CHAPTER IV.

Abolition of "St. James's Vow"-Reduction of monastic Establishments-Public Instruction-Restoration of Ferdinand-Emigration of Liberals-Secret Societies-Enlightened Writers Writers on behalf of Popery-Amat's Paraphrase of the Holy Scriptures-Ximenez's Paraphrase of the Epistles Spanish Version of Cobbett's "Letters on the Reformation."

THE pioneers of liberty prosecuted their labours with admirable constancy. The intolerant Twelfth Article, ́bad as it was, was really serviceable, because it served them as a covered way by which they approached to undermine the citadel of darkness. Nor could they be fairly charged with duplicity on this account; for they did not see, nor had they been led to see, the essential wickedness of Romanism. They only aimed at the emancipation of their country from the secular domination of the Pope, and endeavoured to secure an independent administration of government and law, and a more liberal organization of the state, without any intention of inducing a purely doctrinal reform. But we have ultimately seen the hand of God using those unenlightened men to rend the veil that was on the Spanish nation.

"At that time," says the Conde de Toreno, "the Cortes abolished" the tax commonly called "St. James's Vow.' This name was given to an ancient tribute of a certain measure of the best bread, and the best wine, which the farmers of some provinces paid towards the maintenance of the Archbishop and Chapter of St. James of Compostela, and the hospital of the same city. The lawfulness of this exaction was founded on a pretended privilege which resulted from a diploma falsely attributed to the King, Don Ramiro I. of Leon,

dated in Calahorra, in the year 872 of the era of Cæsar." It was proved that the document was forged at a later period; that the imposition was founded on a vow alleged to have been made by Don Ramiro, on occasion of a miracle which was never wrought; that the tax had been gradually extended from one province to the whole of Spain; and that the payment of it had been often appealed against, and often resisted. this being proved, the tax was summarily abolished. After this assertion of national right in respect to the emoluments of the Church, the next step was to diminish its vast possessions.

All

The property possessed by the various monkish orders amounted to a large proportion (more than half, to say the least) of the houses and lands in Spain, and unavailing efforts to dispossess them of some part of it had been made in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the year 1803, the numbers of "religious houses were estimated at 2,054 of Monks, and 1,075 of Nuns. It was computed that their inmates were 92,727. Napoleon, as already stated, had decreed that these establishments should be reduced to one-third, and his brother Joseph had caused them almost all to disappear in the provinces occupied by the French. On the 17th of June, 1812, the Cortes confirmed those acts of the French, although making an eventually successful war on the French themselves, and decreed, that the Monks and Nuns should be pensioned from the proceeds of the monastic properties. This law was at last evaded by the Regency, the members of which being less disposed to innovate, connived at and aided in the infraction. But a precedent was established; and when the Monks resumed their habits, they were gazed on as novel in Madrid and other large towns; and the children, the men of this generation, who had been born and brought up since the day of their extinction, instead of looking on with veneration,

as their fathers had done in their childhood, made merry at their grotesque variety.

Until now, the care of instructing the youth had been assumed by Ecclesiastics as incumbent on themselves alone. It was now adopted by the State. The chapter of the Constitution on this subject, faulty as it was, is characteristic and important. It was there determined, that free schools should be erected in all towns of the monarchy, in which reading, writing, and arithmetic should be taught, together with " a Catechism of the Catholic religion," which should also comprehend a brief exposition of civil obligations. A competent number of Universities were to be created. There should be one system of public instruction in both ecclesiastical and political science. A department of public instruction should be added to the Government, but in subservience to the Cortes. And all Spaniards should have liberty to write, print, and publish their political (not religious) ideas, without previous censorship or licence, yet subject to the laws.

The relation between ecclesiastical and political sciences was justly recognised; but, by the last article, the liberty of the press was unjustly restricted to political writers, however licentious they might be, while any one who should attempt to impart a single ray of Gospel light to the people, would be denied the privilege. This act, together with the universal desecration of the Lord's day, by the appointment of Sundays for the chosing of electors, and, again by these, of deputies to the Cortes, was sufficient to involve any scheme of government in ruin, by setting it up as a mark on which the divine indignation must certainly fall. The Constitution of 1812 endured but for a short time it existed but in connexion with the early and difficult transition of the nation from a state of utter bondage to one of partial freedom, and has been succeeded by another code, not disfigured by such

:

defects, and tending directly to the establishment of liberty of conscience.

However imperfect the ideas of religion then entertained, (and could they have been other than most erroneous?) six years' respite from the yoke of absolute despotism, and those six years spent in a noble struggle against foreign usurpers, and in united efforts for the establishment of free institutions, could not but be eminently conducive to the eventual deliverance of the people from spiritual bondage. But that period, and the years which followed, almost up to the present, have elapsed amidst varied and extreme calamities. The cannon had scarcely ceased to roar, and the blood to flow, when Ferdinand VII., released from his ignominious captivity by the combined forces of Great Britain and Spain, re-crossed the frontier, amidst the enthusiastic acclamations of his subjects. It became fully apparent that the new system of representative government, as it counterbalanced regal power and prerogative, did not suit his taste. He sympathized with the Clergy, whose riches were diminished, and whose influence over the most enlightened of his subjects was brought very low, and hastened to associate them with himself in an effort to rivet again the chains of despotism on the half-emancipated people.

The cause of royal despotism and of the Church now became one, and the hatred of Spaniards was almost equally directed against their rulers and their Priests. The history of the events of those years contributes little to our present sketch; but there are two general facts which indicate the moral state of the country, and are of importance as taken in relation with the prospect now opening before us. These are the emigration of active liberals to England, France, and America, and the establishment of secret societies in Spain.

Although the absorbing interest taken by the emi

grants in the political state of the Peninsula, and of Europe generally, left them little inclination to become acquainted with religious truth, and perhaps most of them sank deeper into infidelity than before; it is certain, on the other hand, that observation of the practical effects of Protestantism on the laws and manners of nations, and of the social benefits arising out of religious liberty, prepared them, as we shall see, to advocate reforms which are at this moment opening a wide door for the entrance of the Gospel.

The secret societies gave a yet more unfavourable bias to the national character, and imparted a fashion to the proceedings of individuals, of which it will behove all who shall labour in evangelizing Spain to be well aware. The principal of these societies were the Freemasons, said to be friends of political liberty, and haters of the priesthood; the Commoneers, a more recent and scarcely less mysterious sect; and the Ringmen, (Anilleros,) or conservators of the anti-liberal government. It does not concern us to speak of the politics of these societies; but their tendency must not escape inquiry. As for the Freemasons, it is said, that their labours tended to uproot the little faith in revealed religion which might be yet remaining; and on this account the Clergy were fully justified in denouncing them as impious, however unjustifiable may have been their mode of dealing with them. The author does not pretend to intimate acquaintance with Freemasons; and acknowledges, that even in that part of the world there are respectable men among them, who, however, scarcely, if at all, frequent the Lodges, and are not fully aware of the tendency of their craft. But he has witnessed the demoralizing influence of Masonry over unstable members of his flock in Gibraltar; has been bound to ascertain its theory at least; has observed a fundamental rule of the Lodges to be, that every characteristic truth of Christianity be