ing this period the Spaniard overran the
earth, not that he might till the soil, but that he might rob the man
who did. With one hand he was raking in the gold and silver of Mexico
and Peru; with the other confiscating the profits of the trade and
manufactures of the Low Countries--and all in the name of the Great
God and Saints!

How was Spain overthrown? The answer is a short one. Spain, under
Philip II staked her all upon a religious war against the awakening
age. She met the Reformation within her own borders and extinguished
it; but thought had broken loose from its chains and was abroad in the
earth. England had turned Protestant, and Elizabeth was on the throne;
Denmark, Norway and Sweden, indeed all countries except Spain and
Italy had heard the echoes from Luther's trumpet blast. Italy
furnished the religion, and Spain the powder, in this unequal fight
between the Old and the New. Spain was not merely the representative
of the old, she WAS the old, and she armed her whole strength in its
behalf.

Here was a religion separated from all moral principle and devoid of
all softening sentiment--its most appropriate formula being, death to
all heretics. Death--not to tyrants, not to oppressors, not to robbers
and men-stealers--but death to _heretics_. It was this that equipped
her Armada.

The people were too loyal and too pious to THINK, and so were hurled
in a solid mass against the armed thought of the coming age, and a
mighty nation crumbled as in a day. With the destruction of her Armada
her warlike ascendancy passed and she had nothing to put in its place.
She had not tillers of the soil, mechanics or skilled merchants.
Business was taking the place of war all over the world, but Spain
knew only religion and war, hence worsted in her only field, she was
doomed.

From the days of Philip II her decline was rapid. Her territory
slipped from her as rapidly as it had been acquired. Her great domains
on our soil are now the seat of thriving communities of
English-speaking people. The whole continent of South America has
thrown off her yoke, though still retaining her language, and our
troops now embarked from Port Tampa are destined to wrest from her the
two only remaining colonies subject to her sway in the Western
World,--Cuba and Porto Rico. With all her losses hitherto, Spain has
not learned wisdom. Antagonistic to truth and liberty, she seems to
sit in the shadow of death, hugging the delusions that have be