ions of people suffered
martyrdom at the hands of papal Rome.

I am aware that many Catholics affirm that their church never
persecuted, that it was the civil power that did this dread work of
slaughter. We must remember, however, that the beast of Revelation
13 signifies the imperial and the ecclesiastical power in the closest
union possible; for the beast appears _as one_, the two phases being
represented by the combination of symbols from the two distinct
departments of life--human and animal. In the seventeenth chapter
we have the same distinct characteristics again set forth, but in a
different combination, the beast appearing simply as a beast, thus
representing the political power of Rome; while the ecclesiastical
power is represented by a corrupt woman sitting on the beast and
directing its course. In that description it is stated, "And I saw
_the woman_ drunken _with the blood of the saints, and with the blood
of the martyrs of Jesus_" (verse 6). The Romish church itself is,
therefore, represented as participating in the work of martyrdom.

Does this divine prediction agree with the facts of history? It is
altogether impossible to compute correctly the number of those who
were in different ways put to death for opposing the corruption of the
Church of Rome. A million Waldenses perished in France. Nine
hundred thousand Christians were slain within thirty years after the
institution of the Jesuits. The Duke of Alva boasted that he had
put to death 36,000 in the Netherlands by the hands of the common
executioner. The Inquisition destroyed 150,000 within thirty years. If
it be asserted that this was accomplished by the secular arm, I reply
that sentence of death was pronounced upon so-called heretics by the
church and that the secular power was simply a tool for carrying the
barbarous sentence into execution. We can not forget that the pope
applauded Charles IX of France and his infamous mother, Catherine de
Medici, for their part in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and ordered
a medal struck in honor of the event; that following the revocation
of the Edict of Nantes, when 300,000 were cruelly butchered during
the reign of Louis XIV, Pope Innocent XI extolled the king by special
letter, as follows: "The Catholic Church shall most assuredly
record in her sacred annals _a work of such devotion toward her_
and CELEBRATE YOUR NAME WITH NEVER-DYING PRAISES ... _for this most
excellent undertaking_."

Popery has for