om the
Anglican Church--are fond of declaring that Spain is "a splendid
Catholic country," "the home of true Catholicism," and so forth. To a
certain extent this has been true of it in the past, and "dignity,
loyalty, and the love of God" are still the ideals of the people at
large, although in Spain, as in some other Continental nations, the
practice of religious duties is now, to a great extent, left to the
women of the family and to the peasantry. Young Spain, and the
progressive party in it, can no longer be said to be under the
domination of the Church, even in outward appearance. It will be well if
the swing of the pendulum does not carry them very far from it, and into
open revolt.

The history of the Church in Spain and of its relations with Rome is a
curious one. It can scarcely be said to have been much more amenable to
the Papacy than that of the Church of England, though it has remained
always within the pale of the Roman Catholic persuasion. In the old time
the kings aspired to be the head of the Spanish Church, and were none
too subservient to the Pope. The Inquisition and the Society of Jesus
were distinctly Spanish, and not Roman, and were at times actually at
variance with the Vatican. Probably from their long struggles with the
barbarians, and later with the Moors, Spaniards have a habit of always
speaking of themselves as Christians rather than Catholics, which
strikes strangely on one's ears.

The evils which have been wrought in Spain by the terrible incubus of
the Inquisition, and by the domination of the Jesuits and other orders,
who obtained possession of the teaching of youth, have been little less
than disastrous, because their power has been deliberately used for ages
past to keep the lower classes in a state of absolute ignorance, slaves
of the grossest superstition, and mere puppets in the hands of the
priesthood. Even well within the memory of living people it was thought
a pity that women should be allowed to learn even to read and
write,--safer to have them quite ignorant,--while the peasantry and the
inferior classes believed anything they were told, and could be excited
to any pitch of fanaticism by the preaching of their religious teachers.
The Inquisition was often used as a political machine, and was sometimes
only clothed with the semblance of religion; but by whomsoever it was
directed, and for whatsoever purpose, it was a vile and soul-destroying
institution. It deliberately gro