a, were, in their origin, institutions as religious
in their character as the order of the Templars and as that of St John of
Jerusalem. Even in the present day, though they have degenerated, they
preserve still much of their primitive character. The knights, it is
true, do not observe celibacy, as in ancient times; but they still have
churches in which they celebrate sumptuous festivities; they take an oath
to defend the Catholic religion and the doctrine of the immaculate
conception of the Virgin, and to each of these orders there still
pertains a certain number of convents of nuns, who wear the habit and
carry the cross of their respective orders. These nuns are called
_Commendadoras_, and none can be admitted into their numbers but ladies
who are descended from an ancient nobility, preserved for many
generations from any mixture of plebeian blood.

The celebrated Ignatius de Loyola, founder of the order of the Jesuits,
carried this singular amalgamation of piety and of a belligerent spirit
to such an extreme as, in our times, cannot but appear ridiculous. On
the day on which he was made a knight, it being then the custom that a
candidate for such an honour should choose for himself a lady to whose
service he might consecrate his arms, and whose image should be
constantly before him, his election fell upon the Virgin, as in the same
manner did that of Durandarte on Belerma, and that of the celebrated hero
of La Mancha on Dulcinea.

In all wars which have been waged by Spaniards, from the times of Pelayo
down to those of Espartero, religion has been one of the motives which
have impelled them to arms. In the war of succession of 1770, which gave
the throne of Castille to the grandson of Louis XIV., the dispute was
between two nations equally Roman Catholic--Austria and France.
Nevertheless, the circumstance that Great Britain had embraced the cause
of the archduke was sufficient for considering the war as a religious
one; and those who fought for Philip V. regarded the extirpation of the
heretical subjects of the House of Orange as the consolidation of the
Bourbon dynasty. In our own times we have seen these same sentiments
predominating in the civil war of Don Carlos, whose partisans considered
their enemies as impious and as atheists, words which in their dictionary
were synonymous with "constitutional and liberal." Most of the
proclamations emanating from the press of Onate spoke of the dangers
which threat