When Henri IV of France abjured Protestantism and was received into the Catholic Church, in 1595, two ambassadors were sent to Rome who knelt in the portico of St. Peter, and sang the Miserēre. At each verse a blow with a switch was given on their shoulders.
⁂ Strange as this may seem, yet numerous examples occur in the Scriptures; thus, for David’s sin thousands of his subjects were “flogged to deathby deputy;” and what else is meant by the words “by his stripeswe are healed”?
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