of St. Mary succeeded finally in their apostolic efforts, and at last
"established Christianity and fixed their own dominion in Prussia" (p.
309), whence they made forays into the neighbouring countries, and
"pillaged, burned, massacred, and ruined all before them." In Spain,
Christianity had a yet sadder triumph, for there the civilized Moors
were falling under the brutal Christians, and the "garden of the world"
was being invaded by the hordes of the Roman Church. The end, however,
had not yet come. In France, we see the erection of THE INQUISITION, the
most hateful and fiendish tribunal ever set up by religion. The
heretical sects were spreading rapidly in southern provinces of France,
and Innocent III., about the commencement of this century, sent legates
extraordinary into the southern provinces of France to do what the
bishops had left undone, and to extirpate heresy, in all its various
forms and modifications, without being at all scrupulous in using such
methods as might be necessary to effect this salutary purpose. The
persons charged with this ghostly commission were Rainier, a Cistercian
monk, Pierre de Castelnau, archdeacon of Maguelonne, who became also
afterwards a Cistercian friar. These eminent missionaries were followed
by several others, among whom was the famous Spaniard, Dominic, founder
of the order of preachers, who, returning from Rome in the year 1206,
fell in with these delegates, embarked in their cause, and laboured both
by his exhortations and actions in the extirpation of heresy. These
spiritual champions, who engaged in this expedition upon the sole
authority of the pope, without either asking the advice, or demanding
the succours of the bishops, and who inflicted capital punishment upon
such of the heretics as they could not convert by reason and argument,
were distinguished in common discourse by the title of _inquisitors_,
and from them the formidable and odious tribunal called the
_Inquisition_ derived its origin (pp. 343, 344). In A.D. 1229, a
council of Toulouse "erected in every city a _council of inquisitors