out that instead of being satisfied with immense long-winded despatches and notes, couched in grandiloquent language, which Spanish Foreign Ministers seem to think amply sufficient, strong nations have a habit of sending an iron-clad, or two or three cruisers to back up their demands, and that no other European country but Spain thinks it safe or wise to leave her coasts and her commerce entirely without protection in case of a European war breaking out.  Will the nation itself take the matter in hand, and in this, as in so many other matters, advance in spite of its Government?  If it waits for the political seesaw by which both parties avoid responsibility, there will be small chance of a navy.  The same ministry is in power to-day which landed the country in the Spanish-American War, and it would seem as if the nation considers it the best it can produce. Manana veremos?

CHAPTER XII

RELIGIOUS LIFE

The natural bent of the Spanish mind is religious.  Taking the nation as a whole, with all its marvellous variations in race and character, no portion of it has ever been reproached for insincerity in its religious beliefs.  It has been often held up to reproach for bigotry and superstition; but the people have in past ages been penetrated by a sincere reverence for what they have believed to be religion, and perhaps no other nation has been more thoroughly imbued with an unwavering faith in the dogmas taught by its religious instructors.  English Roman Catholics—­especially those who have seceded from the Anglican Church—­are fond of declaring that Spain is “a splendid Catholic country,” “the home of true Catholicism,” and so forth.  To a certain extent this has been true of it in the past, and “dignity, loyalty, and the love of God” are still the ideals of the people at large, although in Spain, as in some other Continental nations, the practice of religious duties is now, to a great extent, left to the women of the family and to the peasantry.  Young Spain, and the progressive party in it, can no longer be said to be under the domination of the Church, even in outward appearance.  It will be well if the swing of the pendulum does not carry them very far from it, and into open revolt.

The history of the Church in Spain and of its relations with Rome is a curious one.  It can scarcely be said to have been much more amenable to the Papacy than that of the Church of England, though it has remained always within the pale of the Roman Catholic persuasion.  In the old time the kings aspired to be the head of the Spanish Church, and were none too subservient to the Pope.  The Inquisition and the Society of Jesus were distinctly Spanish, and not Roman, and were at times actually at variance with the Vatican.  Probably from their long struggles with the barbarians, and later with the Moors, Spaniards have a habit of always speaking of themselves as Christians rather than Catholics, which strikes strangely on one’s ears.