John Foxe

Fox's Book of Martyrs John Foxe

But it may be asked, is popery the same system now as in the days of Cardinal Bonner and the "Bloody Mary." We answer yes. It is the boast of all catholics that their church never varies, either in spirit or in practice. For evidence of this, look at the demonstrations of her spirit in the persecutions in the south of France, for several years after the restoration of the Bourbons, in 1814. All have witnessed with feelings of detestation, the recent efforts of the apostolicals in Spain and Portugal, to crush the friends of civil and religious liberty in those ill-fated countries. The narrative of Asaad Shidiak, clearly indicates that the spirit of popery, has lost none of its ferocity and bloodthirstiness since the Piedmontese war, and the Bartholomew massacre. Where it has power, its victims are still crushed by the same means which filled the dungeons of the inquisition, and fed the fires of the auto de fe.