h which they succeeded in expelling from Europe the
Saracenic dominion, then about to extend itself from the shores of the
Garonne to those of the Tiber.

What a difference do we perceive between the Spaniard of those times and
the abject and degraded vassal of the princes of the Austrian dynasty!
Religious sentiment was not less energetic, it was not less profound, in
the second epoch than in the first; but it was a sentiment perverted by
superstition, envenomed by fanaticism, and which, far from associating
itself, as before, with the propensity to illustrious deeds and grand
enterprises, consecrated itself exclusively, moved by the former, to the
most puerile rites and ridiculous exterior practices, and, influenced by
the latter, to the most abominable excesses of persecution and
intolerance. Thus it is, that from the time of Philip II. down to that
of Charles II., the history of Spain presents nothing but an
uninterrupted series of blunders in the government, of intrigues and
disorders in the court, and of crosses and misfortunes in the national
affairs. In a word, it sets before us a treasury without credit and
without money, an army without discipline and without organization,
tribunals sold to power:--and everywhere we perceive recklessness,
ignorance, poverty, and immorality, which are the inseparable
accompaniments of mal-administration.

It was not possible that a nation forming part of the great European
family could long continue in such a condition. At the present time we
distinctly discern that the progress of civilization keeps pace with the
perfection of religious ideas. The most cultivated nations, the richest
and most nourishing, are those which have most purified their
creeds,--those which have put farthest from them the material element
introduced to worship by superstition and fanaticism,--those who come
nearest to the spirit and letter of the gospel in the relations of man
with the Divinity. Spaniards have begun to penetrate these truths; they
have compared their actual condition with that of other nations which
have embraced the doctrines of the Reformation, and, above all, have felt
that great void left in their religious and moral condition by the want
of true Christianity, of the pure dogma taught by its Founder, and of the
truth to be discovered only in those inspired pages containing the
treasures of revelation.

This exchange of ideas is one of the most striking facts of the present