of strength, and the aspect of
things is far more promising for the future than in our own islands. The
Spaniards, however inferior we may think them to ourselves, have filled
their colonies with their own people and are reaping the reward of it.
We have so contrived that such English as had settled in the West Indies
on their own account are leaving them.
Spain, four centuries ago, was the greatest of European nations, the
first in art, or second only to Italy, the first in arms, the first in
the men whom she produced. She has been swept along in the current of
time. She fought against the stream of tendency, and the stream proved
too strong for her, great as she was. The modern spirit, which she
would not have when it came in the shape of the Reformation, has flowed
over her borders as revolution, not to her benefit, for she is unable to
assimilate the new ideas. The old Spain of the Inquisition is gone; the
Spain of to-day is divided between Liberalism and Catholic belief. She
is sick in the process of the change, and neither she nor her colonies
stand any longer in the front lines in the race of civilisation; yet the
print of her foot is stamped on the New World in characters which will
not be effaced, and may be found to be as enduring as our own.
The colony is perhaps in advance of the mother country. The Catholic
Church, Don G---- said, has little influence in Cuba; 'she has had no
rival,' he explained, 'and so has grown lazy.' I judged the same from my
own observations. The churches on Sundays were thinly attended, and men
smiled when I asked them about 'confession.' I inquired about famous
preachers. I was told that there was no preaching in Havana, famous or
otherwise. I might if I was lucky and chose to go there in the early
morning, hear a sermon in the church of the Jesuits; that was all. I
went; I heard my Jesuit, who was fluent, eloquent, and gesticulating,
but he was pouring out his passionate rhetoric to about fifty women with
scarcely a man amongst them. It was piteous to look at him. The Catholic
Church, whether it be for want of rivals, or merely from force of time,
has fallen from its high estate. It can burn no more heretics, for it
has lost the art to raise conviction to sufficient intensity. The power
to burn was the measure of the real belief, which people had in the
Church and its doctrines. The power has departed with the waning of
faith; and religion in Havana, as in Madrid, is but 'use and
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