into the middle of the church, and absolved them all at once.  Dellon’s sponsor, who would not even answer him before, when he spoke, now embraced him, called him brother, and gave him a pinch of snuff, in token of reconciliation.

“But there were two persons, a man and a woman, for whom the church had no more that they could do; and these, with four dead bodies, and the effigies of the dead, were taken to be burnt on the Campo Santo Lazaro, on the river side, the place appointed for that purpose, that the viceroy might see justice done on the heretics, as he surveyed the execution from his palace-windows.”

The remainder of Dellon’s history adds nothing to what we have already heard of the Inquisition.  He was taken to Lisbon, and, after working in a gang of convicts for some time, was released on the intercession of some friends in France with the Portuguese government.  With regard to his despair, and attempts to commit suicide, when in the holy house, we may observe that, as he states, suicide was very frequent there.  The contrast of his disconsolate impatience with the resignation and constancy of Christian confessors in similar circumstances, is obvious.  As a striking illustration of the difference between those who suffer without a consciousness of divine favor, and those who rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, we would refer the reader to that noble band of martyrs who suffered death at the stake, at the Auto held in Seville, on Sunday, September 24, 1559.  At that time twenty-one were burnt, followed by one effigy, and eighteen penitents, who were released.

“One of the former was Don Juan Gonzales, Presbyter of Seville, an eminent preacher.  With admirable constancy he refused to make any declaration, in spite of the severe torture, saying that he had not followed any erroneous opinions, but that he had drawn his faith from the holy Scriptures; and for this faith he pleaded to his tormentors in the words of inspiration.  He maintained that he was not a heretic, but a Christian,