and when Newton, Swift, and Fielding were
thinking and writing in England!

The narrative was written by Don Antonino
Mongitore, a canon of the cathedral of Palermo,
one of the most learned men of his
time and country. He opens his story thus:
"It is beyond doubt that one of the greatest
and most invaluable benefits which the Divine
Providence has conferred on the kingdom of
Sicily, is the sacred tribunal of the Inquisition."

The key-note is thus struck at once; and the
reader understands what is to be the tone of
the learned and reverend canon's strain. Yet
the reader may be somewhat surprised by some
of the details of this the last " auto da fè" ever
"celebrated" in Sicily.

The historian Colletta, who briefly refers to
the incident in the first book of his history,
tells us that Fra Romualdo, a lay brother of the
Augustines, and Sister Gertrude, a Benedictine
nun, fell into the hands of the Inquisition in
the year 1699. The friar was accused of
"Quietism," "Molinism," and heresy; the nun
of "pride, vanity, rashness, and hypocrisy."
"Quietism," a form of heresy that we hear
much of in the religious history of those days
in Spain, Italy, and France, was so called, as is
readily understood, from the perfect "quiet"
which its professors considered to be the great
object of man's religious efforts here below,
and which they profess to have attained. The
line of thought and speculation which led up to
this form of doctrine is curiously similar to
that which conducted Eastern philosophers and
fanatics to the cultivation of the " Nerbudda."
But it is unquestionably true that the professors
of this doctrine were led to opinions and
practices that would seem to have little "connection
with " quiet" of any kind, and that were
doubtless exceedingly objectionable, by whatever
standard of religion or morals judged.
"Molinism " was so called from Michele
Molinos, a Spanish casuist and speculative
moralist, whose doctrines are objectionable
enough, even when understood as he would
himself have explained them. But his subtle
speculations, when taken in hand by monks
and nuns of unbounded ignorance—of naturally
weak minds, rendered weaker by the life-long
habit of referring all notions of right and
wrong, not to the dictates of the natural conscience,
and the common sense of mankind,
but to the abstruse rules of a most intricate
casuistry—were sure to lead to a maze of absurdities
which really did merit Bridewell and
bread and water.

If any reader be curious to see what sort of
life and state of things the doctrines of Quietism,
thus treated and practised, are likely to
produce, he may refer to De Potter's Life (in
French) of Scipio Ricci, the reforming Bishop
of Pistoia. He will there find a revelation,
sworn in evidence, of the interior life of a
nunnery, in which all, or almost all the nuns
had embraced the doctrines of Quietism under
the teaching of the monks of a neighbouring
Dominican convent. He will read of the long
and arduous efforts of Ricci to put down this
nest of abominations—efforts backed up by
Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, but which,
despite such backing, were fruitless against
the persevering counter-efforts of the Jesuits
supported by the authority of the Pope.

No doubt this poor daft creature, Sister Gertrude,
was " a Quietist" after her fashion. And
it is very probable that she may have been
guilty of " vaingloriousness, pride, and rashness."
But " hypocrisy" was just the one thing
of which she assuredly was not guilty, inasmuch
as she went to the stake because she
would at all costs avow her poor crazy opinions
instead of denying or retracting them.

Colletta says simply that both the nun and
the friar were mad. And certainly no mid-
summer madness was ever madder than the
trash which they declared themselves to believe,
and for obstinately adhering to which they
died. But the Inquisitors sent the medical
officers of the Holy Office to visit them in their
cells, and those enlightened gentlemen felt
their pulses, and declared they were of perfectly
sound mind—or at all events sound
enough to afford the spectacle of an "Act of
Faith" to the inhabitants of Palermo.

No word is said by Canon Mongitore, nor,
more strangely, by Colletta, to account for the
fact that whereas these victims were seized and
imprisoned in 1699, they were not executed
until the 6th of April, 1724. Their "process"
had been brought to an end, and they had
been condemned to the stake, long years before.
Of course, the suggestion of a writer who considers
the establishment of the Inquisition the
greatest blessing that Providence has bestowed
on Sicily, is to the effect that all this delay was
due to the mercy and longsuffering of the Inquisitors,
who were all those years labouring
to bring about the conversion of the heretics.
Those who read his description of the execution
of the sentence at last, and his account of all
:he preparations made to enable all classes of
the population to " enjoy"—godere—the spectacle,
will feel little doubt that the Inquistors
themselves, as well as all the rest of Palermo,
were looking forward to the " Act of Faith" as
to a treat of which they would not have been
baulked on any consideration.

Why was the treat so long delayed? The
most probable conjecture is, that the viceroy
who preceded him under whose rule the execution
took place, was a man of a different stamp,
whose permission for the " celebration" could
not be obtained. It is certain that a new
viceroy began his reign shortly before the execution
took place.

"The Sacred Tribunal of the Inquisition in
Sicily," says Canon Mongitore, " has the laudable
custom of showing fronj time to time, as
occasion may offer, its profitable operation by
celebrating a Public Act of Faith," which " is a
sketch or rehearsal of the last judgment," celebrated
"for the glory of the Holy Faith, for the
consolation of the good, the confusion of unbelievers,
and the immortal honour of the Holy
Inquisition."