But the fall of
Novaliches at the Bridge of Alcolea decided the fate not only of the
ministry but of the dynasty; and while General Concha was waiting for
the train to leave Madrid, Isabel of Bourbon and Divine Right were
passing the Pyrenees.
Although the moral power of the Church is still so great, the
incorporation of freedom of worship in the constitution of 1869 has been
followed by a really remarkable development of freedom of thought. The
proposition was regarded by some with horror and by others with
contempt. One of the most enlightened statesmen in Spain once said to
me, "The provision for freedom of worship in the constitution is a mere
abstract proposition, - it can never have any practical value except for
foreigners. I cannot conceive of a Spaniard being anything but a
Catholic." And so powerful was this impression in the minds of the
deputies that the article only accords freedom of worship to foreigners
in Spain, and adds, hypothetically, that if any Spaniards should profess
any other religion than the Catholic, they are entitled to the same
liberty as foreigners. The Inquisition has been dead half a century,
but you can see how its ghost still haunts the official mind of Spain.
It is touching to see how the broken links of the chain of superstition
still hang about even those who imagine they are defying it. As in their
Christian burials, following unwittingly the example of the hated Moors,
they bear the corpse with uncovered face to the grave, and follow it
with the funeral torch of the Romans, so the formula of the Church
clings even to the mummery of the atheists. Not long ago in Madrid a man
and woman who belonged to some fantastic order which rejected religion
and law had a child born to them in the course of things, and determined
that it should begin life free from the taint of superstition. It should
not be christened, it should be named, in the Name of Reason. But they
could not break loose from the idea of baptism. They poured a bottle of
water on the shivering nape of the poor little neophyte, and its frail
life went out in its first wheezing week.
But in spite of all this a spirit of religious inquiry is growing up in
Spain, and the Church sees it and cannot prevent it. It watches the
liberal newspapers and the Protestant prayer-meetings much as the old
giant in Bunyan's dream glared at the passing pilgrims, mumbling and
muttering toothless curses. It looks as if the dead sleep of uniformity
of thought were to be broken at last, and Spain were to enter the
healthful and vivifying atmosphere of controversy.
Symptoms of a similar change may be seen in the world of politics. The
Republican party is only a year or two old, but what a vigorous and
noisy infant it is!
