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mise I departed well satisfied, and full of gratitude to the Lord, who seemed to have so wonderfully smoothed my way in an enterprise which at first sight seemed particularly arduous and difficult. Before three months had elapsed Mr. Mendizabal had ceased to be Prime Minister; with his successor, Mr. Isturitz, I had become acquainted, and also with his colleagues, Galiano and the Duke de Rivas, and it was not long before I obtained--not however without much solicitation and difficulty--the permission which I so ardently desired. Before, however, I could turn it to my account, the revolution broke out in Spain, and the press became free. The present appears to be a moment peculiarly well adapted for commencing operations in Spain, the aim and view of which should be the introducing into that singularly unhappy portion of the world the knowledge of the Saviour. The clouds of bigotry and superstition which for so many centuries cast their dreary shadow upon Spain, are to a considerable degree dispelled, and there is little reason for supposing that they will ever again conglomerate. The Papal See is no longer regarded with reverence, and its agents and ministers have incurred universal scorn and odium; therefore any fierce and determined resistance to the Gospel in Spain is not to be apprehended either from the people themselves, or from the clergy, who are well aware of their own weakness. It is scarcely necessary to remark that every country which has been long subjected to the sway of popery is in a state of great and deplorable ignorance. Spain, as might have been expected, has not escaped this common fate, and the greatest obstacle to the diffusion of the Gospel light amongst the Spaniards would proceed from the great want of education amongst them. Perhaps there are no people in the world to whom nature has been, as far as regards mental endowments, more bounteously liberal than the Spaniards. They are generally acute and intelligent to an extraordinary degree, and express themselves with clearness, fluency, and elegance upon all subjects which are within the scope of their knowledge. It may indeed be said of the mind of a Spaniard, as of his country, that it merely requires cultivation to be a garden of the first order; but, unhappily, both, up to the present time, have been turned to the least possible account. Few amongst the lower class of the population of the towns are acquainted with letters, and few
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