by bands of foreign invaders; they can not endure to see their country and themselves in a state to make them abhor the recollection that such renowned heroes were their forefathers :-is it possible that the Spaniards of the present day, recalling to mind the gallant hostility which once expelled the Moors, can quietly sink down under the domination of the modern Saracens ? It has occurred to our thoughts numberless times, while going through this volume, what an intolerable place their country would soon become, to the usurping enemy, if the martial spirit which blazed all over it in the eleventh century could be now re-kindled; and what a dreadful impression would be made on the Gallic squadrons by even a very small army of such men as this Rodrigo Diaz, and those that fought by his side. The very same reflections have occurred, no doubt, to multitudes of the Spanish nation, within the last few months: but, notwithstanding all such reflections, and the momentary ardour they may in some instances possibly have excited, it would appear that one more proof remained to be given, that, in these times, the tombs, the histories, and the splendid fables of valiant ancestors have lost all their power against a daring invader.

As all our readers, as well as ourselves, talk less or more every day of the events in Spain, which have lately awakened the strongest interest throughout the whole civilized world, it will, perhaps, be permitted us to take this occasion of suggesting a few considerations relative to those events, and to the manner in which they have been viewed and celebrated in this country.

With regard to the manner in which those events have been beheld and discussed, it is painful to us, as believers in Christianity, to have to observe, that it may be doubted whether there has ever been a grand affair, involving a most momentous crisis, and creating a profound and universal solicitude, which was contemplated in this country with any thing so much like a general consent to forget all religious considerations. The anxiety which we have fully shared with all around us, for the success of the Spanish people, could not prevent us from some

times thoughtfully observing in what terms anxiety, speculation, or triumph, were expressed by veteran statesmen, young political philosophers, many divines, the whole tribe almost of journalists, and a very large proportion of the mass of the people; and it has been exceedingly striking to perceive the general willingness to exempt the Governor of the world from all exercise of care or interference. We really believe we have hardly met with one political or military calculation on the powers and probabilities in this great commotion, in which the fact of an Almighty Providence, if any accident could have suggested it to the calculator's thoughts, would have been of half as much importance in his account, as one regiment of soldiers more or less, or one cargo of ammunition. But in general, the thought seems not to have occurred at all; the plans, the reasonings, the auguries, the exultation, and the fears, have all been entertained and revolved, under an entire failure to recollect that an invisible Being has ever decided the course and events of human affairs. And the benefit of this exclusion of every thought relating to that Being has been very great, to the confident class of speculators, as it has simplified their calcutions; the interference of an invisible Power, is a thing so independent and mysterious, that it is very difficult to adjust its place and value among the elements of the calculation; but let the whole matter be reduced to a plain account of so many men in arms against so many, and we go directly to the consequence without hesitation.

We could not deem it a favourable omen, when we observed the general, and we think unequalled, prevalence, in this Christian country, of so light an estimate of the dependence of human affairs on the Supreme Governor. Another very prominent circumstance, has been the apparent renunciation of all concern about the stability or subversion of the power of the Romish church. In times that are past, yet not so long past but we ourselves can remember them, this most impious, tyrannic, and cruel power was regarded as one of the most pernicious and hateful things on the face of the

VOL. I.

U

whole earth; and its grand instrument, the inquisition, was considered as precisely the utmost reach of diabolical contrivance and malignity. English protestants could not hear the words popery and inquisition, without instantly thinking of crowds of racked, or burning, or bleeding martyrs; of numerous other pious and holy men perishing in dungeons and deserts; of soldiers, stimulated by priests to merit heaven by absolutely wantoning in the torments and death of women and children; of midnight spies, of domestics exhorted and threatened into informers, of the general interdiction of divine. knowledge by severe punishments for reading the bible, of an infinite swarm of lazy, bigoted, and vicious ecclesiastics, of the worship of saints and of images, and of a train of follies and impieties, in doctrine and ceremony, far too numerous to be named. Nothing inspired greater delight than any symptoms of the approaching fall of this most execrable power; our anticipations of the prosperity or decline of any of the political states of Europe depended very much, perhaps more than on any other thing whatever, on the degree in which they respectively assisted or opposed that impious and cruel hierarchy while many devout and learned writers, and a multitude of their readers, rejoiced to discern any coincidence between passing events and the prophecies of the fall of antichrist. In looking round on the states that support this enormous usurpation on the liberty, the reason, and the conscience of mankind, it was notorious that Spain and Portugal were the most faithful subjects of the slavery and abettors of the tyranny. When the recent movement in Spain became so extensive as apparently to promise to raise the whole effective population in arms, we began to entertain a most earnest sentiment, something between the desponding desire and the hope, that now, at last, not only a repelling boundary, much more lofty and impervious than the Pyrenees, would be raised against the irruptions, on one side at least, of the grand tyrant of Europe, but also that in some way or other, the strongest hold of popery would be eventually shaken into ruins. It was

not to be expected that any direct measures, for reducing the inveterate ascendency of the popish establishment, would form a part of the first revolutionary proceedings, But, as we trusted that all the genius and knowledge in the country would be called forth by the great occasion, and that the most able, enlightened, and liberal men would soon come to occupy the vacated powers of government, we flattered ourselves they would be too wise, as statesmen, to be bigoted as catholics. We presumed they could not but feel that the freedom which deserved to be sought at the expense of a prolonged and direful conflict with the greatest military power the world ever saw, would remain imperfect, dishonoured, and in a great measure useless, unless something were at least gradually effected, for reducing that despotism of superstition, which would else be a fatal obstacle to all grand schemes of national improvement. We thought that the great commotion, which would excite throughout the whole nation twenty times more bold thought and strong passion, than had prevailed in it at any one period for centuries past, would give such a shock to the dominion of superstition, as to loosen and crack all its impositions and institutions. And why should we forbear to add, that we had a new ground of hope, when this liberal and protestant nation determined to put forth all its immense strength in aid of the Spanish cause, and when it was avowed in both countries that without this aid that cause could not triumph. It was quite natural to conclude, that this protestant nation, which had but very recently testified its antipathy to popery with an ardour of zeal almost flaming into fanaticism, would accompany this assistance, if not with the stipulated condition, at least with the most powerful recommendation, of some remission of the rigours of spiritual slavery; a recommendation which, under such circumstances, could not have failed to be effectual.

Thus, we had begun to indulge anticipations of momentous changes in favour of intellect, conscience, and religion, to arise from the great movement in assertion of national liberty. When, however, in the simplicity of

our hearts, we began to give vent to some of these imaginations, in such little humble circles of politicians as we can be supposed to be admitted in, we found our notions received with a smile of contempt. We were told, that these are not times for recalling the antiquated trifling controversies of divines about popery and protestantism; that enlightened politicians are now of opinion, that the iniquitous institutions of the superstition of any country ought to be held sacred and inviolate in that country; that if a few protestants have sometimes got themselves into the dungeons of the inquisition, it was their own fault, as they might have gone quietly to mass like their neighbours; that, in short, any such concerns as that of securing such things as liberty of religious profession and worship, are altogether beneath the notice of states, and those who preside over them, in great conjunctures of their affairs. We were rather plainly told, that such grand events as those of the present time are not for the understandings of persons who can never advert to any great subject without making it little by some conceit about Providence, and whose first grovelling anxiety and last, in political commotions and revolutions, fixes itself on no greater an object than what it calls the advancement of pure religion,-meaning perhaps, in truth, nothing better that the progress of methodism.

On this we betook ourselves, for a while, to the silent observation of events and opinions, and soon perceived that we had indeed entertained a very fantastic kind of sentiments. Except a number of religionists of the most antiquated stamp, nobody seemed to recollect any harm that popish intolerance had ever done; the inquisition was almost become venerable, as a fortress of the faith against modern infidelity; at any rate, it was a powerful support of the ancient established order of things; a most bigoted tribe of priests had our cordial license to hunt heretics, and keep the people in the most wretched and debasing ignorance, if they would only make sanguinary addresses (many of them were in the most savage style) to rouse the population to war.