But it is only by placing ourselves in the position of the persecutors, of the middle ages, that we can see that what appears to us cruelty and barbarity, of the worst kind, was really the result of a zeal; in its way as earnest, if not as praiseworthy, as that which now impels missionaries to go, with their lives in their hands, to regions where little but a martyr's grave can be expected.

Nowadays we believe--at least all right-minded men believe--that there is good in all creeds; and that it would be rash, indeed, to condemn men who act up to the best of their lights, even though those lights may not be our own.
In the middle ages there was no idea of tolerance such as this.

Men believed, fiercely and earnestly, that any deviation from the creed to which they, themselves, belonged meant an eternity of unhappiness.

Such being the case, the more earnestly religious a man was, the more he desired to save those around him from this fate.

The inquisitors, and those who supported them, cannot be charged with wanton cruelty.