The testimony of Roman Catholic historians bears us out, in the strongest form of this assertion. Gonzalo de Illescas, in his "Historia Pontifical," thus writes: "In past years Lutheran heretics, in greater or less numbers, were wont to be taken and burnt in Spain; but all those that were so punished were foreigners, viz., Germans, Flemings, or Englishmen. At other times people, poor and of mean birth, used to be sent to the scaffold and to have San Benitos* in the churches; but in these later years we have seen the prisons, the scaffold, and even the burning pile crowded with illustrious people, and (what is even more to be deplored) persons, who, in the opinion of the world, were greatly superior to others in learning and in virtue. . . . I withhold their names, in order not to tarnish with their injured reputation the fair fame of their descendants, or even of some illustrious houses to whom this poison attaches. They were such and so many that it was believed, if two or three months more had been suffered to elapse before applying a remedy to this mischief, the conflagration would have spread itself all over Spain, and brought upon her the most dire misfortunes she has ever seen."+ Another author, writing from Amsterdam, whither he had fled from the persecutions of the "tribunal of the faith," expresses himself with more freedom: "In Spain many very learned, many very noble, and many of the most distinguished of the gentry have for this cause been led forth to the scaffold. There is not a city, and, if one may so speak, there is not a village, nor a hamlet, nor a noble house in Spain, that has not had, and still has, one or more that God of his infinite mercy has enlightened with the light of the gospel. It is a common proverb in Spain in the present day when speaking of a learned man to say, He is so learned that he is in danger of being a Lutheran." Francisco Nunez de Velasco, writing, with monkish mortification and triumph, informs us that, "In Spain, too, it (the venom of heresy) began to take root, some who had communicated with those infected kingdoms, bringing the pestilence with them. And if it had not been for the most vigilant care of the Fathers, the inquisitors, that, with suitable cauterisings with fire cut down the cancer, the body of the Spanish republic would have been infected, it having commenced with some of the principal members." || The cities of Valladolid and Seville were the principal strongholds of the new faith, and while the agents of the *A tunic and a rope, which were the badge of ignominy put upon those who were condemned by the Inquisition. Histor. Pontif., vol. ii. La Biblia, por Cypriano de Valera. The words quoted are found in an exhortation which precedes the Bible. || Dialogos de Contencion entre la Miliciary la Ciencia. Inquisition were scattered over the whole kingdom, in every possible disguise, it was determined that in these two cities the grand effort should be made to detect and extirpate the heretics. Suspected persons had their houses entered at midnight, and their most secret cabinets searched for papers that might condemn them; the possession of a New Testament or of a Lutheran tract being regarded as a sufficient proof of guilt. The more timid and infirm of purpose were tempted with the promise of pardon if they would betray the names of secret Lutherans. Others, against whom some suspicious word or action was proved, were assured of a mitigation of punishment if they would confess every thing, and then their ingenuous confession, as soon as it was made, was turned against them. Priests, who had learned in the confessional to "smile, and smile, and be a villain," wound themselves into the confidence of young maidens who were suspected of evangelical leanings, by professing a wish to save them, and having wrung from them the secret of their mental doubts and struggles, dragged them before their merciless judges, and compelled them to repeat the secret there. The most demonlike treachery was transmuted into a saintly grace when it was employed to discover a heretic. Not to condemn the sentiments, or repudiate the aims of the Reformers, was held as tantamount to approval, so that, as one bitterly complained, "it had become equally dangerous to be silent or to speak." The autos-da-fe of the Inquisition began to be celebrated in the two heretical cities on a scale of magnitude and with a ghastly splendour unknown before the rise of the Reformation. On the days fixed for an auto, myriads assembled to witness the dying agonies of Protestant confessors with the same enthusiasm with which men in modern Spain assemble to a bull-fight; the day of the wicked tragedy was sometimes delayed, like tilts and tournaments in other countries, until it suited the convenience of the king and his courtiers to be present at an entertainment so royal; and when the day arrived, the heaped piles and kindled fires in the wide square-the gloomy processions of monks and priests the grand inquisitor seated upon his throne and surrounded by his familiars-the formal handing over of the victims to the civil power for destruction-presented an impious mockery of the final judgment. Charles, ere he retired to the cloisters of St Just, to combine a life of maceration and epicurism, had sometimes tried to mitigate these horrors; but his son Philip was shaken by no such humane recoils. Resembling in disposition, though greatly exceeding in talent, our own James VII., the grim severity of the monk and the stolid obstinacy of the bigot, mingled with the dark and fiery passions * Stirling's Cloister Life of Charles V., ch. iv. pp. 77-99. of the Moor, would have made him gaze without emotion upon his own son chained to the stake. Indeed, the recent investigations of De Castro, which place beyond doubt the liberal sentiments and Protestant leanings of the Prince Don Carlos, awaken irrepressible suspicions that Philip had a guilty hand in his early death.* Thousands perished in a few years in those inquisitorial fires,-many of these fair maidens and grey-headed men, eloquent preachers and men of noble blood; thousands more perished by the yet more terrible death of suffocation amid the ordure of prisons; "it was given to the Beast to make war with the saints and to overcome them,"+ and the Reformation perished in Spain, not by the apostasy of its disciples, but by their extirpation and exile. ‡ The most strenuous efforts were employed to prevent the revival or fresh intrusion of these hated influences. The libraries of Salamanca and of other universities were ransacked, and all books quickening to thought or favourable to Protestantism were removed from them and destroyed; Bibles were cast into the same flames in which their possessors had been consumed; public lectures were prohibited; books of history and general science were not allowed to be circulated; the universities in which learning and intellect had sought a last asylum were regarded with an evil eye; the study of the Scriptures, even by priests and monks, was forbidden, and students condemned to feed on the thorns and thistles of a mere casuistical theology; Spain was fenced round and barricaded against all Protestant influences, and converted into a The Spanish Protestants, ch. xxii. pp. 325-339. + Rev. xiii. 7. It will not astonish some of our readers, though it may perhaps surprise others, to find that Roman Catholic bishops, in our own country, look with complacency on these and kindred acts of atrocity, which many simple Protestants have been imagining must excite the universal reprobation and horror of modern times. The following are the words of the Romish Bishop of Bantry, in "An Appeal for the Erection of Catholic Churches in the Rural Districts of England," published in 1852. He is endeavouring to show how greatly the true faith has been indebted for its prosperity and purity to the civil power. "This has been witnessed," says he, "not only in the Papal states themselves, but in many other Catholic countries. How eminently (for instance) was the Church preserved from corruption, as well as the best interests of France promoted, by that notable act of Charles IX., when he almost annihilated heresy in his dominions, by the celebrated massacre of the Huguenots on the feast of St Bartholomew, and for which signal overthrow of the Church's enemies, a solemn mass and general thanksgiving were ordered by the Pope! "Who can estimate all the benefits, spiritual and temporal, that resulted to the game country from the zeal of Louis XIV., when he extirpated the Protestants by the revocation of the edict of Nantes, passed by the impolitic monarch, Henry IV.! "What special tokens, too, of the divine favour has Spain enjoyed by the same means! This has been triumphantly brought forward by Francisco de Pisa: Our Lord God,' says he, has been pleased to preserve these kingdoms in the purity of the faith like a terrestrial paradise, by means of the cherubim of the holy office (the inquisition); which, with its sword of fire, has defended the entrance, through the merits and patronage of the serenest Virgin Mary, the Mother of God.'"" If this be not glorying in shame, we know not what it is. Were such a thing lawful as devil-worship, the Bishop of Bantry might more appropriately send the praise in that direction. NO. VII. 3 P great Papal preserve. It is certainly one of the most melancholy spectacles which history presents, to see a great nation thus drawing down the curtain upon itself at mid-day when many of the nations around had begun the march of intellectual and social progress, and giving itself up to centuries of slumber. But one advantage at least may be gleaned from it by the world. It presents us with an experiment on a large scale of what Popery, unchecked by Protestant influences, can do for a people. We have seen Popery sowing the seeds of Spain's future in the sixteenth century. She has had ample time and opportunity to watch their growth and bring their fruits to perfection. Let us now see, then, what fruits those seeds are bearing in the nineteenth century. The last few years have brought within our reach a variety of valuable books, well fitted to assist us in such a survey. Even the letters of Blanco White, usually known as "Doblado's Letters," have not lost their value. Mr Ford's various books on Spain rise far above the gossiping and exaggerating character of tourists' guides, and reflect with vivid accuracy many of the phases of modern society in Spain. The work of the Rev. William Rule, a distinguished Wesleyan missionary, though principally devoted to an account of religion in the British garrison at Gibraltar, describes several adventurous excursions into the peninsula, and is marked by ability, information, and truthfulness. Two works by an eminent Spanish author, Senor Don Adolfo de Castro, make large additions to our knowledge, both of the Spain that was, and of the Spain that is. The former is a "History of Spanish Protestants," written very much on the plan of a series of biographical sketches. It bears gratifying testimony to the ability and learning of our own M'Crie, and considerably diminishes our confidence in Llorente, the historian of the Spanish Inquisition, while it adds a number of new names to the long and shining roll of Spanish Protestant confessors; raises the dark veil, for the first time, from the history of the youthful Don Carlos; and presents a narrative full of romantic interest, and illustrative of the ubiquitous espionage and power of the Inquisition, in the account which it gives of the seizure and imprisonment, because of his Lutheran sympathies, of the Archbishop of Toledo. His later work, "The History of Religious Intolerance in Spain," connects the decline of that country with its ecclesiastical condition, and is a bold work for a living Spaniard. Another book, "The Practical Working of the Church in Spain," is the production of an English clergyman, the Rev. Frederick Meyrick, who was compelled by the state of his health to spend a succession of winters in the south of Spain; and though written in a somewhat desultory style, abounds in valuable details. There is a candid confession that he and an accomplished female relative, who was his companion at Malaga and Seville, had gone out from England, one with a high respect, the other with a high admiration, for many of the practices and institutions of Romanism. But, as happened with Luther, on his memorable visit to Rome, the mists which imagination had thrown over the system disappeared on a nearer inspection, and revealed something very hollow and revolting in its stead; and Mr Meyrick returned to England a wiser and more contented man, effectually cured of his Romish sympathies and Romeward tendencies. These various writers shall be our authorities and witnesses. It is impossible to look at the position of Spain, among the nations of Europe, without remarking how singularly it has been favoured with many of those geographical and physical advantages which, faithfully improved, secure great national prosperity. With an extent of territory nearly equal to that of France, and nearly double that of England; with a noble mountain-barrier to guard it against its most formidable neighbour; with a population by nature hardy and brave; with a line of coast abounding in bays and harbours, and standing between the two great seas that bear on their bosom the commerce of the eastern and western worlds, it possesses all the conditions necessary for military strength and commercial greatness. Rich in mineral wealth, abounding in navigable rivers, with a soil in many parts fertile to a proverb, and a climate that brings to maturity the most valuable productions of the temperate and the rarest fruits and flowers of the tropical zones, it seemed to require only the most moderate amount of industry and enterprise, in order to make a country, on which Heaven has lavished its gifts with so bounteous a hand, prosperous in all the elements of material greatness.* And, now, what are the facts? The population of Spain does not exceed twelve millions, and every year it is becoming less numerous and more wretched. Noble rivers, like the Tagus, which, with a common measure of enterprise, might be made navigable for a hundred miles, are allowed to be choked up with mud, and in some places to wander from their channel, so as to present the ludicrous picture of bridges spanning an old and dry water-course, while the river is flowing unbridged some miles distant. Instruments of culture are in use, which differ little in shape from those in the days of the Georgics; modes of conveyance, which Hannibal and Scipio may have witnessed when they passed over the same scenes; modes of thrashing, the same as in some of the least cultivated oriental nations; roads, connecting large towns, are scarcely passable except for the muleteer; the few manufactories that exist are princi * Ford's Gatherings, ch. ii. |