ars a bishop of Cadiz, an admirable model of all Christian virtues,
there are many others, such as that of Barcelona, impregnated with the
maxims of the most absurd ultramontanism, and who are the declared
enemies of all that contributes to make human society moral and
enlightened.

It is very common to see priests begging in the streets. Few of them are
now permitted to visit in respectable families, or even to mix in general
society; and the strangest of all things connected with such a change is,
that the clergy themselves know the state of degradation into which they
have fallen--the total loss of their influence and of their
importance--without making the least effort to raise themselves from that
state of humiliation and abasement.

On two recent occasions have been seen evident proofs of the utter
prostration of that class which once domineered over the entire nation.
When the famous Merino attempted, in the summer of 1851, to assassinate
Isabella II., and also during the political convulsions of July 1854,
from the results of which the liberal party remained triumphant, so
fearful were the clergy of exciting the popular indignation, and so
persuaded were they that public opinion was against them, that their
prelates advised them not only to abstain from appearing in the streets
in their clerical costume, but even to discontinue the use of the
church-bells, with which they had been in the habit of calling their
congregations to the mass and other religious exercises. This advice was
followed with as much eagerness and precipitation by the clergy, as
though they wished to hide themselves from public notice, or as though
they had been guilty of some illicit and scandalous offence.

It is clear that, to some extent, such a transition is the result of that
state of poverty to which the secular clergy have been reduced; and hence
it is that many priests, particularly those in the country, have given
themselves up to a variety of secular pursuits and speculations, which
are expressly prohibited by the canon laws, and which appear incompatible
with the dignity and character of their ministry. Some of them have
become publicans, others coach-proprietors, and not a few of them
smugglers on the coasts and frontiers,--a propensity, however, to which
they have always been addicted, even in the times of their greatest
prosperity.

We have spoken of the ultramontanism of the Spanish clergy. Never had
those doctrines mo