A nation vegetating on old memories; a people for two centuries priest-ridden, just beginning to awaken and show some signs of the enlightenment of the age; a government liable to change every twenty-four hours; an empty treasury shifting from one to another incapable ministry; and, above all, a ridiculous pretension and holding to such an Old World phrase as national honor—such is the ordinary run of opinion on Spain. What is it coming to? What is its destiny? Has it a destiny in these busy, practical days? Or is its life played out long ago, and the nation simply drifting downwards into the yawning gulf of insignificance where many another has been swallowed up?
Have Catholics an interest in the question?
Yesterday, when mention was made of Spain, the enlightened world lifted up its eyes and hands in pious protestation against such an outrage on our nineteenth century of civilization. A superstitious race given to the worshipping of graven images, hoodwinked by the priests, those inveterate enemies of progress; no free-will among them; no understanding; nothing but memory. To-day all is changed. The dawn long delayed of enlightenment has come at last to the unhappy land—has come accompanied by the usual signs. Churches have been rifled, the sanctuary has been desecrated, the Jesuits have been scattered, nuns and monks have been robbed of their homes and driven naked into the world, blood has flowed freely, murder has been done. So, to-day the world smiles, and rubs its hands, and hopes better things for Spain.
That it was a great nation we all acknowledge, and the title is a true one. It was not alone a mighty nation; those buried under the Eastern sands were mighty nations, yet their workings in this world were as barren of fruit as the shifting covering that has hidden them away, without an oasis to redeem their barrenness. China might be called a mighty nation, but it has walled itself in from the world by the most narrow-minded and selfish policy, and we have had to fight our way through good and evil up to our present standard without a helping hand from it. Russia is a mighty nation, and we look anxiously to the development of its vast power, but up to the present its only effect on the world has been that of brute strength. But Spain has been pre-eminently a great nation; that is, a nation that has done much for its own and others’ development, in all that can make peoples sound, intelligent, prosperous, and happy.
Looking back at its history as far as we can look back, we find the same characteristics in the race as we find to-day; above all, that intense, all-absorbing nationality which has kept it unmixed and unconquered. Hannibal courted its alliance; the Roman failed ever to subdue it thoroughly. Great stubborn resistances to the Empress of the World stand out now and then in clear relief from that dim background—awful sieges wonderfully sustained, where the women play an equal part with the men. We shall always find these Spanish women leading the van in the hour of their country’s danger. The victories gained over them resembled the victory of Pyrrhus. The Romans went and the Moors came, and fastened on the heart of the kingdom, populating and flourishing there, sucking out its life. They built their cities and their palaces in the fairest spots in the land. Powerful, warlike, rich, with immense resources, they laughed at the handful of men, kingless, skulking among rocks, and starving for liberty. But that handful will not surrender what is their own while one arm can be raised to defend it. They are true to one another as Spaniards and as Catholics now; for a new element is in them binding them more firmly than the very blood that is common to their veins—religion, the religion of Christ, which they have seized upon with all their passionate nature, never to relinquish. Inch by inch the Moors are driven back over the sea. They were invaded again by a more terrible foe than all—more terrible even than France in her deep distress has lately seen. Bonaparte had drained the country of its armies, had emptied its coffers, and taken away its king, all under the shadow of friendship and alliance. When he held it thus powerless in his hands, he sent in his armies, and impudently set his brother on the throne. Kingless, moneyless, defenceless as they were, the people rose up, the women again leading the van, and the priests inflaming all. Bonaparte was driven out. The priests, for all their hoodwinking, can be good patriots, it seems. The London Times, the mouthpiece of the enlightenment of the age, certainly no great friend to Spaniards and Catholics, contrasted the conduct of France during the late invasion with that of Spain. France, in her sorest straits, was never so hard pushed as Spain when the first Napoleon entered; yet a nation of over 30,000,000 could not rid themselves of half a million. There was no Carthagena, no Saguntum, no Saragossa—no approach to such. And the Times confessed that France failed because she possessed neither the patriotism nor the religious enthusiasm of the Spaniards. Such examples has Spain given to the world of the purest patriotism, the first element of greatness in a nation; of a self-reliance that, when all seems lost, will not look without for aid, but to itself.
She has not ceased her working here. In no department has she been backward. Science owes her much. Literature is enriched by her authors. The inspirations of Murillo are the embodiment of all that our religion can feel in its deepest moments; before his canvas, the Christian prays, the infidel cannot scoff. She has given soldiers of the noblest type; statesmen the most benevolent and enlightened. The Spanish constitution in itself is from days remote admirable for equipoise and justice. In England they are just approaching the Spanish marriage laws. A Spanish merchant will tell you that for the generality of commercial questions he is his own lawyer, so clear and well-defined is the law.
What do we Catholics owe to Spain?
First of all, that high example of unswerving faith and devotion to the Holy See through ages of evil report and good report. The great heart of the nation is not moved by events that will come under our notice after. She has not only given a host of theological writers, but, what is still better, a host of theological actors—notably the Order of St. Dominic and the Society of Jesus, the names of which are enough to recall our debt.
To the Old World she opened up a New. Here Spain had a mission that is rarely given to nations. She failed, though the monarch sent priests to accompany the soldiers, to temper the conquest of the sword by that of the cross. How well the warriors of Christ demeaned themselves, our Bancroft and Prescott tell us.
She failed; but who shall cast the first stone at her? That nation only which has subdued another by Christian love and the weapon of the cross—a phenomenon that has not yet appeared even in these blessed days.