It is true, there may be a Reason, and a political one, assign’d for that Abstemiousness of theirs, which is this, That if any Man, upon any Occasion, should be brought in as an Evidence against you, if you can prove that he was ever drunk, it will invalidate his whole Evidence.  I could not but think this a grand Improvement upon the Spartans.  They made their Slaves purposely drunk, to shew their Youth the Folly of the Vice by the sottish Behaviour of their Servants under it:  But they never reach’d to that noble height of laying a Penalty upon the Aggressor, or of discouraging a voluntary Impotence of Reason by a disreputable Impotence of Interest.  The Spaniard therefore, in my Opinion, in this exceeds the Spartan, as much as a natural Beauty exceeds one procured by Art; for tho’ Shame may somewhat influence some few, Terrour is of force to deter all.  A Man, we have seen it, may shake Hands with Shame; but Interest, says another Proverb, will never lye.  A wise Institution therefore doubtless is this of the Spaniard; but such as I fear will never take Place in Germany, Holland, France, or Great Britain.

But though I commend their Temperance, I would not be thought by any Means to approve of their Bigotry.  If there may be such a Thing as Intemperance in Religion, I much fear their Ebriety in that will be found to be over-measure.  Under the notion of Devotion, I have seen Men among ’em, and of Sense too, guilty of the grossest Intemperancies.  It is too common to be a rarity to see their Dons of the prime Quality as well as those of the lower Ranks, upon meeting a Priest in the open Streets, condescend to take up the lower part of his Vestment, and salute it with Eyes erected as if they look’d upon it as the Seal of Salvation.

When the Ave-Bell is heard, the Hearer must down on his Knees upon the very Spot; nor is he allowed the small Indulgence of deferring a little, till he can recover a clean Place; Dirtiness excuses not, nor will dirty Actions by any means exempt.  This is so notorious, that even at the Play-house, in the middle of a Scene, on the first sound of the Bell, the Actors drop their Discourse, the Auditors supersede the indulging of their unsanctified Ears, and all on their Hearts, quite a different way, to what they just before had been employ’d in.  In short, tho’ they pretend in all this to an extraordinary Measure of Zeal and real Devotion; no Man, that lives among them any time, can be a Proselyte to them without immolating his Senses and his Reason:  Yet I must confess, while I have seen them thus deludeing themselves with Ave Marias, I you’d not refrain throwing up my Eyes to the only proper Object of Adoration, in commiseration of such Delusions.