The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

452 INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON GOVERNMENT.evidently had been the " Hall of Torture ;"for there, withthe rust of some centuries upon it, stood the gaunt apparatusof the Inquisition. In the middle of the room was amassy beam reaching from floor to ceiling, with a strongpulley a-top. This was the corda, the queen of torments, asit has been called. The person who endured the corda hadhis hands tied behind his back ;then a rope was attachedto them, and a heavy iron weight was hung at his feet.When all was ready, the executioners suddenly hoisted himup to the ceiling by means of the rope, which passed throughthe pulley in the top of the beam :the arms were painfullywrenched backwards, and the weight of the body, increasedby the weight attached to the feet, in most cases sufficed totear the arms from the sockets. While thus suspended, theprisoner was sometimes whipped, or had a hot iron thrustinto various parts of his body, his tormentors admonishinghim all the while to speak the truth. If he refused to confess,he was suddenly let down, and received a severe jerk, whichcompleted the dislocation. If he still refused to confess, hewas remanded to his cell, had his joints set, and was broughtout, as soon as able, to undergo the same torture over again.At each of the four corners of the room where this beamstood was a pulley fixed in the wall, showing that the apartmenthad also been fitted up for the torture of the vegl'ia.The veglia resembled a smith's anvil, with a spike a-top, endingin an iron die. Through the pulleys at the four cornersof the room ran four ropes. These were tied to the nakedarms and legs of the sufferer, and twisted so as to cut to thebone. He was lifted up, and set down with his back boneexactly upon the die, which, as the whole weight of the personrested upon it, wrought by degrees into the bone. Thetorture, which was excruciating, Wtas to last eleven hours, ifthe person did not sooner confess. These are but two ofthe seven tortures by which the Church of Rome proved, whatcertainly she could not prove by either Scripture or reason,that transubstantiation is true. The roof beneath whichthese enormities were committed was plastered over with