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DAYBREAK IN SPAIN; 
 
 OR, 
 
 Sketches of Spain and its New Reformation. 
 
 A TOUR OF TWO MONTHS. 
 
 Rev. J. A. WYLIE, LL.D., 
 
 Author of " The Papacy,'' '' Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber,'' 
 
 
 CASSELL, PETTER, AND GALPIN, 
 
 LONDON AND NEW YORK. 
 

 •*'•.! '.' « •.••{ } '.' 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. — Spain's Past and Present 
 II.— The New Day 
 
 III._The Pyrenees and Spanish Husbandry 
 IV. — Old Castile and Bur(;os 
 V. — Valladolid and the First Auto-da-F£ 
 VI. — The Escorial . . . 
 
 VII. — Madrid ..... 
 VIII.— The Bible in Spain 
 IX.— The Seed-time .... 
 X. — A Reformed Church rises in Spain . 
 XL— Protestant Church in Madrid 
 XII. — Protestant Church in Madrid — continued 
 XIII.— Other Workers in Madrid 
 XIV. — Toledo and the Sierra Morena 
 
 XV.— Cordova . . . 
 
 XVI.— Valley of the Guadalquivir . 
 
 XVII.— Seville 
 
 XVIII.— The New Reformation . 
 
 15 
 
 30 
 48 
 62 
 76 
 
 99 
 121 
 142 
 167 
 
 183 
 
 197 
 207 
 224 
 236 
 
 254 
 262 
 
 273 
 
 XIX.— General Assembly, and Confession of Faith 298 
 
 •^^5198 
 
 i\iL 
 
VI 
 
 Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XX. — Monuments of Seville . 
 
 XXL — From Seville to Jerez . 
 
 XXII. — Cadiz and its Protestant Church 
 XXIII.— From Cadiz to Gibraltar 
 XXIV. — From Gibraltar to Malaga 
 
 XXV.— Granada and the Alhambra . 
 
 PAGE 
 318 
 
 331 
 
 348 
 
 380 
 401 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Segovia ..... 
 
 Frontispiece. 
 
 Castle of Pau, in the Pyrenees 
 
 
 To face page 34 
 
 Col de Pertus 
 
 
 230 
 
 View of Alicante . 
 
 
 
 294 
 
 Alicante '. 
 
 
 
 ,, 296 
 
 Church of Santa Maria del Pi 
 
 
 
 320 
 
 La Cartuja de Jerez 
 
 
 
 346 
 
 Bay of Corunna . 
 
 
 
 354 
 
 Defiles of Corunna 
 
 
 
 364 
 
 Gibraltar .... 
 
 
 
 376 
 
 Courtyard of the Palace of Guadalajara . 
 
 
 416 
 
 Spanish Diligence . 
 
 . 
 
 
 , 420 
 
PRE FACE. 
 
 The Author has made a study on the spot of the 
 movement to which the following pages refer. 
 
 No one of the movements of our times is 
 more remarkable in itself, or fraught with richer 
 promise to the world. 
 
 Springing from the prison of Granada, to 
 which but a few years ago it was confined, it 
 now presents itself to the world an organised 
 Church, with schools and public sanctuaries, and 
 authorised worship, attended by thousands of 
 Spaniards, the first fruits of a morally and spiri- 
 tually regenerated people. 
 
 This movement has had as its attendant cir- 
 cumstances the expulsion of a dynasty, the fall 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 of a throne, and the sudden elevation of a long 
 
 oppressed nation to the attitude of a free people. 
 
 Its wonderful unity, and the orderly progres- 
 sion of its events, make visible the finger of God, 
 and justify the hope that in this movement we 
 behold the dawn of a new day to the nations. 
 
 " Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth 
 be glad before the Lord ; for He cometh, for 
 He cometh to judge the earth ; He shall judge 
 the world with righteousness, and the people with 
 his truth." 
 
> 3 ■> ( 
 10 1 » 
 
 DAYBREAK IN SPAIN 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SPAIN'S PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 Holland — Switzerland — Italy — Britain — France — Spain — The 
 Spain of the Sixteenth Century compared with the Nineteenth 
 — Decadence in Arts and Letters, in Cultivation, in Trade — 
 Poverty and Misery of the People — Ruin of the Country. 
 
 There is no country in Europe whose history is 
 so tragic as that of Spain. 
 
 The story of HOLLAND is an epic. We see the 
 little country rising out of the sea. Its appearance 
 awakens no attention, and provokes no jealousy. 
 None of the earlier and mightier kingdoms of 
 Europe suspect for a moment that the newly- 
 arrived stranger, apparently so unobtrusive and 
 insignificant, can ever cross their path, or dispute 
 their supremacy. But by-and-by a great conflict 
 arises ; Holland steps into the arena, and throws 
 
 B 
 
2/. } ; /: •;; / ^J^aybrea^'In Spain, 
 
 down the gage of battle to the powers of des- 
 potism united under Philip II. The little champion 
 comes off victorious. For a full century thereafter 
 Holland reaps, as it is well entitled to do, the fruits 
 of victory. It covers the waves with its ships, 
 and gathers the riches of all countries within its 
 dykes. This is truly a grand spectacle. 
 
 Switzerland is a romance. We peruse its 
 history with alternate fear and admiration. Its 
 spirit, too great for its means, impels it, as we 
 think, upon desperate ventures. We accord it 
 the praise of chivalry, but we doubt its claim to 
 wisdom. Nevertheless, undismayed when others 
 are trembling for its fate, it goes on to meet the 
 giant it has challenged. It strikes, quick as light- 
 ning, and lo ! the colossus lies struggling on the 
 ground. In proportion to our fear, so is now our 
 surprise and delight at a victory over odds so tre- 
 mendous. Early did this country enter on that 
 career which has won for it so honourable a place 
 among the nations. The herdsmen of the Swiss 
 valleys, and the burghers of the Helvetian towns, 
 were among the first to feel the stirrings of that 
 spirit which, like a spring-time, began to move the 
 world when it drew towards the morning of the 
 sixteenth century. The least among the nations 
 of Europe, Switzerland became the cradle of a 
 
Spain's Past and Present. 3 
 
 great liberty; and although a dragon watched by 
 that cradle, it was not able to strangle the infant 
 freedom of the modern world. 
 
 Of Italy what shall we say ? Its renown is of 
 ancient days. When Holland was but an assem- 
 blage of sandbanks washed by the oozy tide, and 
 the hills of Helvetia were concealed beneath the 
 immemorial night, Italy was glorious in art and 
 terrible in arms. What is she now? From her 
 capitol empire has long passed. Arts and letters 
 are found in her only by the feeble traces they 
 have left behind them. Her fitting symbol is her 
 own cypress. If we speak of her, it must be as 
 we speak of the dead, in a voice modulated to 
 sorrow. If we seek for her, we must descend into 
 the sepulchre. If we write her history, it becomes 
 an ^/o^e. 
 
 England, like Holland, is an epic. From her 
 seat in the midst of the seas we see her steadily 
 enlarging the sphere of her power and influence, 
 and exemplifying, but on a grander scale, what 
 Holland had exemplified before her — that a great 
 principle, firmly grasped and fearlessly carried out, 
 will do more to conduct nations to greatness than 
 armies, however brave ; revenues, however rich ; 
 and territories, however extensive. In the days 
 of Elizabeth the population of England was but 
 
 B 2 
 
4 Da ybreak in Spain. 
 
 four millions ; now the British sceptre is stretched 
 over not less than two hundred millions, or a. fifth' 
 of the human race. At the Reformation not a 
 foot-breadth of land had we beyond our own 
 shores, and, moreover, we were environed by- 
 powerful rivals and formidable enemies, who' 
 threatened our very existence : at this hour, our 
 supremacy is undisputed ; our colonies, fast grow- 
 ing into empires, encircle the globe ; men of every 
 tribe, and colour, and faith, dwell beneath our 
 sceptre ; and the symbols of our sovereignty are 
 displayed on all the islands and promontories of 
 ocean. This is a grand epic — grander than any 
 Homer ever wrote. It is an epic written not in 
 words, but in deeds. Its successive stanzas are 
 the combats we have waged and the victories we 
 have won in the senate and in the Church, on the 
 fields of science, and in the terrible conflicts of 
 war. Regular as the progression of the poem, 
 melodious as the swell of music, has been the ex- 
 pansion of our power. But the nations have had 
 no cause to mourn on that account. Our shadow 
 has not crushed them, as did that of Rome and 
 Spain. It has gone round the earth, not as the 
 night goes round it, but as the day goes round it. 
 The coming of our power has been like the coming 
 of the morning. In our path fetters have been 
 
Spates Past and Present. 5 
 
 rent, and horrid superstitions have been driven 
 away ; arts and letters have begun to flourish ; 
 law and order to reign ; and the celestial virtues 
 of Christianity have descended to purify the earth 
 and regenerate society. We feel in gazing on 
 this spectacle a generous and expansive thrill, like 
 that which we experience in listening to a grand 
 oratorio or reading a great poem. 
 
 France is a drama, but a drama ever deepen- 
 ing into tragedy. Had France in the sixteenth 
 century — that great epoch of decision — known to 
 choose the better part ; had she broken with 
 Rome, and clung to the Bible, she would have 
 held no second place among the nations of 
 Europe. But, alas ! she missed her hour of oppor- 
 tunity, and her history since has been but a 
 struggle, as ceaseless as unavailing, to reverse the 
 choice she made three centuries ago ; and in that 
 struggle she has alternately glorified and devas- 
 tated herself — alternately delighted and terrified 
 Europe. Nature has withheld no gift from France 
 which could contribute to her prosperity and great- 
 ness. She has given her people the noble endow- 
 ments of a beautiful genius, a subtle intellect, and 
 a fearless bravery. As a consequence, there is no 
 department of literature in which they have not 
 excelled ; they have won renown in law and legisla- 
 
6 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 tion ; and they have gathered countless laurels on 
 the field of war. But what avails all this glory ? 
 France has missed liberty and tranquillity within. 
 The bright shade has ever been accompanied by 
 the dark. Over against the glory of letters and 
 philosophy has to be set the gloom of a dis- 
 heartening scepticism ; and over against the 
 triumphs of the battle-field have to be set the 
 horrors of the Revolutionary scaffold and the 
 gallings of domestic tyranny. The cup of liberty 
 has, ever and anon, been presented to her lips, but 
 just as she was about to drink, a mysterious hand 
 snatched it away. Shall it be ever thus } No ! — 
 we are cheered by the hope that a people of so 
 many fine qualities will yet find their true place 
 among the nations of the earth, and that a future 
 awaits them which will be happier than their past. 
 
 Spain ! He who traces Spain from the pin- 
 nacle on which the sixteenth century saw her, to 
 the abyss in which the nineteenth finds her, peruses 
 a tragedy — a tragedy the most mournful and sad, 
 perhaps, in the records of nations. 
 
 Three hundred years ago Spain stood at the 
 head of Europe ; to-day her place is at the bottom 
 of the scale. Three hundred years ago Spain was 
 the seat of the finest civilisation in the world. 
 When the lamp of learning was extinguished in 
 
Spain's Past and Present. 7 
 
 Italy, it was rekindled in Spain, and there it burned 
 with a brightness which long delayed the coming 
 of the mediaeval night. In that country the glow- 
 ing imagination of the East was blended with the 
 sober intellect of the West, and the union proved 
 itself to be as beneficial as it was beautiful. A new 
 life seemed to spring from the sepulchre of the 
 nations of antiquity. Letters had a second dawn, 
 the arts revived, but in forms that were new, and 
 with a loveliness and grace that reminded one of 
 their early career in Greece. Illustrious scholars 
 and eloquent writers arose who were the glory of 
 their age ; and who, by the efforts of their genius, 
 somewhat redeemed the nations of the West from 
 the opprobrium of ignorance. But all this is over 
 and gone. Every bright light has disappeared 
 from the sky of that poor country. Spain is no 
 longer the land of the scholar and the elegant 
 writer ; the monk, the matador, and the brigand 
 claim it as their own. The school has been sup- 
 planted by the bull-ring ; the pen thrown aside for 
 the stiletto ; and a night of barbarism has long 
 come upon Spain, deeper, perhaps, than that of 
 any country out of Asia and Africa. 
 
 Three hundred years ago the soil of Spain 
 was among the best cultivated in Europe. Nature 
 had denied it nothing which could minister to the 
 
8 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 enjoyment of its inhabitants. It had given an 
 eastern brilliancy to its sky and a tropical fer- 
 tility to its earth ; and, as a consequence, Spain 
 was a country full of all earthly felicities. It was 
 renowned for the corn of its plains, for the wine 
 and oil of its mountains, and for the milk and 
 butter of its pastures. Timber and precious 
 marbles did it furnish for man's dwelling, cotton 
 and silk for his clothing ; and while it ceased not 
 to fill his cup with plenty, it summoned up many 
 a scene of beauty for his eye. There was the 
 vast forest, there was the far-extending plain, and 
 there was the snow-clad mountain, from which, 
 when summer suns waxed hot, came cool airs to 
 refresh the inhabitants, and living streams to water 
 the soil. Spring and summer were never absent 
 from the plains of Andalusia, although winter, in 
 all its rigours, looked down upon them from its 
 perpetual seat on the summits of the loftier moun- 
 tains. There were the palm and the banana 
 flourishing below while the ice was forming on the 
 steep that leaned over them above. This prox- 
 imity of opposite temperatures vastly multiplied 
 the productions of the country. Scarce had the 
 blossoms of spring left the bough, when the fruits 
 of autumn began to appear upon it ; and hardly 
 had the fruits of autumn been gathered, when the 
 
Spain's Past and Present. 9 
 
 l^lossoms of a new spring began to clothe the 
 fields and scent the air. Thus the seasons went 
 round in happy Andalusia. Spring followed so 
 close upon the steps of autumn, that winter could 
 scarce come in between. And when at times it 
 did break in with icy breath, it was but for a little 
 while ; and its brief intrusion was more than com- 
 pensated by the delicious sense of contrast felt by 
 the natives when spring returned, robing plain and 
 mountain with verdure, and filling the skies with 
 light. 
 
 But it Is not so with Spain now. The beauty 
 of former days is gone, and the country is posi- 
 tively ugly. Its plains no longer wave with corn ; 
 its mountains no longer flow with wine, nor its 
 pastures with milk. It is desolate — not as Italy is 
 desolate, but as the treeless, flowerless, sun-burnt 
 lands of the East are desolate. It is a ruin, and a 
 ruin so vast that it confounds, and, we may say, 
 terrifies the stranger. In Spain there are millions 
 of square acres of the finest soil, comprising two- 
 thirds, or, perhaps, three-fourths of the country, 
 which are never turned by spade or plough. Seed- 
 time and harvest are unknown upon them. The 
 eye ranges over plains, ten, twenty, or thirty miles 
 in length, on which not a green thing is to be seen. 
 The mountains are mostly bare, and some of them 
 
10 Daybreak in Spain, 
 
 are as white as the chalk cliffs of Dover. The 
 rivers are running to waste, although the valleys 
 through which they flow are burnt up by drought. 
 The forests have been cut down, and the face of the 
 country, subjected for months together — without a 
 single drop of rain — to the action of a fierce sun, 
 is simply an expanse of brown earth. Not a flower 
 can live in the midst of such aridity. But we shall 
 not dwell longer here on the desolation of Spain, 
 it will come before us in its details soon enough 
 and sad enough. 
 
 Spain leans on two oceans — the Atlantic and 
 Mediterranean — and whether it be the East or the 
 West with which it wishes to trade, it could not be 
 more favourably situated, for, here it is, lying on 
 the road along which passes the commerce of the 
 world. And yet Spain has little or no share in that 
 commerce ; it sees it flowing past without partici- 
 pating in it, and apparently without a wish to do 
 so. The products of Spain might freight whole 
 navies, and stock innumerable markets, would its 
 inhabitants but cultivate the soil ; but rather than 
 sow and reap, and be in a condition to trade with 
 the nations whose ships are passing their very 
 door, they prefer to live in idleness. Their vine is 
 cultivated for export by others, not by themselves ; 
 and the feeble industries which in recent years 
 
Spain's Past and Present. ii 
 
 have been established in their country, are carried 
 on principally by foreigners. It is a strange spec- 
 tacle — a people, not knowing where the bread of 
 to-morrow is to come from, wrapping their cloaks 
 with the most dignified ease around them, and 
 laying themselves down with the utmost unconcern 
 to enjoy their siesta. 
 
 And yet the Spaniards are no stupid, or slug- 
 gish, or unaspiring race ; they are, like their soil, 
 richly endowed by nature. Their faculties are at 
 once solid and brilliant ; they are a people of 
 quick perceptions, of warm sensibilities, of great 
 self-respect, of a high sense of honour, and of a 
 copious and graceful eloquence. They are kindly 
 and obliging, if care be taken not to wound their 
 self-love ; and it is impossible for a stranger of 
 ordinary discernment and candour to mingle with 
 them without admiring many points about them, 
 and in the main loving them, although pity must 
 largely mingle with his love. 
 
 It cannot be otherwise ; for, truly, their condi- 
 tion is miserable. The people of Spain are badly 
 housed — some of the rural villages remind one of 
 an African kraal. They are badly fed — a little 
 tobacco and a few onions will often serve as the 
 day's fare. They are badly clothed ; in fact, the 
 clothing of great part of the population is little 
 
12 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 better than rags. Tall and finely formed, still the 
 hideous marks of disease and oppression so fre- 
 quent on their persons make one feel, in traversing 
 their country, as if he were surveying the wards 
 of a lazar-house. His progress lies among the halt 
 and the blind, the deformed and the fatuous. With 
 sights of misery, and cries of suffering around one 
 every hour of the day, how can one be but sad at 
 heart ? The towns are full of idlers ; all places 
 swarm with beggars. One cannot halt for but a few 
 minutes anywhere, but straightway there gathers 
 round him a little crowd of miserable creatures, 
 holding out their shrivelled hands and begging 
 most piteously for bread. To deny them is im- 
 possible ; and yet what are all the alms one can 
 give among so many } 
 
 By way of illustration let the reader glance at 
 the sketches which accompany this chapter, by an 
 artist who needs no eulogium of ours — Gustave 
 Dor6. 
 
 There is a blight upon Spain. No one can 
 doubt this who reflects on the anomalous condition 
 of that country. With every advantage of soil and 
 climate and position, it has reached the last stage 
 of decay. The finest country in Europe, yet utterly 
 wrecked ! A gifted and noble people, yet their 
 great qualities, under some malign influence, con- 
 
Spain's Past and Present. 13 
 
 verted into fiery passions, and their blessings 
 turned into curses ! What has wrought this sad 
 transformation ? What has Spain done that she 
 underlies so severe a chastisement ? 
 
 Three hundred years ago, when the children of 
 the Reformation were coming up out of the Egypt 
 of the Papacy, Spain met them, as Edom met the 
 Israelites when on their march to Palestine, not "with 
 bread and water," but "with the sword." She 
 sought by armies and executioners to cut them off 
 to a man, and make the name and memory of the 
 reformers to perish from the earth. Having 
 repeated the crime of Edom, it would seem as if 
 Spain had been made the Edom of the modern 
 nations. Her mountains have been smitten, and 
 they are a desolation ; her plains have been smitten, 
 and they are a wilderness. Her throne has been 
 smitten, and her princes are in exile, and her 
 Government is in confusion. Her people have 
 been smitten, and it is a land of darkness — of 
 intellectual, of moral, and spiritual darkness. 
 
 But signs begin to appear that the appointed 
 years of chastisement are drawing to an end. 
 It is possible that this country, which in the hands 
 of Rome was the main weapon for suppressing the 
 Reformation, may become, in the Providence of 
 the Great Ruler, the main instrument of reviving 
 
14 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 it. Providence delights in contrasts. Over against 
 the magnificent Spain of the sixteenth century it 
 has set the ruined Spain of the nineteenth. One 
 more contrast may remain for Spain. Sunken as 
 it is, we have, nevertheless, for reasons which we 
 shall explain before we have done, better hopes at 
 this hour of the speedy evangelisation of Spain 
 than we have of that of either Italy or France. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE NEW DAY. 
 
 Spain's Choice in the Sixteenth Century — Not the Better Part — 
 Followed by Decadence — Rapid Progress of Evangelical 
 Opinions at the Reformation— Summary and Violent Suppres- 
 sion — Conjuncture of Favourable Events now — Sudden Rise of 
 a Great Movement— Depth of that Movement — It comes out of 
 the Bible — Human Actors and Divine Providence — Its Goal. 
 
 In the sixteenth century, when the nations of 
 Europe were called upon to make their choice be- 
 tween Rome and the Bible, Spain, too, was called 
 to make hers. She made it ; but, unhappily, she 
 made it on the wrong side — her choice was given 
 in favour of Rome. She thought she had done 
 well. With the Reformation she could associate 
 nothing but weakness and humiliation. She had 
 no faith in the spiritual forces that were acting on 
 its side. These she could not see, and so did not 
 believe in them. Their march was not proclaimed 
 by sound of trumpet, nor followed by such victories 
 as are won by mailed battalions on the field of war. 
 She turned away, therefore, from the Gospel with 
 the words, " What good will this birthright do 
 me?" She placed her throne and her realm under 
 
1 6 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 the aegis of the Papacy. She had chosen empire 
 and ages of glory — so Spain thought. 
 
 Scarcely had Spain made her choice when her 
 decadence began. Her magnificent empire, which 
 comprehended, territories so vast, regions so fair, 
 colonies so rich, and nations and tribes so numerous, 
 began to break up. Spain struggled hard to avert 
 the impending ruin. She wept tears of agony ; she 
 enrolled soldiers ; she fought battles ; she called 
 able statesmen to her councils; she carried across 
 the Atlantic gold and silver to replenish her coffers ; 
 and she imported corn and wine from her rich pro- 
 vinces to feed her people. All was in vain. The 
 die had been cast, and her choice could not be 
 reversed. Neither struggles nor tears could stay 
 the course of the sinking empire. 
 
 The very stars in their courses fought against 
 Spain. Victory fled from her standards ; the tem- 
 pests of the deep engulfed her navies; her princes 
 were struck with fatuity ; her colonies were reft 
 from her ; her revenues and resources were dried 
 up ; her cities sunk into decay ; her people became 
 demoralised and beggared ; and the magnificent 
 empire of Philip II. became a bye-word among the 
 nations. Instead of being feared and obeyed for 
 its power, it was contemned for its weakness and 
 despised for its baseness. 
 
The New Day. 17 
 
 The truth is that Spain was too powerful to 
 enter in at the strait gate of the sixteenth century. 
 Had she been as the little Holland, or as the poor 
 but chivalrous Switzerland, her choice, in all pro- 
 bability, would have been wiser, and her future 
 more prosperous. But her place among the nations 
 was too high, and she was too intimately allied 
 with Rome to stoop down and humble herself that 
 she might enter into the heritage of the Gospel. 
 And, moreover, great as Spain was in arms and in 
 resources, she laboured under certain great disad- 
 vantages, from which the smaller states of Europe 
 were exempt, and which acted unfavourably for 
 her people receiving the Reformation. Nowhere 
 were the friends of the Reformation so defenceless 
 as in Spain. In Germany the reformers were shielded 
 from the arm of the empire by the sovereign princes 
 and the free cities. In Switzerland Calvin found an 
 asylum within the ramparts of the brave little re- 
 public of Geneva. In Scotland the reformers were 
 shielded from a popish throne and a persecuting 
 priesthood by the feudal power of the barons. In 
 England Henry VIII., though he did not love the 
 Gospel, protected the confessors of the truth in 
 his dominions that he might keep out the foreign 
 jurisdiction of the Pope. But in Spain the 
 reformers had to encounter unaided the whole 
 
 C 
 
1 8 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 power of Philip II., pushed on by the Pope. Be- 
 fore they had had time to organise, or had gathered 
 strength from numbers, or enlisted public opinion 
 on their side, the blow fell upon them and crushed 
 them — there was nothing to break the force of 
 the stroke. 
 
 And yet there was a time when Spain appeared 
 to be on the point of breaking with Rome. In 
 fact, no nation of Europe seemed nearer doing so. 
 The Spanish mind discovered in the sixteenth 
 century a remarkable aptitude for receiving the 
 Gospel. It threw itself with warmth into the move- 
 ment, and what it so readily embraced it tenaci- 
 ously held, and zealously propagated. Before the 
 Inquisition, ever on the watch with its myriad 
 eyes, had even suspected that reformed opinions 
 had entered Spain, the Gospel numbered its con- 
 verts by thousands, and had spread through all 
 parts of the country. From Valladolid it permeated 
 the villages on the plains of Old Castile, and found 
 disciples in the mountains of the Pyrenees. In 
 New Castile the evangelisation found a centre in 
 the archiepiscopal city of Toledo, although the 
 converts were less numerous than in the ancient 
 kingdom of Leon. The most powerful centre 
 of all was Seville, whence the light radiated over 
 Andalusia, and along the great plains at the foot 
 
The New Day. 19 
 
 of the Sierra Nevada, illuminating the towns of 
 Granada, Murcia, and Valentia. In Arragon the 
 Reformation was strong ; it had numerous disci- 
 ples in Saragossa, Huesca, Balbastro, and in most 
 of the towns in the north-east of Spain, bordering 
 on Beam. The cause of Rome was well-nigh lost 
 before she knew that it was in peril. Whole villages 
 had become Protestant. The light found its way in 
 to the convents ; and in some instances whole com- 
 munities of monks and nuns embraced the Gospel, 
 and the fact was known only when their sudden 
 flight left their buildings empty. A little longer 
 and the reform would have been triumphant. So 
 have the enemies of the Reformation acknowledged. 
 Illescas, the author of the " Pontifical History," 
 speaking of the converts, says, " their number was 
 so great, that had the stop put to that evil been 
 delayed two or three months longer, I am per- 
 suaded, all Spain would have been set in a flame 
 by them." " Had not the Inquisition taken care 
 in time," says another, "to put a stop to these 
 preachers, the Protestant religion would have run 
 through Spain like wildfire ; people of all ranks 
 and of both sexes having been wonderfully dis- 
 posed to receive it." 
 
 Not in numbers only was the Reformation 
 powerful, it was strong in the rank and talents 
 
 C 2 
 
20 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 of its adherents. In no country of Christendom 
 did it number among its followers so many men 
 exalted by their birth or illustrious for their learn- 
 ing as in Spain. We might mention the names of 
 Carlos de Sesso, Augustin Cazalla, Constantine 
 Ponce de la Fuente, Ponce de Leon, Antonio 
 Herezuelo, Christobel Losada, Juan Gonzalez — 
 names which we love to dwell upon ; names which 
 ages to come will pronounce with reverence, and 
 cherish with affection. And why should we not 
 include in our list — which it were easy to swell 
 by scores — the archbishop of Toledo, Caranza, 
 primate of all Spain, who, though he failed to win 
 the crown of martyrdom, and cannot claim to stand 
 in the foremost rank with those who witnessed 
 unto the death, was yet a disciple of the Gospel, 
 and a sufferer for it t In short, the Reformation 
 reached the very steps of the throne, and there it 
 was stopped by a deed that makes one's blood 
 run cold. Don Carlos, the heir-apparent, was sus- 
 pected of being a favourer of the Gospel. Was he 
 spared because he was the king's son t No : the 
 palace could afford him no shelter. It was long 
 thought that he had died by poison. His fate was 
 more tragic. He was one day, by the orders of 
 his father, Philip IL, made to sit in a chair with a 
 plentiful supply of sawdust around it, and, horrible 
 
The New Day. 21 
 
 to relate ! was beheaded. The executioner was 
 himself instantly thereafter put to death, on the 
 frivolous pretext that he had stolen the jewels 
 from the prince's body ; but the awful crime could 
 not be for ever hid, although only in these latter 
 days has it come to light. 
 
 When at last Rome saw her danger, she did not 
 delay. She struck promptly, and with such un- 
 sparing vengeance, that she did not need to strike 
 again. In one single night not fewer than eight 
 hundred Protestants were hurried off to the prisons 
 of Seville. This was the first burst of the storm. 
 It told that the work would not be done by halves. 
 By halves it was not done ; in ten short years — 
 from 1560 to 1570 — the Reformation was burned 
 out of Spain. Stakes were planted and fires blazed 
 in the principal cities, and by the last of the two 
 dates we have named, 1570, of the illustrious band 
 of confessors that appeared at the beginning of 
 that period, and who cherished the hope of emanci- 
 pating their country, and securing for it a future of 
 light, scarce one remained. Some had been driven 
 into exile, others had died in prison ; but the most 
 part had perished at the stake. So fell that glorious 
 band : their country they could not save ; they could 
 save only themselves ; and to do this they had to 
 pass through the fire. But it was not the reformers 
 
22 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 only which the inquisitors burned. Letters and 
 arts, civiHsation and liberty, morality and man- 
 hood, all did the persecutors pile up around these 
 stakes ; all did they in their blind fury reduce to 
 ashes, and all now lay buried in the same mounds 
 where had been dug the grave of the Spanish 
 Reformation. 
 
 Thus did Spain, at the very gates of liberty - 
 with one foot, as it seemed, on the threshold — turn 
 back, driven rather by the bigotry and violence of 
 her rulers than led by her own choice, and re-enter 
 the old prison-house of papal darkness and poli- 
 tical bondage. In that darkness she has ever since 
 remained. The gates had opened and shut, the 
 opportunity was lost, and Spain had to wait till 
 the cycles of the spiritual heavens should complete 
 their revolution, and bring round another day of 
 deliverance. Three centuries have come and gone ; 
 and now it would seem as if the times were ful- 
 filled, and the hour had struck for this unhappy 
 country. Again the door opens. 
 
 Many things say so. There is at present a 
 remarkable conjunction of events — a convergence 
 of many lines on the one point of Spain's emanci- 
 pation. The influences which have so long kept 
 that country shut have been suddenly suspended. 
 The throne has fallen ; the power of the priesthood 
 
The New Day. 23 
 
 is in abeyance'; the belief of the people in the faith 
 of Rome is greatly weakened ; and though no little 
 political confusion and uncertainty prevails, all the 
 leading parties are agreed that freedom of conscience 
 and liberty of worship must be maintained; and the 
 practical advance made is testified to by the fact, 
 that for the first time in history the Protestants are 
 now legally recognised by the State. 
 
 And then, too, it is at this same moment that 
 the touch of another hand is felt. Just as these 
 events fall out, an influence of a remarkable kind 
 begins to act upon the people. They feel a void 
 in their souls, and they begin to yearn — they can 
 scarce, tell for what ; they grope about as men do 
 in the dark ; their hearts are moved as the trees of 
 the wood when the wind begins to blow, not vio- 
 lently, but with low, moderated force. " Mayhap," 
 they say, "we may find what we want in the Bible, 
 or in the sermons of the Protestants. We may at 
 least try." 
 
 This movement is not upon the surface merely; 
 it has penetrated to the depths of society ; it 
 stirs the heart of the Spanish people. Nor is it 
 confined to a few localities ; it embraces the whole 
 country. It is felt by the artisans and citizens of 
 Madrid and Seville ; by the inhabitants of the rural 
 villages ; by the husbandman of the Pyrenees ; the 
 
24 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 peasant of La Mancha; the vine-grower of the 
 Toledan hills, and the orange-cultivator of the Gua- 
 dalquivir. It is felt by all ranks and classes ; by the 
 lettered and the unlettered, by the man of title 
 and the man of handicraft ; nay, the very halt and 
 blind have come under its influence. With the 
 same readiness, warmth, and unquestioning con- 
 fiding faith as their fathers in the sixteenth century 
 are the men of Spain at this hour turning to the 
 Gospel. We know not in what the movement may 
 issue ; whether in the emancipation of the whole 
 nation, or of only a part of it. We cannot look into 
 the future ; we can only say what exists in the 
 present ; and we record the simple fact, when we 
 state that no nation in Christendom, since the times 
 of the Reformation, has been moved as Spain is 
 moved at this hour. 
 
 Attempts may be made to explain this remark- 
 able movement with reference to the character of 
 the people and the novelty of their circumstances, 
 but after all such explanations much remains which 
 no causes of this kind can account for. There is 
 a Power unseen moving in Spain ; to feel that 
 this is so, it is necessary only to see the people. 
 On hearing the simple Gospel — that God sent his 
 Son to redeem them by his blood — that pardon is 
 without money — that salvation is without price — 
 
The New Day. 25 
 
 their first look is one of wonder. When they 
 have a little more fully realised the tidings which 
 have been told them, not unfrequently there will 
 come a gush of tears ; and when they have yet 
 more fully realised the import of these tidings, 
 they begin to sing. When others would hesitate 
 and doubt, this people, with a noble simplicity 
 of trust, at once assent, and finding that the void 
 within is now filled, they burst out and give vent 
 to their joy in rapturous songs. In witnessing these 
 scenes, one feels as if carried back to the early days 
 of Christianity and introduced to the first disciples 
 and believers of the Gospel. "Surely," one would 
 say, "this movement has come from a sphere beyond 
 the earth ! Surely a new day is about to dawn ! 
 The heavens have begun to drop, and the earth, so 
 long barren, has begun again to bring forth !" 
 
 Of all the countries of Europe, Spain was the 
 last in which we should have looked for a move- 
 ment like this. It was the most closely shut in. 
 The guardians of the darkness went continually 
 about upon its ramparts, and if in any quarter of 
 the horizon they saw a streak of light, they instantly 
 sounded the alarm. With the dominion of its church 
 was bound up the most brilliant period of Spain's 
 annals. Its boast was ever that it had kept its soil 
 unpolluted by heresy. The darkness — and along 
 
26 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 with the darkness, the bigotry — of the sixteenth 
 century it had brought down to the present day 
 entire and untouched. Even so recently as three 
 years ago its churches were crowded when those 
 of France and Italy were comparatively empty, 
 and the faith that had faded in lands nearer Rome 
 seemed still to retain its pristine vigour in Spain. 
 The expectation that this people would forsake 
 their altars, and break with all the traditions of 
 their past, would have been deemed chimerical. 
 We must wait with patience ; and when Italy 
 and France have been evangelised, and the light 
 has waxed strong, then, too, may the night of 
 Spain begin to break up. Yet, contrary to all 
 expectation, Spain appears at this moment as if it 
 would take the start of both those countries. In- 
 stead of lagging behind them, it places itself in 
 the van, and holding aloft its torch, it shows to 
 France and Italy the way back to the Gospel. 
 
 One thing is undeniable — as the subsequent 
 narrative will make clear — that this movement 
 has come out of the Bible. It is this which makes 
 us so hopeful regarding its future. In spite of a 
 jealous priesthood and a subservient police, there 
 was, even in the dark days before the revolution, a 
 large circulation of the W^ord of God in Spain. 
 How many copies of the Bible were scattered in it 
 
The New Day. 27 
 
 no man can tell. Uncounted as the grains of wheat 
 from the hand of the sower, and silent as the rain- 
 drops from the bosom of the cloud, this Divine seed 
 fell upon the soil, and after not many days it 
 begins to be found. Already the fields are white 
 unto the harvest. Had it been the cabinet of 
 statesman or the club of politician from which this 
 movement had issued, we would not have augured 
 so great things from it. Statecraft is too earthly 
 and too gross a thing to regenerate society. 
 Had it come from some school of philosophy, 
 in that case, too, our expectations would have 
 been moderate, for philosophy is too weak and 
 human a thing to call a nation from its sepulchre ; 
 God's voice only can do that — it needs a breath 
 from the skies to make the dead live. Here 
 in the Bible, beyond all question, we can see the 
 cradle of this movement now in progress -in 
 Spain, and in this it authenticates itself as akin 
 to all those beneficial and lasting changes which 
 at former epochs have renovated the world. 
 
 We visited Spain at an opportune moment. We 
 saw it as it appeared between two eras. The past had 
 not wholly gone, and the future had not fully come ; 
 we have therefore been able to picture Spain as she 
 appeared when emerging from the night of her long 
 subjection to Rome. On the other hand, we have 
 
28 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 studied to reduce to order and system the story of her 
 " EvangeHsation." That story exhibits a succession 
 of events truly marvellous. The bearing of all these 
 events on one great end is very striking, and pro- 
 claims unmistakably the hand of Him who is 
 '' wonderful in counsel and excellent in working." 
 Step by step has the movement gone forward, as if 
 every step had been considered, planned, and ar- 
 ranged beforehand. Though the actors had met and 
 concerted how they might originate and help on 
 this movement to its consummation, they could 
 have done nothing else than what they did. Priests, 
 politicians, prisoners, converts, the queen, each 
 acted his part at the time and in the way which 
 was most fitted to subserve the Divine purpose. 
 We know nothing of the kind in all history more 
 wonderful. 
 
 This gives us perfect assurance of the issue. 
 That issue may be near, or it may be remote ; it 
 may be reached over few or over many obstacles, but 
 it will be reached. " Wisdom and might " are His 
 from whom the movement has come, and He will 
 not mock the hopes of the world, the longings of 
 the Church, and the cry of Spain, by permitting it 
 to be arrested and brought to nought. It may 
 appear " little " among the many pretentious move- 
 ments now passing upon the face of Europe. Philo- 
 
The New Day. 29 
 
 sophers and politicians may look down with con- 
 tempt upon the "evangelisation," and refuse to 
 take it into their reckoning when they make their 
 count of the regenerating forces of the age. Like 
 the "grain of mustard -seed," it is in their eyes the 
 smallest of all seeds. It will grow, nevertheless. It 
 will overtop eventually all their social theories and 
 political constitutions, and, becoming a tree, it will 
 stretch its boughs from San Sebastian to the Rock 
 of Gibraltar, laden with fruits more precious than 
 ever blossomed in the Vega of Granada, or ripened 
 in the garden of Seville ; and the leaves of that 
 tree will be for the healing of that poor nation, 
 whose wounds have bled so long, and whose limbs 
 the fetters of tyranny and superstition have so 
 cruelly galled. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE PYRENEES AND SPANISH HUSBANDRY. 
 
 Start from Bayonne — First Glimpse of Pyrenees — Bidassoa — Cross- 
 ing the Frontier — First Impressions — The Broad Gauge — San 
 Sebastian — The Siege— Moral San Sebastians — The Rock and 
 Graveyard— The Market and Inhabitants — Ride through the 
 Pyrenees — Their Picturesqueness — The Plains of Alava — 
 Barrenness — The Sword versus the Plough. 
 
 We left Bayonne on the morning of the 29th of 
 September. No sooner had we taken our seat in 
 the train, than we recollected that it was exactly a 
 year since Isabella II. had fled her kingdom. On 
 the 29th of September, 1868, attended by her hus- 
 band, her confessor, and her favourite minister — the 
 sharer alike of her business and her pleasures — the 
 Queen of Spain crossed the frontier and entered 
 France. Behind her lay the palaces and realms of 
 her ancestors ; before her a foreign soil and an 
 exile's lot. Shade of the mighty Philip ! could the 
 man who was master of so many kingdoms, and 
 was served by such mighty armies, have foreseen 
 that a day would come when wealth, power, and 
 glory, would depart, and his descendant would be 
 fain to flee, driven out, not by a foreign foe, but 
 
Pyrenees and Spanish Husbandry. 31 
 
 by her own disgrace, how would he have been 
 astonished! That Spain should ever sink so low 
 would have appeared to him impossible. But 
 Spain has fallen, that it may rise again. It is more 
 surely on the road to prosperity at this hour than 
 in the days of Philip, when it was mistress of the 
 gold mines of Mexico and Peru, and was sending 
 its armies forth to bind its yoke upon the nations 
 of the earth. Spain has now completed its first 
 year of liberty. It has had no such year these three 
 centuries. It did not know the time of its visita- 
 tion formerly, and the dawn which for a moment 
 brightened its sky was quenched almost as soon as 
 it had broke. A second time the light of morning 
 begins to gild the sierras. There is no Philip in the 
 Escurial now. There is no Torquemada to light at 
 this hour the auto-da-f^ for the confessor of the 
 faith. The Gospel can make its voice to be heard 
 in the cities and hamlets of Spain without the fear 
 of the dungeon or stake. May Spain be warned 
 by what happened to her in the past ! She said to 
 the messenger of good tidings in the sixteenth 
 century, '* Go thy way, when I have a more con- 
 venient season I will call for thee." The mes- 
 senger departed, but for three centuries has not 
 returned. All that while the darkness has lasted, 
 and the land, which might have had light in all its 
 
32 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 dwellings, has been but one wide prison ; and the 
 people, who might have been walking in the efful- 
 gence of day, have been groping about amid the 
 terrors of a night whose gloom has exceeded even 
 that of the other Popish nations of Europe. Let 
 these three centuries of slavery and degradation 
 suffice. Let Spain make haste to escape from her 
 prison-house. 
 
 We had gone but a few miles when the Py- 
 renees burst upon us. We had seen their purple 
 tops across the rolling country which lies between 
 Bayonne and the frontier; but now they seemed 
 to rise up out of the plain, and to run like a wall 
 along the horizon. They have not the majestic 
 grandeur of the Alps, nor can they boast the rich 
 purple of the Apennines, but they are finely 
 picturesque. As we neared them they grew 
 bulkier, and appeared much as the Grampians 
 do at Grant- town, only their tops were more conical. 
 There was a tempest hanging on their summits, 
 which, as it swept across them, blotted, at times, 
 portions of the line from the view, and this re- 
 minded us of other tempests which have gathered 
 and burst in this same region, drenching with their 
 red rain the little hills and valleys through which we 
 were passing ; for, like all border lands, this has 
 been the scene of many a foray, and, more espe- 
 
Pyrenees and Spanish Husbandry. 33 
 
 dally, it was the scene of not a few of the engage- 
 ments which took place between the English under 
 Wellington and the armies of Napoleon in the 
 beginning of the century. 
 
 Soon a very noticeable mountain showed itself 
 among the summits before us. It was bulkier and 
 taller than its fellows, and had a remarkable con- 
 formation atop. Three domes seemed to rise on 
 the sloping line of its summit. We learned that 
 this was San Marcial, and its appearance was 
 the signal that we had approached the Spanish 
 frontier. In a few minutes the railway was tra- 
 versing the long bridge which spans the Bidassoa. 
 We crossed, and were in Spain. 
 
 The first thing we learned on entering Spain 
 was that we had gained half an hour of time. On 
 the north bank of the Bidassoa it was twelve 
 o'clock, but on the southern bank it was only half- 
 past eleven. It would be well for Spain were it 
 only its clocks that are behind time, but while its 
 clocks are half an hour late, the nation itself is 
 half a millennium well-nigh behind some other 
 countries of Europe. 
 
 The next thing we learned was that we were in 
 a new country. The first look told us this ; there 
 was no mistaking it. The earth seemed to have 
 suddenly lost the power of producing. Things 
 
 D 
 
34 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 were lying about in a very slovenly way. The rail- 
 way officials were going about their work with an 
 air which seemed to say, " Where is the need of all 
 this hurry ? the world is not to end just yet ; there 
 will be time enough to-morrow, or the day after." 
 To the man who wishes to perfect himself in the 
 virtue of patience, we beg to recommend a journey 
 of a thousand or so of miles on the soil of Spain. 
 
 One other thing must we notice before leaving 
 this spot and advancing into the new country in 
 which we are now fairly launched. In the middle 
 of the Bidassoa is a little island, which the traveller 
 is very likely to pass without notice, but which 
 merits his attention. It is not more than twenty 
 yards in diameter, and is as shapely and round 
 as if a pair of compasses had traced it out. It rises 
 not more than a few inches above the surface of 
 the river, covered with short withered grass. It is 
 neither French territory nor Spanish territory, but 
 is simply risle de la Conference. On this little 
 spot potent kings and renowned statesmen have 
 left their traces. To this isle was Francis I. 
 brought after the battle of Pavia, in which he had 
 the misfortune to be taken prisoner by the Em- 
 peror Charles V., and here, as D'Aubigne has very 
 beautifully narrated, was he exchanged for his 
 two sons — they passing into captivity in Spain, 
 
|iiiS!!!Sil!ll!iil!r'llll^;i 
 
Pyrenees and Spanish Husbandry. 35 
 
 and he going forth again to possess throne and 
 kingdom. This isle has been trodden, too, by the 
 famous Cardinal Mazarin, who here arranged, in 
 1660, the treaty of the Pyrenees. It has thus its 
 memories of intrigue and war ; of nations sold and 
 crowns given away ; but its associations are not of 
 so dreadful a character as those that are bound up 
 for ever with the old chateau at Bayonne, which 
 we had gone over just the day before, in which 
 Catherine de Medici and the Duke of Alva 
 plotted the horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew. 
 
 Nature has impressively marked the spot which 
 has been the theatre of these events. It is a lonely 
 plain enclosed by a circle of hills, and seen as we 
 saw them, darkened by tempest, they looked, like 
 the Spaniard himself, gloomy and grand. The 
 hills open on the west to give passage to the 
 Bidassoa, and through the tall narrow rent the 
 traveller has a glimpse of the Bay of Biscay, its 
 dark waters edged with white. Lower down on 
 the plain is a patch of mingled ruins and dwellings 
 bearing a name that will live, though the place 
 itself is fast hastening to decay, seeing the genius 
 of Sir Walter Scott has touched it, and, by the 
 magic of that touch, embalmed it — Fuentarabia. 
 
 The traveller, so far, has been running on the 
 narrow gauge, now he exchanges it for the broad 
 
 D 2 
 
36 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 one. This does not seem much, and yet it has 
 significance, seeing it is a pledge taken in the 
 interests of peace. It is as much as to say to the 
 Frenchman, should he think of invading Spain, 
 " Arretez-vous r It is, in effect, to draw up the 
 bridge and drop the portcullis on the frontier, for 
 before an army can further proceed it must stop 
 and build new carriages. Anything that can render 
 the art of war more difficult is to be welcomed. 
 When a wasting conflagration rages we thank the 
 man who brings if but a bucketful of water to 
 drown the flames ; and we fear this device of the 
 Spaniards, were the great conflagration of war 
 to be kindled, would not more avail to quench 
 the strife than a single bucketful the flames of a 
 blazing edifice. 
 
 Away we went on the broad gauge over a 
 country which seemed but too little familiar with 
 the plough, although its native fertility appeared 
 to court a more intimate acquaintance with that 
 useful and productive instrument. Weeds and 
 thorns were the better half of the crop, and in 
 some parts they formed the entire crop. The 
 miscellaneous texture of weed and flower that 
 covered the soil was dotted by the melon, which 
 gleamed out here and there yellow as gold, and 
 delightfully large. Apple-trees were frequent, and 
 
Pyrenees and Spanish Husbandry. 37 
 
 they were all a-gleam with the richest fruit with 
 which the bounty of Nature, rather than the care 
 or art of the cultivator, had replenished their 
 boughs. The vine was all but extinct, its cultiva- 
 tion demanding more skill than the peasant of the 
 Pyrenees possesses. 
 
 Soon we reached San Sebastian. The eye 
 takes in the whole scene in a moment — the grand 
 rock ; the little brown-roofed town squatted at its 
 foot ; and the waters of the little bay — an offshoot 
 from the Bay of Biscay — clasping it round and 
 round. It is a spot which a Briton cannot visit 
 without emotion. And, first, of the rock, which 
 specially is San Sebastian ; for that it is that 
 speaks chiefly to the heart as to the eye of the 
 native of England. It rises proudly, crowned with 
 its fortress and its tall white flag-staff. To hoist 
 on that flag-staff the colours of England cost the 
 lives of many brave men. It is the Gibraltar of 
 North Spain — the gate, on that side, of the whole 
 country — and it had, therefore, to be taken at what- 
 ever cost, and was so, on the 13th of Septembjer, 
 1813. It was occupied by 3,000 French veterans, 
 and the taking of it was one of the most daring 
 feats in a campaign abounding with many such 
 exploits. While we admire the bravery none the 
 less, can we help wishing that the cause had been 
 
38 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 worthier? Would that the oceans of blood then 
 shed had been shed more directly for human rights 
 and human liberty ! All the kings we brought 
 back to their thrones had again to be driven from 
 them, and we, who had fought to prevent their first 
 expulsion, heartily rejoiced in their second. But 
 none the less do we admire the generous and heroic 
 qualities which such feats as the taking of San Se- 
 bastian display ; and we trust that the day will soon 
 come when these qualities will seek an outlet in 
 the highest of all causes. Surely a valour which has 
 gone round the world, leaving everywhere its im- 
 perishable traces — for what clime is there which has 
 not been watered with British blood } and what 
 country is there where you do not find monuments 
 of British heroism ? — surely, we say, a valour which, 
 in the face of the murderous fire and gleaming 
 steel of the French, could scale this mountain and 
 wrest its fortress from the enemy, will yet go 
 round the earth, scaling the ramparts of super- 
 stition, and with equal daring will lay low the 
 walls of idolatry and tyranny everywhere, planting 
 above their ruins the glorious flag of the Gospel, 
 the symbol of a higher liberty than the nations 
 have yet known ! The day will come when our 
 sons, as they travel round the globe, will be able to 
 to point to this and the other moral San Sebastians, 
 
Pyrenees and Spanish Husbandry. 39 
 
 and to say — "These were won by the Christian 
 heroism of our fathers. Once the prince of dark- 
 ness reigned there, and there he held his miserable 
 captives in thrall, but our missionaries scaled these 
 heights, opened these dungeons, and planted there 
 the flag of the King of Zion." 
 
 We climbed to the fortress on the summit ; 
 the path winds sweetly round the hill under trees, 
 and resembles precisely the path which leads 
 round Stirling hill up to its old castle. The rock 
 of San Sebastian is much loftier and bulkier than 
 that on which stands the fortress we have just 
 named. San Sebastian is as massy as Ehrenbreit- 
 stein, but more peaked. The way up discloses at 
 every step new and noble views of the Bay of 
 Biscay, of the mountains running westward to 
 Cape Finisterre, and of the Pyrenees, which, now 
 the summit is gained, burst in their full grandeur 
 upon the eye, forming a vast panorama of majestic 
 mountains. 
 
 Half-way up the mountain we came upon the 
 graveyard of the British. It is a little grassy 
 embrasure or hollow ; it may contain some thirty 
 or forty dead, mostly the men who fell in the 
 assault, and who here sleep where they fell. It is 
 without enclosure of any sort — in truth it needs 
 none — the rocks and the deep sea immediately 
 
40 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 beneath are walls enough. Each grassy mound 
 has its headstone, with little besides the name of 
 the occupant inscribed upon it, surmounted in 
 almost every instance by a cross — not that those 
 who here lie buried were Romanists, but it has been 
 deemed advisable in this way to protect their dust 
 from the fanaticism of the natives, who, in years not 
 long past, would, without this sign on their graves, 
 have torn up their bones and flung them into the 
 sea. It is an affecting sight — this graveyard in such 
 a spot. Far from their country, they here sleep 
 their last sleep, with nothing to mourn them but the 
 Atlantic billow as it breaks on the beach beneath 
 and sends up its echoes to their resting-place. 
 One thinks of the conflict — the battle of the war- 
 rior, with its " confused noise and garments rolled in 
 blood " — so suddenly exchanged for this deep, un- 
 broken, and changeless silence. 
 
 The market of the place said little for its phy- 
 sical and industrial well-being. It consisted of a few 
 loads of charcoal, and a few stalls of fruit (but how 
 inferior to the display we had seen a few days be- 
 fore at Bordeaux !) kept by women, who appeared 
 about as withered and black as the charcoal they were 
 vending. There were a few small craft in the little 
 harbour. The streets, almost empty by day, began 
 at eve to be filled with a crowd of idle and frolicsome 
 
Pyrenees and Spanish Husbandry. 41 
 
 youth of both sexes, who seemed glad of any- 
 thing which might serve as an excuse for leaping, 
 shouting, and hallooing. Yet the natives say the 
 place is thriving, and it gives signs of advance, in 
 the new streets which have been added of late, and 
 the villas which begin to clothe the heights on the 
 opposite side of the bay. 
 
 We chanced here to meet a gentleman belong- 
 ing to a family well known in the west of Scotland, 
 who was here thirty years ago as a midshipman, 
 when the war with the Carlists was going on ; he 
 told us he should not have known the place again, 
 so different is peace from war. Then the, basin of 
 San Sebastian was simply a manufactory of de- 
 struction and a magazine of death. The battery of 
 the Carlists, placed on the opposite hill, where now 
 new villas have risen up, was sending down showers 
 of shot and grape ; the war-ships in the harbour 
 were returning the compliment, and between the two 
 it fared ill with the miserable inhabitants. The 
 poor creatures had left their houses, and were living 
 in the cellars; the churches, converted into hos- 
 pitals, were crowded with the wounded and dying ; 
 and the ladies of the town were busied tearing up 
 linen cloths and preparing bandages for the poor 
 wounded soldiers. 
 
 The next morning brought a choice day for 
 
42 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 traversing the Pyrenees — the air was clear and 
 comparatively cool. We passed along the pic- 
 turesque valley of the Arumea. Streams trickled 
 down from their sources in the far-off hills ; rivers 
 flowed along in the bottoms of the valleys ; but 
 their waters were running to waste. No gardens, 
 no cultivated fields along their banks, drank at 
 their floods, repaying a thousand-fold the hus- 
 bandman's skill and care. What paradises might 
 these valleys be with ordinary industry ! instead of 
 the wild produce of Nature, what a profusion of 
 flower and fruit might these waters and that sun 
 call forth to fill the peasant's home with plenty ! 
 As it is, every step in the Pyrenees bears testimony 
 to Nature's bounty and man's neglect. Weeds 
 and ferns were the staple produce, with here and 
 there a bit of cultivation, or an occasional apple- 
 tree, with its every branch and twig laden with 
 golden fruit, yet that fruit so little prized or 
 cared for that the ground underneath was littered 
 with it. 
 
 There were villages up on the hill-side. Their 
 whitewashed walls shone bright in the sun, tall trees 
 grew beside them ; a peasant or two, and, perhaps, 
 a dozen of pigs, might be seen loitering idly about. 
 Great stacks of fern rose at every door ; but the 
 glimpses we had as we passed into their narrow 
 
Pyrenees and Spanish Husbandry. 43 
 
 and slatternly lanes told us that, bright as these 
 villages looked in the sunlight, their gaiety was 
 all on the outside ; and that, should we enter the 
 dwellings, we should find them miserable in the 
 extreme, unfurnished, unswept, littered with fern, 
 the pig and ass sharing the interior with the human 
 inhabitants, and their miserable bits of window 
 contrived to shut out heaven's air and light, and 
 to make the interior as dark and stifling as pos- 
 sible. 
 
 Gradually we gained upon the mountains. The 
 railway toiled up the ascent on a path which it 
 must have taken a prodigious amount of English 
 gold, as well as engineering skill, to form. At 
 places, for miles and miles, the way was liter- 
 ally hewn out of the mountain-side, and then 
 would come a plunge into the mountain itself, in 
 the form of a long and dark tunnel. These tun- 
 nels were numerous ; indeed, all the way from the 
 valley of Arumea, on the north of the Pyrenees, to 
 the plains of Alava, on their south side — a dis- 
 tance of some fifty miles — every inch of the rail- 
 way almost has had to be hewn out of the 
 rock. It is a mighty undertaking — a grand 
 triumph of mechanical and engineering skill ; 
 but as yet little besides. Years must pass before 
 a sufficient traffic can be created to bring any- 
 
44 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 thing like a reasonable return for the money ex- 
 pended. But the skill, labour, and capital which 
 formed this great European highway, have been 
 well expended in the interests of civilisation. It is 
 already proving itself a great boon to Spain, and 
 will, in the future, prove a greater. A single war 
 would have consumed twice, it may be ten times 
 the sum, and afforded no return, unless in men 
 slaughtered and cities destroyed. 
 
 As we advanced, the picturesque but wild valleys 
 through which the early part of our course had 
 lain disappeared. They seemed as we rose to go 
 farther and farther down, and at last to sink into 
 the earth altogether, while the mountains stood up 
 around us in all their naked, savage grandeur. The 
 forms of some of the mountains were striking 
 indeed. Their firm-set, bulky bases bore atop 
 tall peaks, which shot up into the sky sharp and 
 pointed as needles, but in general their character 
 was tamer. They seemed to roll and tumble around 
 us in wild confusion, as do the billows of Ocean 
 when they swell and curl before the tempest's 
 breath. They were, in fact,, a model in stone of 
 that uneasy weltering sea of which they are the 
 immovable ramparts. The waters of the Bay 
 of Biscay are sometimes placid, but this other 
 sea over which we were passing is never at rest ; 
 
Pyrenees and Spanish Husbandry. 45 
 
 summer and winter its great billows of rock are in 
 commotion, lifting their heads on high, and sending 
 up their spouts of granite to the clouds in eternal 
 tempest, yet in eternal silence. 
 
 At length the railway's pace began to quicken 
 and the mountains to retire behind us ; it was 
 evident that we were descending the southern 
 slopes of the Pyrenees. Quicker and quicker grew 
 our speed, and now a narrow plain opened before 
 us ; it seemed to possess but small acquaintance 
 with the plough, nor did the flowers love it, for it 
 was verdureless. Its proximity to the bleak air 
 of the mountains we thought might account for 
 this. By-and-by it broadened out into a cham- 
 pagne country, and the hills out of which it 
 emerged fell back, and formed a fine blue chain on 
 either hand ; but the plain itself still retained its 
 bleak character. It was evident that we were now 
 fairly entered on the plains of Alava, and had 
 begun our acquaintance with the celebrated king- 
 dom of Old Castile. 
 
 We could not help wondering at the barrenness 
 which was all around us, but we were hopeful of 
 better things to come. Surely man has not for- 
 gotten that he must live by bread, and that that 
 bread must come out of the earth ! But, in order 
 that it may do so, the ground must be turned by 
 
46 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 the plough and sown with grain. But these plains 
 look as if here the plough never came, and seed 
 never fell. Do the people who live here expect 
 that food is to fall to them from the clouds } It 
 looks as if they did ; for if not from the clouds, 
 where else is it to come from } 
 
 Soon the little town of Vittoria was reached. 
 The soil around has been well moistened with 
 British blood, for here was fought one of Welling- 
 ton's greatest Peninsular battles. We do not know 
 that England is any the richer — save, of course, in 
 glory — or Spain the less poor, notwithstanding the 
 great victory which was here won, and the vast 
 amount of treasure which was found in the French 
 camp. If nations would fill their barns and wine- 
 presses, they must wield the spade, not the sword. 
 This is a simple truth, but it is one in which nations 
 make great mistakes. Some one has said that in 
 Spain there are more priests than cooks. We dare 
 say it is true. But Spain has another anomaly — 
 she has more soldiers than ploughmen. 
 
 Of the two instruments with which man subju- 
 gates the earth — the plough and the sword — nations, 
 unhappily, have hitherto been most enamoured of 
 the latter. They have let the plough rust while 
 the sword has been kept bright by constant use. It 
 is glory versus bread. The Romans in ancient times, 
 
Pyrenees and Spanish Husbandry. 47 
 
 and the French in modern days, have, as a rule, pre- 
 ferred the harvest of glory to the more substantial 
 but more prosaic harvest of corn. A look in at 
 Versailles will satisfy us of the truth of this. The 
 French have won so many victories, that they 
 might cover all their unproductive acres with their 
 names. There are people who would prefer to see 
 them covered with wheat. Spain has sinned, and 
 is still sinning in the same way, and, as a conse- 
 quence, Spain, like France, is pressed down under 
 a very mountain of steel — cannons and camps, 
 bayonets and sabres. What folly ! The plough is 
 cheap compared with the sword. If its course is 
 noiseless, it is more fruitful. It goes on its way 
 amid the dews, and the rains, and the sunlight. 
 The path of the other is amid the red tempests of 
 battle, and the music it evokes are the groans of 
 the dying and the wail of the orphan and widow. 
 These things, however, are not reported in bulletins, 
 nor is the faintest echo of them heard from the 
 marbles of triumphal arches. And so the world 
 goes on in its old way. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OLD CASTILE AND BURGOS. 
 
 The Plains of Old Castile — Desolation— Town of Burgos — Gran- 
 deur of its Cathedral— Decay of Buildings — Misery of the 
 People ; their Dress and Appearance — Portliness of the Priests 
 — The Castle and its History —Wretchedness and Barbarism. 
 
 Between Vittoria and Burgos is a long ride, and 
 that is about all that we can say of it. We knew that 
 we were moving over the country, not by any land- 
 mark on its surface — for all signs and tokens of 
 every kind are utterly blotted out — but because the 
 snortings and tuggings of the engine told us that the 
 train was in motion, and that we were moving along 
 with it. This inference was a purely abstract one, 
 for certainly no outward thing gave token that we 
 were changing our position on the earth's surface. 
 Journey as we might, the same monotonous dreari- 
 ness, unvaried by a single feature, was around us. 
 And this arid waste, on which we were gazing with 
 a mixture of astonishment and fear, was Old 
 Castile. Of its mountains we cannot speak, for so 
 far as we had yet gone mountains it has none ; of 
 its corn-fields we cannot speak, for corn-fields it 
 has none, at least, no fields on which there is 
 
Old Castile and Burgos. 41^ 
 
 corn ; of its vineyards and trees we cannot 
 speak, for vines and trees there are none upon it. 
 Of the few men and the few dwellings which we 
 saw we would rather not speak, for our heart grows 
 sick when we think of them. What, then, is Old 
 Castile ? It is a boundless expanse of white earth, 
 stretching out on all sides to the horizon, utterly 
 arid and waste, without hedges or dykes, or land- 
 marks of any kind — a most miserable and desolate 
 region, where the very weeds of the earth, the 
 insects of the ground, and the fowls of the air, 
 have all perished and passed away. 
 
 During the heats of summer this region is a wide 
 oven. The sun looks down upon it with fierce 
 burning ray ; and the naked earth, without tree, or 
 flower, or spring of living water, increases the heat 
 by reflection till it becomes well-nigh intolerable. 
 When the heats subside, then come chilling blasts ; 
 and so we found, for when we traversed it a cold 
 biting wind was blowing across it. The guide- 
 books say that patches of this plain are cultivated, 
 and a little corn grown upon them ; and no doubt 
 it is so. But, nevertheless, the desolation is great, 
 and to feel how great it is one must see it. And 
 yet in former times there were no finer corn lands 
 in Spain — which is, in efl'ect, to say, there were no 
 finer corn lands in the world — than the plains of 
 
 E 
 
50 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 Castile. Even yet the old fertility lingers in their 
 soil, and the rich harvests of other days would 
 return, but for the unskilfulness, improvidence, and 
 barbarism of its people. Open history, and what 
 do we find } We find the Castiles, Old and New, a 
 powerful kingdom, the marrow and pith of Spain ; 
 their hardy sons fightjng her battles, and their 
 wheat filling her garners. But ever since they 
 passed under the government of Charles V., and 
 especially of his bigoted son, Philip IL, they have 
 gone backward. And now here is the result : — 
 Where once there was a multitude of men and 
 cities, with the heavens giving their dews and the 
 earth her harvests, there is now a treeless, cornless, 
 almost houseless waste ; in short, a wilderness. 
 
 We grew weary at gazing out upon nakedness 
 — unvaried, monotonous nakedness — and glad we 
 were when the train stopped and Burgos was an- 
 nounced. Adieu the desert, and welcome anything 
 wearing the face of civilised life ! A city ! and that 
 city the ancient city of Burgos ! Away we went, 
 for the station is some little distance from the town, 
 and though the night was falling we had light 
 enough to find our way. We crossed the Arlanzon 
 — deep and broad in winter, but now with only a 
 small stream in its gravelly bed — and entered what 
 the guide-books style " the grand old city." It 
 
Old Castile and Burgos. 51 
 
 was grim enough, certainly, but then we had to 
 take into account that it was old, and that we 
 had scarce light to see it. We must wait till day. 
 
 When day came we went out, of course, to see 
 ''grand old" Burgos. "Old" we certainly found 
 it, but as for its " grandeur," alas, alas ! Can we 
 have halted at the wrong station, and mistaken 
 some other town for Burgos } But no, it was 
 Burgos. The front row of its buildings, which 
 faces the river and contains the hotels, is new ; but 
 as for the rest, it is the most wretched collection of 
 hovels, half of them in ruins, it ever was our lot to 
 set foot in. No place, not even the poorest towns of 
 Italy as they were twenty years ago, ever impressed 
 us with such a feeling of misery, or awakened such 
 compunction for the poor creatures who live here, 
 as this town. It was more like a state of things 
 such as we should have expected to find in Africa, 
 than anything we ever saw within the limits of 
 what is termed civilisation. 
 
 But Burgos does possess splendour, and before 
 going farther in the description of its sheer and 
 most pitiable wretchedness, let us speak of its 
 grandeur. We refer, of course, to its world- 
 renowned cathedral. It is one of the most superb 
 edifices that we have ever seen. It is of the 
 florid Gothic, of the fourteenth century, and is an 
 
 E 2 
 
52 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 all but unrivalled specimen of that style of archi- 
 tecture. Its towers, most delicately worked, airy 
 almost as gossamer, rise some three hundred feet — 
 so the guide-books say, for we did not measure 
 them — over (what shall we call them ?) the pig-sties 
 around, styled Burgos. This cathedral is not so 
 much one temple as a collection of sumptuous 
 temples, all grouped together, forming a constella- 
 tion of architectural glory, to raise which millions 
 of money have been expended, and the genius of 
 many minds, and the toil of many hands have been 
 unsp>aringly, century after century, devoted. It is 
 as grand— some would say as holy — as marbles and 
 gilding, crucifixes and paintings, incense and con- 
 secrated wafers can make it. One wanders lost 
 amid naves, and pillared aisles, and gorgeous 
 chapels, which open right and left, gazing up at the 
 rich oriels and the vaulted roof, along which one 
 can hear stealing, in melodious echoes, the chant of 
 unseen priests. For a more minute description of 
 this superb pile we have neither time nor heart. 
 What does it profit the poor creatures who are born 
 and die under its shadow — that shadow the shadow 
 of death I Fixed to the wall, near the grand west- 
 ern entrance, we saw two boxes ; one labelled 
 "Alms for the Most Holy Christ of Burgos," and the 
 other "Alms for the Holy Father at Rome." A noted 
 
Old Castile and Burgos. 53 
 
 image is this " Christ of Burgos," and its virtues 
 and beauties are duly chronicled in the guide-books. 
 The " Chapel del Santessimo Christol' say they, 
 speaking of the chapel in which the image is kept, 
 " is so called from a miracle-working crucifix, carved 
 by Nicodemus, which floated over the sea to 
 Spain. It is fine as a work of art. Observe its 
 hair, wig, and rich lace petticoat" 
 
 This cathedral smells rankly of recent blood, 
 for a foul murder was lately perpetrated within 
 its walls, as our readers may recollect. The 
 Government sent down a commissioner to make 
 an inventory of its riches. The priests rang the 
 alarm bell, and giving out to the townspeople 
 who crowded into the church, that the Government 
 commissioner had come to rob and profane their 
 holy place, the infuriated people rose upon the 
 commissioner and slew him upon the spot. Let 
 us quit the cathedral. 
 
 We make our exit by the north door. Its 
 marble threshold crossed, that instant the squalor 
 begins. We almost fear to tell what we saw, for if 
 we are to describe things as we found them, the 
 picture must be sad indeed — so very sad, that we 
 shall incur the suspicion of darkening it. But we 
 are here to draw no fancy sketches of Spanish land- 
 scapes, or of Spanish manners and costumes, but 
 
54 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 to tface honestly, as best we can, the traces which 
 have been left in this land by the evil systems of 
 other days, and therefore we must write of things as 
 we found them. Burgos spread itself out all round 
 its grand cathedral, and up the slope of the hill or 
 burg — from which the town takes its name — a 
 labyrinth of narrow, winding lanes, perfectly inno- 
 cent of the modern arts of paving and cleansing. 
 The houses are old ; some of them were here in the 
 sixteenth century, when the great Charles was 
 emperor, and here have they been standing all 
 the while, their stones unmoved and untouched, 
 Avhile thrones and great kingdoms have been 
 tumbling into ruins. Tawny-faced, black-bearded 
 men looked out at their doors, and slatternly, 
 hunger-bitten women, and sallow-faced children, 
 prematurely old, were pottering about in the 
 streets. Gaps of ruins, heaps of rubbish, stacks 
 of fern, pigs, and savage-looking dogs, gave an air 
 of barbarism to the place which it is not easy to 
 describe or to conceive. 
 
 We marked the peasants as they came to market 
 in the morning, and were struck with their diminu- 
 tive stature. Sxirely the old Castilians who fought 
 so bravely were not pigmies like these men. Ages 
 of degradation have left their mark upon them. Not 
 upon all, for some sturdy, fully-developed forms 
 
Old Castile and Burgos. 55 
 
 we did see, and these might yet do service on the 
 battle-field, but the majority are a dwarfish race : 
 tiny legs, tiny bodies, tiny heads — ^they are not 
 men, but manikins. Visions of Esquimaux, or the 
 Ojiblwees, rose before us as we gazed on these 
 little people. There was a certain air of staid 
 dignity, however, about even the tiniest and 
 poorest of them. Arrayed in their toggery, and 
 carrying on their heads their basket of onions, or 
 leading their ass laden with a few vegetables to 
 market, they strutted along with an air of grotesque 
 and jaunty statellness, which Irresistibly provoked 
 laughter, which the next moment was turned into 
 sadness. 
 
 The dress of the Spanish peasant is a mixture 
 of finery and rags ; but the dress of the peasant of 
 Burgos is even below that of his class. Let us 
 describe It. A piece of leather is tied on to the 
 sole of the foot ; this serves as a shoe. The leg is 
 thrust Into a black footless stocking, or It is en- 
 veloped in a piece of untanned hide, bound round 
 with thongs. The breeches are open at the knee, 
 and their fastenings are a curious entanglement of 
 cord, button, and belt. They are thriftily patched, 
 and patched again, and yet again, till often little of 
 the original texture remains. A sash Is bound 
 round the waist ; and then comes a great coat of 
 
56 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 sombre brown, or a black mantilla or cloak, but 
 this, too, like the garment we have just described, 
 is often a curious collection of patches, without 
 much regard being had to either the size or colour 
 of the patches. A napkin tied round the head, 
 or a low-crowned, dilapidated beaver with broad 
 slouching brim completes the suit. In Burgos there 
 are 30,000 inhabitants and 3,000 priests. This num- 
 ber may have diminished of late years, but this is 
 understood to have been, till times of revolution 
 came upon Spain, the normal condition of Burgos. 
 We saw the priests — not the whole 3,000, but 
 more than we cared to see, and more than we 
 thought to be for the good of Burgos. They 
 seemed to be of the sons of Anak, and certainly 
 presented a striking contrast to the Lilliputian race 
 among whom they moved. Their long robes had 
 no patches ; their limbs were not thrust into un- 
 tanned cow-hide, nor did they in features or form 
 bear any marks of pinching hunger, or vigils un- 
 duly prolonged. Portly their form, tall their 
 stature, slow and majestic their gait ; conscious 
 they seemed that they were the priests of " the 
 grand old town " of Burgos, and ministered in 
 a temple than which there are few grander on 
 earth. Their legs were as massy and round almost 
 as the pillars of their own church, and yet, strong 
 
Old Castile and Burgos. 57 
 
 as they were, they seemed to bend and totter 
 under the superincumbent edifice of bone and 
 muscle and fat which they had to carry. Their 
 neck was of a girth which would have done no dis- 
 honour to the trunk of one of their own chestnut 
 trees. Their head it would have delighted a phreno- 
 logist to contemplate ; it was bulky and vast, like 
 some of those which, chiseled out of granite, lie 
 embedded in the sands of Egypt. Their face was 
 about as stony; and then what a magnificent 
 sombrero ! It ran out in front in a long line of 
 glossy beaver ; behind, it extended in a line of 
 equal length, and it gracefully curled up at the 
 sides. It was truly worthy of the majestic figure 
 which it topped and crowned. 
 
 To complete the picture of Burgos it is neces- 
 sary that we introduce our readers to its famous 
 castle, or burg. This hill makes a grander figure 
 in history than it does in the landscape. It was 
 the scene, in other days, of events of note, which 
 few now know, or care to remember. Its foun- 
 dation goes as far back as A.D. 884, and many a 
 hero renowned in Castilian story has made it his 
 dwelling-place since. Foremost among these is 
 the great Cid, a scoundrel of the first water — we 
 beg our readers' toleration for our use of familiar 
 terms, on the ground that they are the appro- 
 
58 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 priate ones. We write where we have not Robert- 
 son and other stately historians at hand to furnish 
 us with pompous or reverential terms, such as 
 might give grandeur to our heroes and a classic 
 march to our style. And even were those writers 
 more within our reach than they are, we are not 
 sure that we would be at much pains to mend our 
 diction by using their grand phrases to dress up 
 into great characters men who would have been 
 ordinary enough but for their wickedness. 
 
 Here, we say, dwelt the Cid, and hence he 
 went forth to rapine and slaughter, and carry home 
 the spoil to his castle or den on the top of this hill. 
 The house in which the Cid was born stood at 
 the foot of this hill, on the now rubbish-bestrewn 
 ground which one traverses on his way up the 
 height from the north door of the cathedral. His 
 bones are shown in the Town House. This hill 
 touches our own England in one point. Here was 
 celebrated the bridal of Edward I. of England with 
 Eleanor of Castile, and here, in 1812, a holocaust 
 of 2,000 British lives was offered up in an unsuccess- 
 ful attempt to take this fortress. The events just 
 narrated are not a tithe of what has been trans- 
 acted on this Iberian mount. For why should 
 we weary ourselves or our readers with the reci- 
 tal of battles and sieges which have left no trace 
 
Old Castile and Burgos. 59 
 
 in history, and which exemplify no principle save 
 the vulgar one of ravenous greed and brutal fero- 
 city, although, when enacted, they doubtless made 
 no little noise, and certainly inflicted no little 
 suffering on the world ? 
 
 And what is the appearance of this hill now ? 
 It is a naked, unfortified mound of white earth ; 
 there is something like a house or low castle on its 
 top, and we saw a sentinel perched there, keeping 
 watch over it with his musket and bayonet, 
 although who should covet such a place we could 
 not divine. No pleasant post had he of it, for a 
 bitter cold wind was blowing over the treeless plain, 
 and, catching up the loose white earth, was whirl- 
 ing it in clouds like snow-drift around the poor 
 solitary man. We intended paying him a visit on 
 his hill-top, and had got half-way up, when he 
 suddenly shouted out some observation to us, and 
 not being quite certain whether his words contained 
 an invitation or a prohibition, we thought best to 
 interpret them in the latter sense, and made all 
 haste to descend, not sorry, to say sooth, that we 
 had so good an excuse for not going higher. 
 
 But we could not help saying to ourselves, as 
 we turned to take a last look of the poor sentinel, 
 mounted on what seemed to us a hill of ashes, with 
 which the very winds were wroth, "What utter 
 
6o Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 desolation ! " It recalled pictures we had seen of 
 the Birs Nimrod on the great wasted plain of 
 Babylon. So rose this mount on the wasted plains of 
 Castile, and we could not help seeing, in the desola- 
 tion with which it was stricken, the hand of Provi- 
 dence visibly stamped upon this stronghold of 
 robbers and spillers of human blood. 
 
 *' Grand old " Burgos, adieu ! As our readers may 
 imagine, the word was spoken in no tones of inconsol- 
 able sorrow, unless for the thousands of poor crea- 
 tures shut up here in outer darkness. Who and what 
 is it that has taken man made in the image of God, 
 and, denying to him the light of truth, has so 
 brutified him that even the human form is passing 
 away from him } We demand an answer to this 
 question — we have a right to do so. Cruel should 
 we be were we to pass even an animal on the high- 
 way lying bound without an effort to loose its 
 cords, and shall we do less for a human being.? 
 Shall we pass these thousands of fellow-creatures 
 shut up in doleful misery, and yet hold our peace } 
 Shall we not tell the world what we have seen } 
 Shall we not proclaim in the hearing of all that 
 there are abodes of sorrow — bastiles in which body 
 and soul are immured ; spots where, from genera- 
 tion to generation, the light never shines ; not far 
 off, across the seas, in Pagandom, but in Europe, in 
 
Old Castile and Burgos. 6i 
 
 Christendom ? "If thou forbear to dehver them that 
 are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to 
 be slain ; if thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not ; 
 doth not he who pondereth the heart consider it ? " 
 Who has given to one class the right to withhold 
 all rights from every other, and to make holo- 
 causts of whole cities and nations ? May the cry 
 of Burgos go up to heaven, and enter into the ears 
 of the Great Judge ! 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 VALLADOLID AND THE FIRST AUTO-DA-FA. 
 
 The Railway — Rate of Speed— Time for Dreaming — Delays — In- 
 terior of Railway-carriage — Aspect of Plain — Women Plough- 
 ing — Valladolid— Churches a nd Ruins — The Man in the Fire — 
 Auto-da-fe of 1559 — The Man in the Fire returned in the 
 Bible-stand — The Word of God endures for ever. 
 
 Straight onward along the plain lay our way to 
 Valladolid. We meant that this former capital 
 and favourite resort of Charles V. should be our 
 next stage. The train kept creeping onward at a 
 snail's pace ; at every station we made a long 
 halt. It did not much matter, however, or rather 
 it did not matter at all. We had never before 
 traversed the plains of Castile, and in all likelihood 
 some little time would elapse before we should 
 have it in our power to traverse them again ; and if 
 the landscape offered little to the eye, it suggested 
 a good many things to the mind, which we were 
 none thp worse of revolving, and which a more 
 rapid journey might have banished from our 
 thoughts ; and so we had no wish to mend our 
 pace, even if we could. 
 
 Besides, we felt that here anything like bustle 
 
The First Auto-da-Fa. 6^ 
 
 would be signally out of place. Our rate of speed 
 seemed to fall in with all that we saw around us. 
 The land was resting ; it might wake up into a 
 harvest once a century or so. The villages were 
 resting; once in a week, when the church bells 
 tolled, they might break into a little stir. It be- 
 came us, we felt, to get into a mood of mind as 
 much in harmony as possible with the drowsy 
 world we were moving in. We must eschew ex- 
 citements of all kinds ; and so we went .sedately 
 and slowly on our way, passing acre after acre 
 of bare earth, and coming up occasionally with a 
 forlorn village, which in due course we dropped 
 behind us. 
 
 We could fall a-dreaming, moreover, and in our 
 dream the Castile of other days would rise before 
 us. We saw its plains waving with corn ; we heard 
 the song of the reaper and the grape-gatherer in 
 its fields. We saw flags floating on the towers, and 
 crowds issuing from the gates of its cities. W> saw 
 the plumed knight ride forth to the tournament. 
 We saw royal cavalcades sweeping past, and hosts 
 mustering at the bugle's call. And then, like Mirza, 
 we awoke to find that t?ie vision was gone, and 
 that it had left nothing in its place save the naked 
 plain, with the solitary donkey-driver pacing along 
 on the highway, or a herd of black swine scouring 
 
64 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 the open fields and ploughing up the earth in 
 search of food. 
 
 We greatly missed the hedge-rows and the 
 fences. To an English eye these are inseparably 
 associated with cultivation, and their absence is 
 as inevitably suggestive of abandonment and bar- 
 renness. In Castile these are utterly unknown ; 
 not a line is there on the face of the plain ; no 
 fence marks the boundary of field or the limits of 
 ownership. The country appears a wide common. 
 How the peasant finds the acres he is to till, when 
 he does till them, we cannot imagine. This mo- 
 notony and sameness of surface adds much to the 
 dreariness of the ride over it. The traveller has no 
 landmarks by which to measure the progress he is 
 making ; and that progress, slow enough of itself, 
 appears, consequently, slower than it is. On 
 one occasion we had the curiosity to count, and 
 found by the watch that every time we made a 
 run of fifteen minutes we made a halt of ten. In 
 this fashion we did a journey of a hundred miles. 
 The explanation is this : the passengers on the 
 Spanish railways are not yet numerous enough to 
 pay ; as a rule, therefore, goods are carried by all 
 trains, and this involves the necessity of loading 
 and unloading at the various stations. Nor is this 
 all. The officials have to exchange salutations and 
 
The First Auto-da-F^. 65 
 
 cigarettes, and gather in a knot on the platform ; 
 and, once the cigar is in the mouth, it is wonderful 
 how the ideas flow, and what an amount of elo- 
 quence, as well as of tobacco-smoke, has to be let 
 off. But what of the people in the carriages all 
 the while ? Why, they are too busy with their 
 cigarettes and their gossip to care much whether the 
 train is moving or standing still. A Spanish rail- 
 way carriage is like a club, or a public meeting, or, 
 in short, a newspaper. It gives the Spaniard all 
 the news of the day, not in the form of a dull article, 
 but with the brevity of a telegram, and seasoned 
 with all the vivacity, humour, and eloquence of the 
 Spanish people in their best mood. It is, mayhap, 
 the only newspaper the Spaniard sees. What with 
 gossip, noise, good-humour, drollery, and singing, 
 the time passes pleasantly away — much more so 
 than do the tedious and silent hours at home ; and 
 the Spaniard is rather sorry than otherwise when his 
 journey is at an end, and with a polite " adios !" he 
 quits the carriage and steps down upon the platform. 
 At some of the stations on our way along the 
 plain we witnessed scenes which to us were some- 
 what novel. Groups of travelling musicians would 
 assemble on the platform and await the arrival of 
 the train, and then they did their very best to 
 entertain us. Dressed in their finery, they leaped 
 
66 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 and danced, they shouted and sang, they rattled 
 their castanets, and played on their guitars; and 
 having ended their little ballet, which sometimes 
 they enact by torchlight, they made their appeal 
 to all lovers of the fine arts in the train. One is too 
 glad to see a little mirth in this land to deny their 
 suit ; and, moreover, it is an agreeable relief from 
 the flocks of mendicants, haggard, hunger-bitten, 
 and in rags, which haunt the railway-stations, and 
 which k is so pitiable to look at. 
 
 This portion of the plain seemed not quite so 
 stricken as that which we had traversed the day 
 before. The earth was less marly, it was darker 
 in colour, and seemed more like soil which had not 
 yet ceased to produce. In one or two instances we 
 saw villages which were approached by avenues of 
 noble trees, and here and there a hill shot up, not 
 lofty, but with outline so romantic that it lacked 
 nothing but woods or corn-fields at its foot to 
 make it the delight of the painter. As we ap- 
 proached Valladolid, these remains of the ancient 
 glory of Castile became more numerous. A feeble 
 green began to clothe the fields, and — welcome 
 sight ! — the plough was here at work. We counted 
 three or four ploughs, where there was room for as 
 many hundreds ; here, for the first time in our 
 lives, we saw women ploughing. We are not aware 
 
The First Auto-da-Fa 6'/ 
 
 that in any other European country the doctrine of 
 ** woman's rights " has made such practical advance 
 as here in Spain, where the sex have become tillers 
 of the soil. 
 
 Valladolid lies in a basin. It is plentifully sup- 
 plied with the two elements of fertility — water and 
 warmth — and the heights that swell up all round 
 it, in ancient times, doubtless, when Valladolid was 
 one of the royal cities of the land, overflowed with 
 flower and fruit, with corn and wine ; but now its 
 environs are comparatively treeless and bare. The 
 only noticeable objects in the town as one ap- 
 proaches it are the cathedral steeples and the 
 factory chimneys. The latter, of course, one is 
 specially glad to see, as they promise a certain 
 amount of commercial activity in the town; and 
 the traveller is not saddened by witnessing here 
 such utter stagnation as reigns in Burgos. The 
 ecclesiastical influence, too, he finds lighter here, 
 nor does he encounter the deep. benumbing shadow 
 which, like a midnight, .envelopes the earlier capital 
 of Old Castile. 
 
 Not a few monuments of its regal era linger in 
 Valladolid. Here Philip- IL was born, and here 
 Columbus died; here, too, is shown the house in 
 which Cervantes lived when he was passing his 
 great work through the press ; as well as the houses 
 
 F 2 
 
6S Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 of others renowned as diplomatists or as scholars. 
 It is the seat of an university famous for the study 
 of law. It is rich in churches and not less in ruins. 
 These are not wholly the work of time ; the cannon 
 of the Republican French made sad havoc in the 
 ecclesiastical buildings of Valladolid. The con- 
 vents were gutted, and the monks turned out ; the 
 churches were stripped of their pictures and pre- 
 cious vessels, and battered into ruins. This was 
 specially the fate of the Inquisition and its church ; 
 pillar and roof, altar of marble and saint of stone 
 — all went down together, and lie in an undistin- 
 guishable heap of ruin, which no one is at the 
 trouble to repair or to clear away. 
 
 At Valladolid we touch an altogether new move- 
 ment. Not yet, however, do we mean to bring this 
 work — only in its early spring-time — before our 
 readers. A stage or so farther on in our journey, 
 and then we shall have something better to speak 
 of than soils that have ceased to produce, and 
 races that seem to be perishing from off the 
 earth. We shall find ourselves in presence of a 
 movement that has come neither from the cabinet 
 of kings, nor the club of republicans, but out of 
 an old Book, which has before now renewed the 
 world when it appeared on the point of perishing. 
 Still, a few words about it here. 
 
The First Auto-da-F^. 69 
 
 At Valladolid the spirit of Charles V. and the 
 Vatican is being confronted by apparently a 
 gentler, but, in reality, a far stronger spirit. Not 
 for the first time have these two met on this spot. 
 The old and the new encountered each other at 
 Valladolid three hundred years ago. Here the first 
 Spanish martyr was burned. Let us go to the Plaza 
 Mayor. A palace, shops, rows of fruit-stalls, crowds 
 of traffickers — such is the scene which the Plaza 
 Mayor exhibits at this hour. But let us shut our 
 eyes on the present, and call back the past. 
 History waves her magic wand, and the past re- 
 turns. What do we see } A strange spectacle ! 
 A sea of heads ; a balcony, in which sit princes of 
 the blood, grandees, ladies, and courtiers, blazing 
 in jewels and decorations ; and, fronting the 
 royal box, a crowd of mitres, cowls, crucifixes, 
 and banners. Is that all } No ! Look at that 
 terrible apparition in the middle. A column 
 of blazing flame shoots high into the air, and 
 as its surging volume parts and opens, it re- 
 veals one standing serenely in the midst of the 
 fire. It is the first auto-da-fe ever celebrated on 
 the soil of Spain, and the day is the 7th October, 
 1544. But what matters it .^ The darkness of 
 three centuries has closed round the day and the 
 deed, and the world has forgotten both. No, says 
 
70 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 the historian, that stake shall stand for ever ; 
 down, down the ages shall go the light of that 
 martyr-pile ; its splendour shall fill Spain and en- 
 circle the world. But a short hour does the martyr 
 stand at that stake, but history takes care that the 
 memory of his death shall be eternal, and that 
 from his throne in history bis spirit shall rule the 
 world. 
 
 The persecutor thinks the more martyrs he can 
 burn the better. Every stake he plants brings 
 him, he concludes, a step nearer his object, which 
 is the suppression of what he deems heresy. He 
 says he must strike a blow ; and he does strike a 
 blow, and that a very effectual one. But where 
 does the blow fall } That is the question. The 
 persecutor never stops to answer that question. 
 He goes on striking blow after blow, without seeing 
 that every blow is falling upon himself and his 
 cause. The more he multiplies martyrs, the more 
 he multiplies the moral forces of the world. In- 
 stead of putting out lights, he is but kindling 
 stars to dispel the darkness. He is summoning 
 into action powers which are never to cease, and 
 before whose slow but triumphant advance him- 
 self and his cause are destined to be borne to 
 destruction. Those who on the 7th October, 1544, 
 planted the stake in the Plaza Mayor at Valla- 
 
The First Auto-da-Fa. yi 
 
 dolid did not think of this. We shall permit Dr. 
 McCrie to relate the scene : — 
 
 ^'When brought before the inquisitors," says 
 Dr. McCrie, in his " Rise and Suppression of the 
 Reformation in Spain," " he (San Romano) frankly- 
 professed his belief in the cardinal doctrine of the 
 Reformation — that salvation comes to no man by 
 his own works, merit, or strength, but solely from 
 the mercy of God through the sacrifice of the one 
 Mediator ; and he pronounced the mass, auricular 
 confession, purgatory, the invocation of saints, and 
 the worshipping of images, to be blasphemy against 
 the living God. If his zeal was impetuous, it sup- 
 ported him to the last. He endured the horrors of 
 a protracted imprisonment with the utmost for- 
 titude and patience. He resisted all the impor- 
 tunities used by the friars to induce him to recant. 
 He refused at the place of execution to purchase 
 a mitigation of punishment by making confession 
 to a priest, or bowing to a crucifix which was 
 placed before him. When the flames first reached 
 him on his being fastened to the stake, he made an 
 involuntary motion with his head, upon which the 
 friars in attendance exclaimed that he was become 
 penitent, and ordered him to be brought from the 
 fire. On recovering his breath, he looked them 
 calmly in the face, and said, * Did you envy 
 
72 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 my happiness ?' — at which words he was thrust 
 back into the flames, and almost instantly suffo- 
 cated. Among a great number of prisoners brought 
 out in this public spectacle, he was the only indi- 
 vidual who suffered death. The novelty of the 
 crimes with which he was charged, joined to the 
 resolution which he displayed on the scaffold and 
 at the stake, produced a sensible impression on 
 the spectators." 
 
 We shall permit the same historian to describe 
 the next auto-da-fe, which was celebrated at Val- 
 ladolid : — 
 
 " The first public auto-da-f^ of Protestants was 
 accordingly celebrated in Valladolid on the 2 1st 
 of May, 1559, being Trinity Sunday, in the pre- 
 sence of Don Carlos, the heir-apparent to the 
 throne, and his aunt Juana, queen-dowager of Por- 
 tugal and governess of the kingdom during the 
 absence of her brother, Philip IL, attended by 
 a great concourse of persons of all ranks. It was 
 performed in the grand square between the 
 church of St. Francis and the house of the 
 Consistory. In the front of the Town House, 
 and by the side of the platform occupied by 
 the inquisitors, a box was erected which the royal 
 family could enter without interruption from the 
 crowd, and in which they had a full view of the 
 
The First Auto-da-FA . 73 
 
 prisoners. The spectacle continued from six 
 o'clock in the morning till two in the afternoon, 
 during which the people exhibited no symptoms 
 of impatience, nor did the queen retire until the 
 whole was concluded. The sermon was preached 
 by the celebrated Melchior Cano, bishop of the 
 Canaries ; the bishop of Valentia, to whose diocese 
 Valladolid at that time belonged, performed the 
 ceremony of degrading such of the victims as were 
 in holy orders. 
 
 " When the company were assembled and had 
 taken their places, Francisco Baca, the presiding 
 inquisitor, advancing to the bed of State on which 
 the prince and his aunt were seated, administered 
 to them the oath to support the Holy Office, and 
 to reveal to it everything contrary to the faith 
 which might come to their knowledge, without 
 respect of persons. This was the first time that 
 such an oath had been extracted from any of the 
 royal family ; and Don Carlos, who was then only 
 fourteen years of age, is said from that moment 
 to have vowed an implacable hatred to the 
 Inquisition." 
 
 And now once again let us shift the scenes. 
 King, bishop, abbot, and monk, have all marched 
 out of the Plaza Mayor ; the balconies are empty ; 
 
74 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 the crowd, too, has surged off. And the man in 
 the fire ? He, too, has taken his departure. He 
 has gone up, although no one there saw the Hght 
 of the flashing wheels that bore him away, or 
 heard the shouts that welcomed him high up in 
 the blue sky. And so the spectacle is at an end. 
 We recall the present. It is September, 1869, just 
 a few years more than three centuries since that 
 fire blazed and burned itself to ashes in the Plaza 
 Mayor. Again the Plaza Mayor is filled. From 
 side to side a crowd occupies it. The annual fair 
 is being held, and here is gathered a vast concourse 
 to buy and sell, and to eat and drink, and make 
 merry. There comes a man like no one else in 
 that great gathering. He sets up his stall in front 
 of that palace where the royal family of Spain 
 swore obedience to the Inquisition, and only a few 
 yards from the spot from which the man at the 
 stake, when every one else went to their homes, 
 went up to the skies. This strange man brings 
 forth his merchandise, and that, too, is unlike all 
 other merchandise in this fair. What does he sell } 
 Upon his stall he places the Bible ! On the 
 very spot where the first auto-da-fe of Spain was 
 celebrated, he exhibits, in the view of all, the Word 
 of God. But do Philip and Torquemada see this } 
 It matters little whether they see it or not. There 
 
The First Auto-da-Fa 75 
 
 is this man selling the Bible openly in the Plaza 
 Mayor at Valladolid. And how many copies 
 does he sell ? During the six days of the fair he 
 sells as many as 150 Bibles, 200 New Testaments, 
 and 1,000 Gospels. 
 
 Strange ! Has the man who was burned come 
 back ? It would almost seem as if he had, and 
 had brought with him from the skies these copies 
 of the Bible. But it matters not whether it be the 
 very man who was burned or no who stands here 
 in the fair of Valladolid. Here is the BOOK come 
 back again ; and it is speaking with undiminished 
 power — it is changing hearts and making disciples, 
 even as it did in the morning of the Reformation. 
 *' The voice said, Cry. And I said. What shall I cry ? 
 All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is 
 as the flower of the field." Philip is gone ; empty 
 is now his palace, and fallen is now his throne. 
 Gone, too, is the brilliant crowd which that day 
 filled the Plaza Mayor — mitred priest and proud 
 abbot, shaven monk and cruel Dominican — all have 
 passed to the tomb, and the place that knew them 
 once knows them no more. " The grass withereth, 
 the flower fadeth ; but the Word of our God 
 endureth for ever." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE ESCORIAL. 
 
 The Sierra Guadarrama —Tunnels — Desolation — The Escorial — 
 Savage Scenery around — Philip II. — Architecture of the 
 Escorial — The Frescoes in its Corridors — The Cathedral — The 
 Royal Library — Portrait of Philip II. — The Royal Apartments 
 — Philip II. 's Cabinet or Workshop — His Deathbed — The 
 Tombs of the Kings of Spain — Reflections. 
 
 We left Valladolid at midnight. When morning 
 broke we were traversing the savage defiles of the 
 Sierra de Guadarrama. The train was plunging 
 out of one dark tunnel into another, so that the 
 journey was performed half in the bowels of the 
 earth, and half on its surface. This is no traveller's 
 license, but a literal fact ; for, according to Murray 
 — the great authority in all such matters — be- 
 tween Avila station and the Escorial, a distance of 
 forty-five miles, there are no fewer than forty-four 
 tunnels, which is, as near as need be, one to every 
 mile. The tract was as rugged and wild as we 
 ever remember to have passed over. There were 
 occasional oaks, and at times would come clumps 
 of firs ; but the general covering of the soil was 
 a profusion of granite boulders, some of them so 
 
The Escorial. 'j'j 
 
 big, that they might have set up for very respect- 
 able mountains themselves. It looked as if here 
 had been the battle of the giants, which the old 
 poets have made so famous ; and if the ground is 
 ever to be cleared of the great rocks which they 
 hurled at one another, the giants must come back 
 again, for certainly no strength less than theirs — 
 and most unquestionably no energy now left the 
 Spaniards — would be competent to the task of 
 carrying back to the place whence they came — 
 wherever it may be — these countless heaps of 
 great boulders. 
 
 When the summit of the pass had been gained, 
 and the quickened speed showed that we had com- 
 menced our descent, a wide prospect began to 
 open on the right. In the clear morning light we 
 could see the plain running out towards the far-off 
 Sierra de Toledo in the south. But it was all a 
 desert. There was no curling smoke betokening 
 human habitation ; there was no plough at work 
 on that plain ; no tree or vine-stock grew there to 
 clothe its nakedness ; no patch of green diversified 
 its surface. It stretched out far away beneath the 
 eye, a dreary expanse of brown earth, baked by a 
 burning sun by day, and frozen by the chilly winds 
 which descend upon it from the icy heights of the 
 Guadarrama by night. On our left, pressing 
 
yS Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 closely upon the railway, rose the bare, weather- 
 beaten shoulders of the Guadarrama, amply be- 
 strewn with granite rocks — so amply, as to set one 
 a wondering whether they had been rained from 
 the clouds, or ejected from the earth in some 
 convulsion of nature ; or whether they were the 
 colossal missiles of some veritable race of giants, 
 who had chosen this wild and solitary region for 
 their combats. 
 
 We turned sharply round a spur of the moun- 
 tains, and suddenly there opened a little bay or 
 cul-de-sac in the Guadarrama. It held an edifice, 
 of which the leading feature was vastness. Placed 
 here, where a building four times the ordinary size 
 would have run some risk of being lost to the eye, 
 this pile, in virtue of sheer bulk, asserted its ex- 
 istence and claimed to be grand, even in the pre- 
 sence of the grand mountains. This must be the 
 Escorial. It . can be nothing else. But sorely 
 puzzled must one be, who had never before heard 
 of the Escorial, to guess what this mammoth 
 in stone might be. He might suppose it Noah's 
 ark resting after the Flood, but then this moun- 
 tain is not Ararat ; or he might imagine it a 
 palace of the king of the giants, when they had 
 their battle here ; or a weird castle, called up by 
 the spell of some unearthly, solitary being; for 
 
The Escorial. 79 
 
 who else would ever think of rearing such a pile 
 in the heart of a wilderness of mountains, great 
 rocks, and desert plains ? We knew, however, what 
 the building was, and who he was who built it, 
 and we halted at the station that we might spend 
 the day in examining it. 
 
 The accommodation at the station was of the 
 poorest. We had not eaten since dinner-time of 
 the previous day, and were now in first-rate trim 
 for breakfast. But no breakfast could we have, 
 save a cup of coffee and a little bread ; there was 
 no milk, no butter. How could there be t There 
 appeared nothing within the compass of the horizon 
 of which milk or butter could be made. The cafe 
 was kept by an- old woman with round, heavy- 
 browed, dark-complexioned visage, who sat, peering 
 at us, in a corner of the room, but did not stir in 
 the least when we entered. She seemed perfectly 
 indifferent as to whether it might be our pleasure 
 to favour, or, to speak more accurately, annoy 
 her with our commands. 
 
 When the train was fairly gone, and the last 
 streak of its white smoke had vanished, we felt 
 how lonely was the spot. We looked round, if 
 haply we might catch a glimpse of Madrid. But 
 no ; it was not in sight. Nothing could we see but 
 the brown plain, and the silent Guadarrama sweep- 
 
8o Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 ing round it on the north, in a crescent of dreary 
 hills. And there were we left alone with this 
 mysterious-looking building, of which we began to 
 have an unaccountable dread. All around it was 
 so silent and solitary that it looked as if the plague 
 were shut up in it ; or as if it were inhabited by 
 some ogre who devoured all who came within his 
 reach. However, having sipped our coffee, we 
 made off towards it. 
 
 The walk to it is a full mile up hill. In its im- 
 mediate proximity the aridity is somewhat softened 
 by rows of elms and acacias planted by Philip. 
 The building is loop-holed by some thousands of 
 windows, and would undoubtedly be taken for a 
 barrack — a barrack in which not one, but many 
 armies might lodge — but for its dome and four 
 great towers, one at each corner, which lend it a 
 grandeur of a nondescript character. It is a votive 
 offering to San Lorenzo, and this is the key to its 
 most extraordinary construction. On a gridiron, 
 according to the legend, was the saint martyred, 
 and here has Philip set up a gridiron in stone in 
 commemoration of the saint. What then we 
 ought to look for in this huge pile is the archi- 
 tecture or orthodoxy of a gridiron, whatever that 
 may be. This is a point on which we must be 
 excused pronouncing any very decided opinion. 
 
The E SCO rial. 8r 
 
 Considering who was its builder, and the age in 
 which it was erected, we have no doubt it is 
 thoroughly canonical — as faultless a dogma, though 
 expressed in stone, as any which "the Church" has 
 expressed on paper. But if the architect was a 
 man of taste, as he is said to have been, this 
 gridiron must have given him more real torture 
 than the original one gave San Lorenzo. 
 
 A costly affair was the gridiron. Philip is said 
 to have paid fifteen millions of pounds for it. But 
 there was no lack of the precious metals in Spain 
 in those days. Silver and gold were in abundance 
 as the gravel in the street. Was there a palace to 
 be built, or an army to be equipped, it was but 
 sending another navy to those inexhaustible sup- 
 plies — the mines of Mexico and Peru. Nor was this 
 the worst spent money of Philip. Who can tell how 
 many millions he lavished on soldiers to rot in the 
 fens of Holland, and on ships to lie at the bottom 
 of the English Channel } How thankful would Spain 
 now be for a tithe of what Philip squandered. He 
 is said to have expressed himself rather freely to 
 his son on his death-bed on this head, complaining 
 how expensive an affair this fighting the Gospel at 
 the bidding of Rome had been, and that his re- 
 compense had not been quite in proportion to his 
 deservings. But we return to the Escorial. 
 
 G 
 
82 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 We have no intention of describing what is in- 
 describable. Those who wish to be able to form a 
 more definite idea of this monstrosity than we have 
 been able to convey, must consult Ford's " Spain," 
 and other authorities ; for volumes have been 
 written in description of the Escorial. We have 
 only farther to say of this building, that the outer 
 shell is the frame of this gridiron ; that the inner 
 courts are the bars, that the palace or royal apart- 
 ments are the handle, and the four towers are 
 the feet. But instead of standing on its feet, like 
 other gridirons, it lies on its face, and its feet are 
 turned up into the air. 
 
 Thirty miles from Madrid, at the foot of the 
 Sierra Guadarrama, stands this palace. So savage 
 and solitary is the spot, that it almost transcends 
 the power of the imagination to picture it. 
 Rarely has man chosen so dreary a region for his 
 dwelling ; and certainly never before was royal 
 palace set down in a wilderness like this. It is not 
 where icy winds freeze the blood and blight the 
 landscape that monarchs love to dwell ; but rather 
 where the cheerful day opens upon smiling plains 
 and towered cities, or where the blue sea with its 
 laughing waves offers a pathway to the white- 
 winged ships. Could the realm of Spain furnish 
 no fairer spot than this for the dwelling of her 
 
The Escorial. Z'}^ 
 
 kings ? There was Seville, where- the orange gives 
 its perfume and the palm its fruit. There was 
 Granada, where a rampart of snowy mountains 
 engirdles the matchless Alhambra, than which the 
 hands of man never fashioned anything so airy, 
 graceful, and beauteous. There was Toledo, so 
 romantically placed on its cluster of hills, washed 
 by the Tagus, and graced by the matchless monu- 
 ments of Moorish art. Yet from all these, and a 
 hundred other spots of loveliness and grandeur, 
 Philip II. turns away, to bury himself in the heart 
 of this terrible wilderness. What could tempt him 
 to do so } We know not, unless feelings akin to 
 those which drove Tiberius to hide himself from 
 the face of men in the rocky recesses of the Island 
 of Capri. But the dwelling of the Roman tyrant 
 was not so dismal as that of the Spanish one. The 
 smiling Bay of Naples, the giant promontory of 
 Sorrento, the palm-fringed shore of Pausilipo, were 
 daily before the eyes of Tiberius. But only images 
 of desolation and death presented themselves to 
 Philip in the Escorial. The bare storm-swept sum- 
 mits of the Guadarrama leaned over it, while 
 the slopes around were thickly strewn with 
 boulders of granite which the earthquake or the 
 tempest had loosened from the mountain's side. 
 There was nothing in sight — no tender, flower, and 
 
 G 2 
 
84 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 scarce a spot of green — to soften the stern mood of 
 the tyrant, or withdraw his thoughts from the 
 terrible subjects which he day and night revolved. 
 The laugh of happy childhood, the song of vine- 
 dresser, the note of bird, broke not upon his ear. 
 He had withdrawn himself from communion with 
 Nature as well as with man ; he lived in the seclusion 
 of a monk, seeing and hearing nothing that could 
 awaken sympathy in his heart with any living 
 thing. He heard only the tempest's howl and 
 the avalanche's crash, and, doubtless, the only 
 emotions it could awaken in his breast, as it 
 thundered down the mountain's side, were regrets 
 that there were not villages and cottages in its path, 
 in which old and young might be crushed to death, 
 and have common burial. So dwelt the man in 
 this grim desert, who, perhaps beyond all the 
 men of his age, hated the Gospel with a perfect 
 hatred, and wore out life in a terrible effort to drive 
 it from the world, and in that attempt caused the 
 death of a larger number of human beings than 
 perhaps any other tyrant of any age or country. 
 
 To us this pile had interest only in that it 
 was the centre of that machinery by which the 
 Reformation was crushed — no, not crushed, but 
 converted into the grandest drama in all history. 
 In this palace were penned, and out of these gates 
 
The Escorial. 85 
 
 had passed, those cruel decrees which covered 
 Holland and the Netherlands, Italy and Germany, 
 with scaffolds and executioners, with slaughter 
 and burning. Spain was then the first monarchy 
 of the world ; it had wider territories and richer 
 treasures than ancient Rome even in its palmiest 
 days. The sceptre of Spain was stretched over. 
 India and America. Her power was owned in both 
 hemispheres ; and, moreover, she was mistress of 
 numerous and fertile dependencies in Europe. In 
 a little closet in this palace sat the man who 
 wielded all this power — a man, as Velasquez has 
 handed him down to us, of pinched, vindictive 
 features, protruding jaw, small peering eyes, nar- 
 row forehead, on which toil and vexation had 
 planted many a furrow, and altogether of an un- 
 kingly and ungainly countenance. But in the hands 
 of this man was accumulated greater power than 
 had ever before, perhaps, been wielded by any one 
 man. And for what did he wield it } For one 
 object, even the overthrow and utter extinction, 
 of the Reformation. It was this which gave this 
 building a dreadful interest in our eyes. Keeping 
 this in view, let the reader accompany us as we 
 take a rapid survey of the place. 
 
 We enter by a little wicket which opens in the 
 great oaken gate that closes the vast granite portal 
 
86 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 over which stands a huge figure of San Lorenzo. 
 We begin our survey of the arcades which run 
 round the first court. These are covered with 
 frescoes, which are poor affairs in point of art, but 
 of some interest in point of history. Their subjects 
 are the victories, more especially the naval ones, 
 gained by the Spain of Charles V. and Philip II. 
 Conspicuous among these is the battle of Lepanto, 
 and yet more conspicuous, not by its presence, but 
 by its absence, like the bust of Brutus at the pro- 
 cession, is one other great naval affair of Spain, the 
 Armada to wit. At least, after a long search, in 
 which we went twice over these frescoes, we could 
 not discover it. But liiinporte. 
 
 We are handed over to another cicerone — in this 
 instance a priest speaking a little English — who 
 takes us to see the church. There are paintings, 
 marbles, gorgeous chapels ; but these things in 
 such a place are matters of course. The arrange- 
 ment and general effect are of more importance, and, 
 judged thus, the edifice is truly grand. There is no 
 excess of ornament ; it is a chaste majestic edifice 
 surmounted by a magnificent dome. On the left side 
 of the altar, in the gallery, at its remotest corner, is 
 the seat which Philip was wont to occupy. When 
 he got tired of working, he would open the door of 
 his cabinet, traverse a long corridor, then open 
 
The Escorial, Sy 
 
 another door, quietly steal into the cathedral, and 
 sit down here and do his devotions. We were taken 
 to the seat and invited to sit in it, and we marked 
 that it occupied a point where the architectural 
 effect of the temple told most, and where the high 
 altar was full in view. Philip, himself unseen, could 
 here see all. The priest dwelt much, as he was 
 entitled to do, upon the good taste and genius 
 conspicuous in this edifice. " It is," he said, " like 
 Philip himself, solid and practical." We thought 
 Mr. Motley might have something to say on the 
 other side, if not about the church, at least about 
 Philip. We were almost tempted to ask whether 
 he ranked an empty throne and a ruined kingdom 
 among the proofs of Philip's solid and practical 
 cast of character, but we reflected that of all profit- 
 less things the most profitless is a controversy at 
 the wrong time and in the wrong place. 
 
 The priest took us next into the royal library. It 
 is a noble hall, some 200 feet long, and lacks nothing 
 but students. Its floor is of marble, its arched roof 
 is finely frescoed ; marble and porphyry tables are 
 ranged along the apartment for writing ; but they 
 are never used. Its shelves contain some 12,000 
 volumes, which are never read ; instead of present- 
 ing their backs, the books turn their edges to the 
 spectator, and in that attitude remain from one 
 
88 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 century to another. There is but small temptation 
 to disturb them, for they mostly, if not wholly, 
 belong to an age and a literature that have 
 passed away. Yet they are said to include a 
 few curiosities, of a Moorish and Roman kind, but 
 most of these have gradually gone, the French 
 and others having from time to time purged the 
 library, and what it does or does not contain, we 
 believe, is now known to no one. In this library is 
 a portrait of Philip II., which merits attention. It 
 is by Titian, and, compared with those in the 
 museum at Madrid by Velasquez, it tells of the 
 ravages of bigotry on both the body and mind of 
 Philip. Velasquez painted the monarch when he 
 was comparatively young, Titian when he had 
 grown old. We have seen the faces of old men, 
 who had passed their lives in noble and Christian 
 pursuits, grow absolutely beautiful — gather a glory 
 not of earth. Not so Philip's ; it seems to have 
 darkened as years passed. Attentively survey 
 the picture of Titian : the grey eye has become 
 more stony ; the flesh has lost the hues of life ; and 
 the cold, cadaverous face chills one as if chiseled 
 out of ice. Such is the man who looks down upon 
 us from the walls of the royal library of the 
 Escorial. This concluded the services of the 
 priest, and now he courteously took leave of us. 
 
The Escorial. 89 
 
 Another conductor, and another part of the 
 gridiron ! We are taken now to the palace ; its 
 apartments, though rather small, are numerous, and 
 princely in their furnishings. The walls are hung 
 with Gobelin tapestry, the scenes portrayed being 
 mostly of a rural character. The doors and panel- 
 lings are inlaid with ivory and silver and gold, and 
 there are besides, some curious old cabinets, mirrors, 
 and clocks, some of which may very probably have 
 belonged to Philip's father, Charles V., who spent his 
 last days in watch and clock making. The apart- 
 ments had interest to us only as being those in 
 which the man who meditated day and night how 
 he might overthrow the Reformation had gone out 
 and come in, had risen up and lain down ; but, so 
 far, we had come to nothing specially connected 
 with Philip. 
 
 Traversing suite after suite of rooms, we at 
 length arrived in a small closet of a singularly unpre- 
 tending character, and the conductor, who spoke in 
 French, said, "This is the cabinet of Philip 11. ; 
 here he wrote his despatches." The words thrilled 
 us ; now, at last, we were in the den of the tyrant. 
 Here was the real war of the giants, and no fable ; 
 here Philip fought with Heaven. From this seat the 
 King of Spain hurled his bolts against Him whom 
 God has set as King upon His "holy hill of Zion." 
 
90 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 The chamber is left almost entirely as when 
 Philip occupied it — it cannot be more than four 
 yards long by three in width. Its walls are without 
 adornment of any kind ; its furniture is of the 
 very plainest description. It consists of a chair — 
 the self-same chair in which Philip sat when read- 
 ing and penning his despatches ; it is a low broad- 
 bottomed chair, covered with leather, and having a 
 leathern pad behind, on which Philip might throw 
 himself back. Next comes a long stool, hollowed 
 out and covered with leather, on which the monarch 
 rested his legs. By the side of the chair is a low, 
 square stool, also covered with leather, on which 
 his secretary sat. In front of the chair is a plain 
 black oaken desk at which Philip wrote ; upon the 
 desk, placed upright against the wall, is a row of 
 shelves, they may be some four or five, and were 
 meant to hold the books Philip needed for refer- 
 ence. Alongside the shelves, also resting against 
 the wall, is a set of small drawers for despatches. 
 The portfolio, covered with green velvet, in which 
 the despatches were handed in to the monarch, 
 and the answers to them handed out, completes 
 the furniture of this closet ; there never could have 
 been more, for there is not room for more. 
 
 The guide seemed to divine the interest we 
 took in the chamber; for, without our thinking of it 
 
The Escorial. 91 
 
 or wishing it, he made us sit down in Philip's chair, 
 and rest our legs on the same oddly-fashioned stool 
 on which Philip had rested his. 
 
 The few minutes we sat in that chair sufficed 
 for a good part of the sixteenth century to pass 
 before our mind. Here, day by day, sitting in this 
 chair and toiling at this desk, had the great tyrant 
 of the age pursued his dreadful work, warring, like 
 another Julian, against Christ. What awful schemes 
 had had birth in this chamber ! here had they been 
 revolved hour after hour, and day after day, till 
 they were matured ; and then the tyrant, remorse- 
 lessly placing those fiats of doom in that little 
 green portfolio lying beside us, had sent them 
 forth at that very door, to do their work of blood in 
 all parts of the world. Here had sat the man who 
 dictated the assassination of the Prince of Orange ; 
 here had sat the man who passed sentence of death 
 on two whole nations, and who, if he could, would 
 have assassinated our own Elizabeth. At this very 
 table had been penned the decrees which launched 
 the Armada, and hurled it like an avalanche against 
 England to overwhelm it, but in reality to be 
 broken in pieces upon its shores. But let us 
 avert our eyes from this tissue of enormous crimes, 
 and cast them on the other side. But for Philip of 
 Spain, could we have had the Prince of Orange — 
 
92 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 one of the noblest characters of history ? but for 
 Philip of Spain, would the Reformation have 
 become what it is — perhaps the most wonderful 
 page in all the wonderful annals of the Church of 
 God ? It was kindled and burning when Philip 
 came with intent to put it out ; but the violence 
 with which he strove to extinguish it made it the 
 more blaze up, and shoot aloft to heaven — a pillar 
 of glorious light, whose splendour illumined the 
 world, and will travel down the ages. Thus it is 
 that God brings good out of evil, and makes the 
 wrath of man to praise Him. 
 
 But let us attend our guide, he is just opening 
 to us another page in Philip's career. Close to 
 Philip's chair on the right, and at the end of the 
 royal cabinet, opposite to that by which we entered 
 it, is another door. The guide has just opened it, 
 and disclosed to view a small ante-chamber ; it is 
 not more than six feet square. " This," said he, 
 *' is the spot where Philip died ; when near his end 
 he was carried in here," and unfolding as he spoke 
 another door, which enabled one in the ante- 
 chamber to look right into the church and have a 
 full view of the altar, " He was carried in here," 
 he resumed, "and laid so that he might see the 
 high altar when dying." 
 
 We stood on the spot where the great King of 
 
The Escorial. 93 
 
 Spain had given up the ghost, and (what is remark- 
 able) it is within two feet of the desk where he had 
 penned those horrible decrees which had made 
 women childless and provinces desolate ; which had 
 turned the populous Low Countries into a grave- 
 yard, burning their cities, and cutting off their 
 inhabitants by the sword, by the gallows, and by 
 every mode of cruel and horrible death. There 
 " he bowed, he fell, he lay down — ^where he bowed, 
 there he fell down dead," and his end was, like his 
 life, dreadful exceedingly. It was full of horrors — 
 horrors of mind, and strange torments of body ; his 
 last illness continued fifty-three days. Like another 
 Herod, he was eaten up of worms. He had warred 
 against God with armies, fleets, executioners, and 
 at last God warred against him. But with what .'' 
 With his lightnings t No. With his angels } No, 
 that would have been doing the great king too 
 much honour. Insects bred of his own body laid 
 him low : the monarch was crushed before the 
 moth. What a defeat ! What a humiliation to the 
 proud King of Spain ! In this little ante-chamber, 
 on a heap of his own filth, in a moving mass of 
 vermin sent forth from his own body, Philip II. 
 gives up the ghost ! 
 
 It is said that Philip died grasping firmly the 
 same crucifix which Charles V. used in his last 
 
94 Daybreak in Spain, 
 
 moments. A friend of ours who visited the archives 
 of Simancas was shown Philip's last will and testa- 
 ment. The signature attests the pain of body and 
 prostration of mind in which the monarch passed 
 his last days. The deed is twice subscribed. The 
 first writing is illegible. Some one would seem to 
 have called the king's attention to the fact that 
 the writing might not be easily read. He then, 
 his hand, perhaps, aided a little, subscribed the 
 document over again ; and one can make out, in 
 the feeble wavering characters, " lo, il Rey " — " I, 
 the king ;" for such was the way in which the kings 
 of Spain subscribed their deeds — with the gold 
 dust still adhering to the letters. The same person 
 was shown Philip's marriage-contract. The royal 
 signature is in a fine, bold, fluent hand, contrasting 
 strikingly with the cramped, angular, straggling 
 characters appended to his last will and testament. 
 One scene more. Another official offers his 
 services ; the man lights two tapers, and, retaining 
 one, he gives us the other. We tread a long corri- 
 dor ; we arrive at a grated iron door. Selecting a 
 key from a bunch which he carries in his hand, 
 our conductor opens the door. We enter, and 
 descend a marble stair; our guide bids us take 
 care that we do not slip ; and the caution is not un- 
 needed, for the stones are polished like glass. 
 
The Escorial. " 95 
 
 Holding our taper up, we can see that walls and 
 roof of staircase are lined with a blackish marble. 
 We descend another stair, and yet another, and we 
 stand before another portal. Our guide draws our 
 attention to the inscription over it. It intimates 
 that we are at the door of the sepulchral vault of 
 the kings of Spain; but it gives us also to under- 
 stand that this is not a tomb, but a Pantheon — a 
 house of gods. When this tomb was reared, the 
 Spanish people, it would seem, were expected to 
 take their dead kings for gods. We recall the scene 
 we have witnessed in the halls above, and we say, 
 he is but a poor god who cannot withstand the 
 worm. " Wilt thou yet say before him who slayeth 
 thee, I am God 1 But thou shalt be a man, and no 
 god, in the hand of him that slayeth thee." 
 
 We hold our taper up as high as we can above 
 our heads, and are able to descry the form and 
 appearance of the chamber ; it is an octagon, 
 with marble sarcopJmgiy thirty-six in number, 
 ranged in rows running from top to bottom of the 
 vault, with the name of the occupant graven on each. 
 Very grand it is, but not so grand as the gorgeous 
 mausoleum of the Medici at Florence. An altar 
 is placed against the wall, to which, we dare say, 
 priest seldom comes ; still, it serves to distinguish 
 among the tenants of this dark abode ; for on the 
 
g6 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 right of the altar are the tombs of the kings, while 
 on the left of it are laid their queen-consorts, and 
 those who have borne the royal title but have not 
 reigned ; thus preserving a sort of etiquette in the 
 grave. The vault, we believe, is thirty-six feet in 
 diameter by thirty-eight in height; and it is placed 
 under the high altar, so that the priest, when he 
 celebrates mass, may elevate the host exactly over 
 the royal sleepers in the vault below. 
 
 We stood within a few feet of the dust of the 
 men with whose deeds historians have filled their 
 pages. We could almost touch the black marble 
 urn which contains the ashes of the Emperor 
 Charles V. Still nearer were we to that of Philip 
 II., which was immediately below and exactly 
 like that of Charles. Next came the sarcophagus 
 of Philip's imbecile son, and next, that of his yet 
 more imbecile grandson, and so on, till we came to 
 an urn that was without a name and without an 
 occupant. We inquired for whom was this tomb } 
 and were told that it was intended for Queen 
 Isabella II., the exiled descendant of Philip II. 
 The likelihood of her ever coming into the sepul- 
 chres of her fathers is not at this hour very great. 
 
 How deep the silence of this vault ! We 
 could not help contrasting that silence — prolonged 
 from century to century — with the noise and bustle 
 
The Escorial. 97 
 
 in which the men who lie buried here had passed 
 their lives. When they lived, they shook the world 
 with their intrigues and wars; now, they cease from 
 troubling. They have gone down to the sides of 
 the pit — all of them slain by the sword of Death, 
 though they caused sore terror in the land of 
 the living. Changes how many in the upper world 
 since they descended into this abode ! but here 
 changes there are none. Revolution musters above 
 their head ; they heed it not. The nations are 
 moved ; for these men sowed the wind, and their 
 posterity are reaping the whirlwind ; but the roar 
 of the tempest is not heard in this vault. Their 
 descendants go forth into exile, and the glory of 
 their house departs ; but their slumber is none the 
 less profound on that account. The Gospel enters ; 
 still they sleep on. So firmly rusted in its scab- 
 bard is their sword, that they cannot draw it forth. 
 Those once mighty princes, heedless of the sorrows 
 that darken around their posterity, and the troubles 
 that agitate their kingdom, here prolong from age 
 to age their untroubled slumber. 
 
 Philip, awake ! Why sleepest thou } awake, 
 arise. Kilowest thou not that the Reformation 
 has come back, and is now thundering at the very 
 gates of the Escorial t Hearest thou not the singing 
 of heretic psalms in thine own capital of Madrid ? 
 
 H 
 
98 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 Seest thou not these hundreds and thousands of 
 Spaniards who flock to the preaching of the Gospel 
 in Seville, in Barcelona, and in a score of other 
 towns ? Seest thou not that Bible-stall in Valla- 
 dolid, planted on the very spot where the glorious 
 autos-da-fe of old days were celebrated ? Luther 
 and Calvin and Knox are risen from the dead, and 
 are again preaching by a hundred tongues and 
 a hundred pens ; and yet thou, O most Catholic 
 king, slumberest ingloriously here ! Make haste : 
 delay not : come forth from thy marble tomb : 
 gird on thy sword : summon thy inquisitors : get 
 ready thy fleets and armies. Haste thee before 
 Spain is lost. What, no voice, no answer! The 
 Reformation is abroad. Loosed from the stakes 
 to which you bound it, it is speeding on its way 
 like a mighty angel, filling realms with its light, 
 whilst thou, O unhappy man ! art dwelling here in 
 darkness. Has thy tomb become thy prison } 
 Yes : and from that prison the archangel's trump 
 only shall set you free ; to place you, alas ! before 
 the tribunal of Him whose saints and martyrs you 
 slew, and whose name and reign you sought to 
 cause to perish from the earth. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MADRID. 
 
 Desolation of Landscape around — Moral State of the Capital — 
 Insurrection — Suspension of the Constitution by the Cortes — 
 Freedom of Protestant Worship maintained — Anticipated 
 Outbreak — Review of Troops — Sights of Madrid — Unheal thi- 
 ness of Site — The Palace — The Museum — The Church of 
 Atocha— " Our Lady of Atocha"— The Bull-ring— The Bum- 
 ing-ground of the Martyrs — A Witness from the Grave — 
 Revolution or Reformation — Spain's Choice. 
 
 Quitting the Escorial, with its sad, sad memo- 
 ries of bygone centuries — centuries in which the 
 dragon's teeth were sown, which are now yielding 
 crop after crop of armed men — let us forward 
 to Madrid. 
 
 It is a fine capital ; but, like the Escorial, it 
 stands in a desert. The Guadarrama mountains, 
 amid whose ranges tempests and icy winds are born^ 
 wall it in at some distance on the north, while an 
 expanse of brown soil — a. continent of baked clay — 
 extends around it on the other sides. Such is the 
 setting of Madrid. The green fields, the cottages 
 with their clustering vines, the stately mansions, 
 the towns and castles peering above the flourishing 
 woods, which one so naturally expects around a 
 
 H 2 
 
lOO Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 great capital, do not here exist. There is nothing 
 but the plain, in its utter nakedness, running out 
 to the horizon. And the eye, met by a scene in 
 which there is nothing to attract, but everything 
 to repel, naturally turns inward to the city itself, 
 in the hope of finding in the buildings, the foun- 
 tains, the statues, and the artificial gardens, some 
 compensation for the sterility outside. 
 
 The eye does find some such recompense, but 
 it is at the expense of the heart. The glance, if 
 at all trained, can detect the signs of worse evils 
 within than any without the city. The population 
 is evidently suffering from many evils — the off- 
 spring of one great evil. The majority of the 
 people are ill-clad. There is little business, nothing 
 to occupy either hand or head ; there is no indoor 
 life ; there is no substantial comfort ; there is much 
 gaiety, but little happiness. Alas ! we have but 
 turned from one desert to another. Outside the 
 city it is the earth that is smitten ; but within, it is 
 the people — the human soul. 
 
 A people naturally of warm sensibilities and 
 high aspirations, the Spaniards nevertheless, by the 
 very force of the qualities with which they are 
 endowed, have but gone the deeper into crime and 
 barbarism. One dare not recount what those, long 
 resident in the country, and thoroughly trustworthy, 
 
have told of its corruption. The vast majority 
 of the population grow up as ignorant as the 
 brutes, but with powers and passions which render 
 them far more dangerous than them. Though 
 every city has its army of priests, there is no in- 
 struction ; though every street has its church, there 
 is no worship. A "God who is a spirit" is as much 
 a lost idea to the Spaniard as to the ancient Pagan. 
 The popular devotion of Spain is every whit as 
 purely the worship of graven images as was that of 
 Greece. Home, with its purity and love, is all but 
 unknown. There is no confidence ; and this is 
 fatal alike to friendship and to business. Patriotism 
 is taken up as a trade. Life is little regarded, and 
 every one carries a revolver or a knife ; thefts, 
 robberies, murders, assassinations, and all the crimes 
 which come of revenge, lewdness, drunkenness, 
 covetousness, and starvation are of frequent occur- 
 rence. We have been told by those who have the 
 best means of knowing, that to hear of thirty cases 
 of housebreaking in a night, and half-a-dozen 
 assassinations, is not uncommon in some of the 
 towns, such as Madrid and Seville. The Spaniard 
 cannot value truth as truth, or understand why you 
 should be angry with him for telling you a fiction. 
 " Why," he will reply, '* it has given your grace 
 much pleasure, and done no one any harm." The 
 
''i02'' '<''' "'■ 'BAYBiiEAK IN SpAIN, 
 
 influence that can regenerate Spain must come from 
 a sphere beyond the earth. 
 
 We visited the capital at a critical moment. 
 Revolution was brooding in its streets ; and masses 
 of soldiers, with bayonets and cannon, were fre- 
 quently patrolling the thoroughfares, to prevent 
 insurrection lifting up its head, and breaking out 
 into open rebellion. All this, although Isabella 
 was away, and had been away a whole year. 
 Sovereigns flee, but the sword departs not. 
 
 We found the Cortes debating the question of 
 the suppression of the public liberties. All Satur- 
 day, all Sabbath, all Monday, all Tuesday, did the 
 debate'continue, and when, at the close of the fourth 
 day, the vote was taken, it was carried unani- 
 mously to suspend the Constitution ; for the re- 
 publicans had previously left the house in a body. 
 The plea on which this strong step was justified 
 was the sudden and portentous development of 
 republicanism, and the imminence of insurrection. 
 During the preceding four months there had 
 been a most extraordinary growth of republican 
 sentiments. In almost every town and village, 
 clubs had sprung up ; nightly debates had been 
 held ; opinions hostile to all society were being 
 openly avowed ; and the Government felt that 
 they could not stand still and see revolution ap- 
 
Madrid. 103 
 
 proach, nor calmly look on while the interests of 
 the nation were being wrecked. So at least they 
 said. It was strongly suspected that the priests 
 had a hand in this sudden outbreak of republican 
 and revolutionary sentiment all over Spain, in the 
 hope that the country, terrified by anarchy, would 
 welcome back the queen, and that with her would 
 return better times for the priesthood. And no 
 one doubted that the Isabellinists and Carlists were 
 doing all in their power, from a like disinterested 
 motive with the priests, to fan the flame and bring 
 on a conflagration. And so the Constitution, not 
 yet a year old, was suspended. 
 
 Unhappy 'country ! You taste of liberty, but 
 it is only for a moment ; the cup is hardly at your 
 lip, when it is dashed from it. Your armies, three 
 hundred years ago, trampled down liberty all 
 over Europe. Holland defied you, burying itself 
 beneath the waves of the North Sea; but other 
 countries, who had not the courage to resist, bowed 
 to your yoke. The cup you compelled these 
 nations to drink, you yourself are now draining 
 to the dregs. There are men in the midst of you, 
 who deny that there is a God. The proud triumph, 
 say they, and the weak groan : God does not 
 avenge these crimes ; therefore he does not exist. 
 Poor purblind men ! There is no need to look 
 
104 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 beyond Spain herself for the proof that there is 
 a God. Her crimes have been followed by three 
 centuries of retribution. Yes, there is a Provi- 
 dence, omnipotent as just, ruling among the king- 
 doms of men. Let Spain think of what she was 
 and what she is, and say whether there is not 
 One who can abase the lofty. 
 
 It is hard to say whether rulers or people are 
 more to be pitied — a tumultuous people who can- 
 not enjoy liberty without turning it into anarchy, 
 and selfish and unwise rulers who cannot repress 
 anarchy without overthrowing liberty. And yet 
 it is not difficult to trace, and certainly it is con- 
 solatory to mark, amid the follies and crimes of 
 men, the footsteps of a wise and merciful Provi- 
 dence, guiding the country by a path it knows not 
 to a higher liberty than it dreams of or aspires to. 
 It was the political liberty and not the religious 
 which was now in question in the Cortes. And the 
 liberty of worship stood when the liberty of repub- 
 licanism fell, and the Protestant chapel in Calle dc 
 la Madera remained open when the political club 
 was closed. During the comparatively tranquil 
 year which had passed, an evangelical church had 
 been planted in Spain. Till this little seed, from 
 which alone could come the liberties of the country, 
 had acquired some strength, the winds of faction 
 
Madrid. 105 
 
 were not permitted to blow. The Constitution 
 stood till the religious liberty had acquired some 
 foothold. As soon as it had done so, the Con- 
 stitution was, for the time at least, suspended. 
 There is scarce any mistaking the meaning of this, 
 or the lesson it teaches ; but it is too much to 
 expect that Spain as yet should be able to read 
 that lesson. 
 
 Madrid was uneasy. Rumours ran through it 
 that an outbreak was imminent, and night by night 
 the city slept under arms. The military were dis- 
 tributed in their cantonments, and ready at a given 
 signal to cover the whole capital with their fire. 
 We ourselves did not believe in an outbreak ; it 
 would have been madness, with from twelve to 
 twenty thousand soldiers in Madrid, to have 
 attempted anything of the kind, and so we did not 
 lose a moment's sleep all the time. But we observed 
 that our careful hostess night by night closed the 
 window-shutters of our bed-room ; and, as an in- 
 stance of the uncertainties and perils amid which 
 the citizens of these countries pass their lives, we 
 may mention that when we examined these same 
 window-shutters, we found them to be great slabs 
 of iron three inches thick. We should have had 
 some chance against a musket-ball, but none at 
 all against a cannon-shot. 
 
io6 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 Meanwhile business and pleasure went on all 
 the same. The cafes, theatres, and bull-ring were 
 all open, and not a man or woman the fewer was 
 there in these places of amusement, although it 
 was possible that there might be heaps of corpses 
 or pools of blood in the street before morning. 
 The only difference perceptible was that there was 
 a greater excitement in the thoroughfares, and 
 a continual patrolling of infantry and cavalry, and 
 a rumbling of artillery-carriages in the streets. 
 General Prim, moreover, thought it wise to edify 
 the republicans by a very imposing review of the 
 troops one day in the Prado. For this we 
 personally felt thankful to him, for it enabled us 
 to see the general himself, and also the Spanish 
 army. The former may be forgiven if he held his 
 head a little elate as he rode down the ranks. He 
 had just triumphed in the Cortes ; he is the 
 favourite of the army, and the destinies of Spain 
 were not just yet to leave his hands. As regards 
 the latter — the troops, to wit — they are a fine- 
 looking body of men, though doubtless it was 
 the flower of the army which was retained in the 
 capital. They were almost all youths, in very 
 showy uniforms, straggling a little in their ranks, 
 quick and easy in their movements, but without 
 the high martial bearing and iron-like compact- 
 
Madrid. 107 
 
 ness of rank and step which discipline gives the 
 British soldier. Still the Spanish army is a won- 
 derful creation, considering what it was a few 
 years ago. 
 
 We saw all the sights of Madrid, but we are 
 not to weary our readers by any description of 
 them. Our work is written, even as our journey 
 was undertaken, for a different purpose ; still we 
 may be excused a few passing observations. The 
 position of the capital is most extraordinary ; it is, 
 perhaps, the worst in all Spain, and this is one of 
 the boons for which the Spaniards have to thank 
 two men, whom they have some reason not soon to 
 forget — Charles V. and Philip II. It stands 2,450 
 feet above sea-level. Down upon it come the icy 
 blasts of the Guadarrama at their own sweet 
 pleasure, for shelter from tree, or wall, or hill, 
 Madrid has none. Around it is a naked plain ; for 
 the woods that once clothed it have been cut down, 
 and the earth spreads out glaringly white, with 
 scarce a patch of cultivation upon it, to the horizon. 
 The stricken race that live, or rather starve, upon 
 this great plain, have no idea of guiding the torrents 
 of the Guadarrama over it, or of digging wells in 
 it, or even of turning it with the plough. They 
 leave it to be baked by the sun, and frozen by the 
 cold ; and yet, would they take spade or plough 
 
io8 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 and unlock its riches, what a flood of corn and oil 
 and wine would it pour forth! The peasant, in 
 some danger of being swept away in the deluge 
 he had let loose upon himself, would be forced to 
 cry " Hold, hold !" to the bounteous earth. Madrid 
 itself is one of the unhealthiest of cities. It is 
 visited at once by fierce heat and biting cold ; on 
 one side of the street are the tropics, on the other 
 Siberia, you pass in one minute from the one ex- 
 treme to the other, and the consequence is that 
 the term of human life is here much shortened, 
 and nowhere perhaps in Europe are pulmonary 
 complaints more common. 
 
 We visited the palace ; it is a magnificent pile 
 externally. Unlike the Escorial, the rules of archi- 
 tecture have here been followed, and so this edifice 
 possesses much classic beauty and palatial splen- 
 dour. It is vast, but finely proportioned, although 
 lacking, of course, that air of ever-during stability 
 which the massy granite blocks of which it is built 
 give the palace of Philip II. The interior of the 
 palace exhibits a goodly display of tawdry gran- 
 deur. We marked that the throne has been taken 
 away, and that the gilded lions which stood round 
 it now guard an empty platform. A small piece of 
 crape thrown over them would convert them into 
 mourners, not more mute than others of the same 
 
Madrid. 109 
 
 profession ; and, certainly, if we are to call for "the 
 mourning men and the mourning women " it is here, 
 where lies, fallen and dishonoured, the once mightiest 
 of the thrones of Europe. How affecting the silence 
 that reigns throughout this vast pile ! In that court- 
 yard below there is now heard no roll of carriage ; 
 no grandee or mitred prelate now climbs that mag- 
 nificent staircase ; no gilded lacquey waits at that 
 portal ; no voice of mirth awakens the echoes of 
 that gorgeous roof — all is deserted, empty, and 
 silent ! " The bittern shall lodge in the upper 
 lintels of it, their voice shall sing in the windows, 
 desolation shall be in the thresholds, for he shall 
 uncover the cedar work." The Museum — for every 
 Continental capital, whatever else it may or may 
 not have, must have its museum — is one of the 
 finest in Europe. It is stored with the masterpieces 
 of Velasquez and other great painters. 
 
 A little way outside the city stands the church 
 of Atocha. It is one of the humblest edifices, but 
 one of the most famous shrines in all the Penin- 
 sula. In this chapel are hung up the flags taken 
 in the naval victories won when Spain was in her 
 glory. From sixty to a hundred banners are seen 
 floating from the roof. They serve to keep up the 
 prestige of the country in the eyes of the Spaniards, 
 who believe that Spain is still mistress of the seas 
 
no Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 and head of Europe, else why don't those nations 
 come and take back their flags ? When we entered 
 the chapel a priest was saying mass, and a boy in 
 a white surplice was waiting upon him and handing 
 him the things he needed. The boy, when he saw 
 us, left serving the priest and came to show us over 
 the lions of the building. We looked when the 
 priest would call him back and chide him for de- 
 serting his sacred duties. The padre, however, 
 was good-natured enough to make a shift to do 
 without the boy, and to permit him to earn a few 
 pesetas from the stranger. With a long stick he 
 pointed out the flags of the various nations, specially 
 naming that taken at the battle of Lepanto. 
 
 But the chief distinction of this church is an 
 image of the Virgin — " Our Lady of Atocha," to 
 wit — which is the third in rank of the deities of 
 Spain. " Our Lady " is black ; mighty miracles 
 have been done by her, notwithstanding ; and the 
 firm belief of the people of Madrid in her powers 
 is attested by the crutches, waxen arms and legs, 
 gowns and petticoats^, hung up as votive oflerings, 
 making the chapel look like a rag-fair. The origin 
 of the image is contested. Some say it was graven 
 by Luke, and brought to Spain by Peter himself ; 
 others hold that "Our Lady of Atocha" did not see 
 the light till the fifth century ; but be this as it 
 
Madrid, hi 
 
 may, she is the patron saint of Madrid, and the 
 great protecting goddess of the royal family. In all 
 their emergencies they invoke her, and whatever 
 " Our Lady " may have done for them, certainly the 
 marks of patronage the royal family has bestowed on 
 her are of the most substantial kind. Queen Isabella, 
 some little time before her flight, gave her a robe 
 worth, it is said, ;^30,ooo sterling. We looked ear- 
 nestly for her ladyship ; it was, of course, our main 
 errand to the chapel, but to our mortification we 
 found her place vacant. What had become of 
 " Our Lady of Atocha " } Had she gone to visit 
 her patroness, Isabella, and console her in her exile 
 with hopes of speedy return } or was she simply 
 conforming to the custom of the country, and 
 taking her midday siesta t or had she been acting 
 her part so ill of late, in permitting so many calami- 
 ties to befall the royal family, whose favours — not to 
 speak of the fine gown she was at that moment 
 wearing — had been so manifold, that she was now in 
 disgrace and had been sent away to rusticate t 
 Her story, we learned, was a more prosaic one. 
 Some one had lately taken a fancy to one of the 
 many jewels that adorned her robe, and thinking 
 that *' Our Lady " could spare It, had appropriated 
 it to his own use ; and so the priests, judging her 
 ladyship but little able to take care of herself in 
 
112 Daybreak IN Spain. 
 
 these troubled times of revolution, had locked her 
 up till quieter times should return. 
 
 Another popular institution we visited, although 
 we went no farther than the door — the bull-ring. 
 On our first Sabbath, between sermons, we saun- 
 tered as far as the gates, and found ourselves in the 
 proximity of a circular building of vast dimen- 
 sions, which we soon learned was appropriated to 
 that peculiarly Spanish pastime, the bull-fight 
 The placards announced that nine bulls were to be 
 that day brought on the arena, and the names of 
 certain piccadors, the popular heroes of the ring, 
 were announced as to engage with them. 
 
 The people were flocking in by thousands ; 
 women as well as men were crowding thither, and 
 leading by the hand girls of tender years, to witness 
 the bloody fray. The door stood open, and we 
 could see the spectators just beginning to fill the 
 vast sweep of the benches. The entire arrange- 
 ment was exactly similar to that of the Coliseum 
 at Rome, only one might pack some half-dozen 
 bull-rings into the huge circle of the Coliseum. 
 Our first thought was, " Well, we should like to see 
 a bull-fight, if but for once." Our second thought 
 was a recoil from the first. What ! were we pre- 
 pared, for the sake of this show, to profane the 
 Sabbath t True, we were in the capital of Spain ; 
 
Madrid, 113 
 
 but this did not alter the case in the least. The 
 Fourth Commandment is as binding in Madrid as in 
 London or Edinburgh. In the second place, were 
 we warranted to hire a few unhappy men, poor 
 enough, or demoralised enough, to be willing to 
 encounter the risk of being bruised, mangled, and 
 done to death, all for our amusement } For to this 
 it came. And if it should happen that they were 
 killed, could we hold ourselves guiltless of their 
 blood } But, in the third place, was the spectacle 
 of such a kind as could yield us amusement t Were 
 we, or ought we to be, capable of finding delight in 
 it t If it had pleased the Creator to make us 
 dogs, or wolves, or tigers, we might have had plea- 
 sure in a bull-fight ; we might have looked on with 
 amusement, while horses galloped round the arena, 
 their entrails trailing on its floor, or the blood of 
 the piccador himself dyeing it. But we were 
 men, not wild beasts, and therefore our pleasures 
 ought to be those of a man, not of a tiger. Nu- 
 merous priests were passing by, for it chanced to 
 be the hour when they return from the forenoon 
 masses, and close their cathedrals till the evening, 
 and this suggested the inquiry: How much moral 
 power is there in a religion, served by hundreds 
 of thousands of priests in Spain, which permits so 
 barbarous a practice to flourish so long in that 
 
 I 
 
114 Daybreak IN Spain. 
 
 country ? Were there a particle of spiritual virtue 
 in the cathedral, it would, long ere now, have put 
 down the bull-ring ; not in the way of abolishing 
 it by edict, but simply by rendering the people 
 incapable of taking delight in it. 
 
 As we turned away from the door the piccadors 
 rode up. They were mounted on gaily-caparisoned 
 mules, which trotted briskly up. The poor starve- 
 ling horses, on which the piccadors were to appear 
 in the ring and encounter the bull, awaited them 
 in a back court. The piccadors were showily at- 
 tired ; they wore leggings and breeches of yellow 
 buckram, their vests were richly embroidered, and 
 over them was a jacket all aglow with buttons 
 of silver-gilt and golden spangles ; round their 
 waist was bound a scarlet sash, and their som- 
 brero was as ample of brim as a cardinal's, and, 
 like the cardinal's, was adorned with divers crim- 
 son pendants. They were tall, strong-built, big- 
 limbed, coarse-featured men. We saw them enter 
 the back court, where some scores of ruffianly boys 
 greeted their arrival with shouts, which bespoke 
 the admiration in which they held these heroes, 
 and the interest they took in the bloody sport in 
 which they were about to engage. 
 
 We remarked that the only grave faces in the 
 crowd were those of the piccadors themselves. Their 
 
Madrid. i i 5 
 
 looks said pretty plainly to the youths who cheered 
 them so lustily, " It may be sport to you, but it is 
 not much of that to us." Mass was wont to be 
 said for these men before appearing in the bull- 
 ring ; we believe this practice is now discontinued, 
 and the more worldly expedient substituted of 
 casing the piccadors' limbs in thin plates of iron, 
 and swathing them amply with flannel, of course 
 under the gay outer clothing. Whether the wearer 
 deems this stronger armour of defence than the 
 priests' mass we cannot say. It would seem • he 
 does, for this Is the armour he now dons when 
 he goes to these conflicts. This peep behind 
 scenes did much to disenchant us of any im- 
 pression which may have been made by the gaiety 
 and excitement of the foreground. We left it with 
 a strong feeling of disgust at the unmistakable 
 and unmitigated barbarity and beastliness of the 
 affair. 
 
 We visited one day an arena of another kind, 
 where conflicts of another order were fought — an 
 arena on which the noblest of Spain's sons wrestled 
 for an immortal crown, and won it. It did strike 
 us as singular, and indeed full of promise, that the 
 land, which is par excellence the land of the bull- 
 fight, should be also par excellence the land of the 
 auto-da-ft\ Surely Spain will yet rise out of the 
 
 I 2 
 
1 1 6 Da ybreak in Spain. 
 
 abyss ! We refer to the field where the martyrs 
 of Spain's early reformation, which McCrie has so 
 touchingly chronicled, were burned. It is outside 
 Madrid, on the north-west, vacant at present, but 
 soon to be covered with promenades and elegant 
 buildings. 
 
 In order to find a suitable foundation for the 
 houses which the municipality had resolved on 
 erecting here, it was necessary to run a deep cut- 
 ting through the soil and rubbish which had accu- 
 mulated on this empty space. In digging, the 
 workmen came upon a subterranean mound of 
 human remains. The dust was black and shining, 
 as if steeped in oil, and formed a horizontal layer 
 or bed, which stood out in the broad open trench 
 from the white gravelly soil on which it rested, and 
 with which it was covered over. It was largely 
 mixed with calcined bones, with skulls having tufts 
 of hair in some instances adhering to them, and 
 jaw-bones with human teeth, and bits of charcoal. 
 This ghastly heap was evidently the memorial of 
 some tragedy of former times. What could it be } 
 It was remembered that here had been the burn- 
 ing-ground of the Inquisition ; and that, through 
 many a dreary year, that terrible tribunal had cele- 
 brated its aiitos-da-fe on this spot, and no doubt 
 was felt that these were the remains of its victims. 
 
Madrid. 117 
 
 The population of Madrid flocked to gaze on this 
 strange record of a past age. When where these 
 men burned, they asked, and what was their crime ? 
 And when they came to know the true import of 
 what had been so suddenly disclosed to their view, 
 and to learn something of the tyranny and crimes 
 of which it was the ghastly witness, they were 
 thrilled with horror. Orators took up the theme 
 in the Cortes, and declaimed on "the strata of 
 their soil," which had their " corresponding strata 
 in their history ; " and thus brought many of the 
 Spaniards acquainted with the story of the martyrs, 
 of whom, though they had been sleeping here in 
 hundreds and thousands in their immediate vicinity, 
 they had never before heard tell. Terror fell upon 
 the priests when this witness rose from the dead ; 
 and, instead of plotting how to compass the life 
 of the Bible-reader, they deemed it more prudent 
 to concert measures for protecting their own. 
 
 But how remarkable the timing of this dis- 
 covery ! Had it been made before the flight of the 
 queen, and when the priesthood were in power, 
 these memorials would have been consigned to the 
 darkness from which they had so unexpectedly 
 emerged. In some way or other the matter would 
 have been hushed up, and care taken that the pub- 
 lic should know nothing of it. As it was, what 
 
1 1 8 Da ybreak in Spain. 
 
 had been revealed could not be hid. There, in pre- 
 sence of the whole capital, was this yawning pit, 
 telling its dreadful secret, and flashing as it were 
 the flames of the autos-da-f^ in the eyes of all Spain. 
 It was as if the martyrs had risen from the dead. 
 We visited the spot during our stay at Madrid. 
 The cutting is several hundred yards in length, and 
 in depth not less, in some places, than from fifty to 
 sixty feet. It runs, so far as we could judge, right 
 through the centre of the human heap, which is 
 shown, of course, in section. It is seen on either 
 hand, as one passes along, looking like a seam of 
 the coal-measure, vividly relieved by the white 
 gravelly debris above and below it. On examin- 
 ing it, its contents felt slimy and slightly adhesive. 
 There was a large quantity of bones ; we picked 
 out several, the smaller ones evidently of the 
 arm and the fingers. We might have had any 
 number ; and of those that we did carry away, 
 some were blackened from the action of fire. 
 In the heap we noticed, too, bits of burnt wood, 
 fresh, as if the faggots of which, doubtless, they are 
 the remains, had but yesterday ceased to blaze. 
 This dark stratum stretched along on either side of 
 the broad trench for at least a hundred yards, 
 and was from five to ten yards in depth: This 
 enabled us to estimate the dimensions of the heap. 
 
Madrid. 119 
 
 It cannot be less than three hundred yards In cir- 
 cumference, with a depth of ten yards or there- 
 abouts at the centre. It was forgotten that such 
 a memorial existed, till, when no one was looking 
 for it, the earth opened, and up came this witness 
 from the grave to confront Rome with her past 
 iniquities. 
 
 Adjoining this space is the quadrangular en- 
 closure in which, it is said, the last aiito-da-fe was 
 celebrated ; the thick walls remain, the door of 
 Spanish oak, with its huge iron knobs, still closes 
 the entrance, and the holes in the walls, in which 
 were inserted the beams of the galleries, can still 
 be traced. It is now used as a cattle-pound. 
 
 Reformation or Revolution ! Such was the 
 alternative which the sixteenth century offered to 
 the European nations. Spain knew not how to 
 choose the better part. She sided with Philip II. 
 and Torquemada against the Reformation. Had 
 she chosen the martyr's part, all she could pos- 
 sibly have endured would have been as nothing to 
 the long centuries of tyranny and revolution, of 
 faction and civil conflict, of political debasement 
 and moral degradation, which have passed over her 
 since. Had she been willing to go to the stake in 
 the sixteenth century, her sons would not have 
 been dying on revolutionary gibbets in the nine- 
 
1 20 Da ybreak in Spain. 
 
 teenth. She was then at the very portals of liberty, 
 but she did not enter in. The sixteenth century 
 passed ; the door it opened to the nations was shut, 
 and Spain, to this hour, gropes in outer darkness. 
 Of nations, as of individuals, it may be said, " He 
 that loveth his life shall lose it." At that great 
 crisis of her fate Spain chose — what } Empire, 
 political supremacy, and glory. These, she be- 
 lieved, were bound up with Rome ; the tiara and 
 the imperial crown against the world. Such was 
 Spain's choice ; she had no faith in the spiritual 
 forces arrayed on the side of the Reformation. 
 These she could not see, and in them she did not 
 believe. But she could see the fleets, the armies, 
 and the political powers, which were banded to- 
 gether to uphold the Papacy ; and so she believed 
 in these, and cast in her lot with them, never 
 doubting that she was on the winning side, till she 
 saw empire departing, and found herself sinking 
 hopelessly into the gulf of barbarism. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE BIBLE IN SPAIN. 
 
 The One Thing Needful —What is It?— Can Art, &c., regenerate 
 a Nation? — A New Moral Power Needed— The Bible and 
 Conscience — A Sower — The Bible enters Spain — The Edin- 
 burgh Evangelisation Society — Success attending its Efforts — 
 Opposition of the Priests — Labours of the Wesley an Methodists 
 in Spain — National Bible Society of Scotland — Co-operation of 
 Providence — An Era of Revolutions — The State Distracted — 
 The Throne Shaken— The Church Weakened— The Nation 
 grows in Material Prosperity — The Evangelisation advances in 
 Silence. 
 
 No one, whether a passing stranger or a native, 
 can see Spain with its people so kindly, naturally 
 so intelligent, so self-conscious, and so gallant, 
 lying here from age to age in a gulf out of which 
 they are unable to extricate themselves, without 
 feeling that something is wanted here. What is 
 that something — that one thing which will compre- 
 hend everything, and which, as a natural result, 
 will bring all other necessary things after it ? 
 
 Opening the guide-book one day, we read, What 
 Spain needs is a middle class. That is one answer 
 to the question. We select it, because it is a 
 sample of others ; we would have the reader think 
 
122 Daybreak IN Spain. 
 
 how short a way it goes to solve the problem of 
 Spain. It is to the purpose to say that, what a bar- 
 barous country needs is civilisation ; but this leaves 
 entirely unanswered the question, how that civilisa- 
 tion is to be created. A great difficulty cannot be 
 solved by truisms, even should these truisms wear 
 the air of wisdom, and be uttered with a voice of 
 authority. 
 
 Ask others what it is that Spain wants. Some 
 will reply, she wants railways ; others, she wants 
 cultivation ; others will answer that she wants 
 public works, to give labour and bread to her 
 people ; others, that she wants schools. All this is 
 true ; Spain is miserably in want of all these 
 things, and other things besides. But again we 
 must remind our readers, that this is a list of evils, 
 not a list of cures ; what we seek is a cure for all 
 these evils. Simply saying that Spain wants this 
 and that will not bring it. In Spain it is the 
 human soul that is dead. We need something 
 which will call the soul to life — something which 
 will regenerate the nation. A regenerated people 
 will speedily regenerate the State in both its 
 political and industrial departments. What is 
 that something } 
 
 Can Art restore life to a nation 1 Italy made 
 trial of this instrumentality. She gave herself, in 
 
The Bible in Spain. 123 
 
 the Middle Ages, to the study of painting, of 
 sculpture, and music. She attained excellence and 
 won praise, but she did not achieve liberty. An 
 imagination, fostered at the expense of manhood, 
 only paved the way for a deeper slavery. Can 
 Literature and Philosophy regenerate a nation } 
 France, in the end of last century, tried this ex- 
 periment, and for awhile she dreamed that she 
 had succeeded. The splendour of her literary 
 genius attracted the gaze of all Europe. But a 
 literary taste, cultivated to the detriment of the 
 moral sense, only disrupted the bands of order 
 without breaking the chains of the tyrant. Revolu- 
 tionary anarchy led back again very speedily to 
 old despotism. Can Politics regenerate a nation } 
 Spain thought, by putting herself at the head of a 
 mighty empire, that she would make her prosperity 
 and freedom perpetual. She soon found how 
 greatly she was mistaken. The fabric she reared, 
 after crushing other nations, crushed, last and 
 deepest, herself The great Spanish monarchy 
 was seen to be the mausoleum, not the asylum, of 
 liberty. Yet another experiment ! The kings 
 and parHaments of Continental Europe, these 
 twenty years past, have been unweariedly labour- 
 ing at the task of framing constitutions and 
 enacting laws, in the hope of regenerating their 
 
1 24 Da ybreak in Spain. 
 
 kingdoms. The progress of national liberty has 
 not been encouraging. The growth of armies, 
 and the rumblings, from time to time, of 
 revolution, in its subterranean cave, show that 
 the right method has not yet been hit upon. 
 One greater than kings has but the other day 
 touchingly confessed that, although he does not 
 despair of the world's emancipation, it is long 
 of coming. It is indeed. Tyrants have been 
 chased away ; hierarchies are being trodden down ; 
 and yet the nations are not free. Every influence 
 — artistic, literary, political, and mechanical — has 
 been tried, and though each has done a little, it is 
 so very little, that it is scarce perceptible, and will 
 speedily vanish, unless a greater influence shall 
 come after. What the world needs is a new moral 
 power. The one thing it lacks is the restoration of 
 conscience. It is not new governments, or new 
 laws — we have been working at the wrong end — 
 but new men — men with a conscience — and so 
 having a law within them stronger than any power 
 of coercion without them. Then we shall have 
 order without armies. Not till then. But 
 how is conscience to be restored } Only by 
 permitting Him, who is the Lord of the con- 
 science, direct access to the individual man. 
 All tyranny begins in the usurpation of human 
 
The Bible in Spain. 125 
 
 authority over the conscience; and all external 
 tyranny is based on this inner tyranny. And 
 here must all emancipation of nations begin, in 
 the destruction even of this inner tyranny — the 
 enfranchisement of conscience ; not that it may be 
 without law, but that it may be subject to the 
 rightful authority of Him who is its Lord. In a 
 word, the one only thing that can restore conscience, 
 and so regenerate a nation, is the diffusion of the 
 Bible. But the Bible is the very book which the 
 governments of Europe combined to exclude. 
 
 The government of Heaven, however, is more 
 paternal than the governments of earth. It 
 pitied the nations lying bound in the chains of a 
 double slavery — political and sacerdotal. In the 
 end of the last century Christendom was shaken 
 by a great earthquake — the first French Revo- 
 lution. In that earthquake the ramparts which 
 a theocratic despotism had reared around the 
 kingdoms fell. Then it was that a sower went 
 forth to sow. A society, having as its sublime aim 
 the diffusion of the Bible over the whole earth, in 
 the tongues of all nations, sprang into existence. 
 This was the sower who now went forth, and this 
 the seed he scattered. Spain, however, was less 
 open than other countries, and so but little seed 
 could there be sown. The missionary, as he passed 
 
126 Da y break in Spain. 
 
 it by, on his way to more distant lands, could only 
 heave a sigh as he beheld its locked gates, and 
 saw the sentinels of darkness going their rounds 
 upon its walls. So late as the beginning of the 
 present century even, the case of Spain appeared 
 to be hopeless. The priesthood was powerful, 
 the government was altogether their tool, and there 
 seemed as yet no relaxing of the bigotry of the 
 people. But even then a movement had com- 
 menced, although hardly any one knew it. The 
 hearts of not a few Christians in Britain were 
 touched with compassion for that unhappy land ; 
 prayers began to ascend in its behalf; and a few 
 sowers went forth to cast a little seed on its fields, 
 as they might be able. The day had scarce broke, 
 but they remembered the command — " in the 
 morning sow thy seed." Verily, it seemed like 
 casting that seed away. The ground, to human 
 eye, appeared to have not one good spot in it 
 all. Here vice had made it hard as the " rock ;" 
 there bigotry and superstition converted it into 
 a thicket ; while overhead the heavens were as 
 brass. Why sow on the rock } Why throw pre- 
 cious seed among thorns and thistles } But these 
 men did not permit these considerations to weigh 
 with them ; they believed that the seed would find 
 a soil for itself, and that wherever it fell the rain 
 
The Bible in Spain. 127 
 
 and dew from heaven would distil, and so they 
 went forth scattering with willing hand to all 
 the extent which a jealous priesthood, served by 
 an obsequious government, permitted, the seed 
 which could not die. 
 
 A glad surprise awaited those early sowers. 
 Instead of the indifference and hostility on which 
 they reckoned, they found the Spanish people in 
 most cases eager to receive the Word of God. The 
 influence of the priests had long been on the 
 decline ; the faith of the nation in the Romish 
 religion had been greatly shaken ; they suspected, 
 though they dared not avow their suspicions, that 
 there was a deception at the centre of it. Of one 
 thing they were certain — even that it was a heavy 
 yoke : they wished to escape from it, but how they 
 could not discover, though they looked wistfully all 
 round. Such, when the first colporteurs touched 
 her soil, was the attitude of Spain, mistrustful of 
 Catholicism, yet ignorant of the Gospel. Might 
 not that Book be the very thing that would fill the 
 void within them 1 In the hope that so it might 
 prove, many of the Spaniards received the Bible 
 and read it ; read it, as our forefathers of England 
 and Scotland three hundred years ago did, at the 
 dead hour of night, when deep sleep fell upon the 
 eye of police and prelate. The first result in most 
 
1 2 8 Da y break in Spain. 
 
 cases was amazement that a system, whose false- 
 hood they now so clearly perceived, should for so 
 many ages have kept their country in darkness and 
 tyranny. But the process did not stop here in 
 all cases ; in some few it issued in that spiritual 
 enlightenment of mind, and in that renewal of the 
 heart, which the Bible alone can effect. These 
 converts, dispersed through Spain, became, each 
 in his own locality, centres of light. 
 
 The great Bible and Missionary societies of 
 England were not able to do much. They were 
 too well known and too closely watched ; and had 
 not a more humble and comparatively unknown 
 society arisen, the work would have lagged, or per- 
 haps stood still. This was the " Spanish Evangeli- 
 sation Society of Edinburgh." This Society was 
 so fortunate as to find a few agents of known piety 
 and fidelity and tact, and adopting methods of 
 working which it carefully kept concealed, and 
 from which it might not be prudent even yet to 
 lift the veil, it found doors of entrance into Spain 
 where its larger brethren could find none. To this 
 Society was mainly owing that large circulation of 
 Bibles and religious books which was effected 
 among the Spaniards in the dark years which pre- 
 ceded the revolution of 1868. We find, for instance, 
 from its Report in 1859, ^^at, with an annual in- 
 
The Bible in Spain. 129 
 
 come of little above ^700, it maintained five agents, 
 labouring in different parts of the Peninsula, and a 
 book and tract circulation of above 60,000 yearly. 
 "The Society has," to quote from the Report, 
 "during the four brief years of its existence, 
 effected a work in Spain, which has moved the 
 Spanish hierarchy to most vigorous efforts to con- 
 strain the Spanish government to adopt stringent 
 measures for staying the plague of heretical pro- 
 pagandism, by which, they affirm, Spain may be 
 speedily lost to the Roman faith, if not arrested in 
 its progress." The suspected door by which this 
 "plague" entered was Gibraltar, for we find the 
 Iberia, di Madrid newspaper, saying in 1859, "It 
 appears that the Protestant propaganda continues 
 to introduce its publications into our country, and 
 that generally by the way of Gibraltar, for they 
 are distributed in Algeciras, St. Roque, and Los 
 Barrios, as appears by the post-office marks.'* 
 Granting that the priests were right in their sus- 
 picions, Gibraltar was a door hard to shut. There 
 was, however, another door nearer them, which they 
 could have shut, but which, though they wearied 
 themselves in their attempts, they could not find. 
 They groped round and round it, but their eyes 
 were holden. Nothing remained, therefore, but to 
 vent their vexation, which they did in bitter terms. 
 
 J 
 
1 30 Da ybreak in Spain. 
 
 The Bishop of Cadiz issued a charge, which bore 
 testimony, on the one hand, to the progress of the 
 work, and, on the other, to his own deep mortifica- 
 tion at being unable to stop it. The Bishop's 
 <:harge was published in La Cruz, a Jesuit journal 
 of Seville. It was headed, '' Charge of the Lord 
 Bishop of Cadiz, in order to Stop the Circulation 
 of Bad Books," and ran as follows : — 
 
 "The enemy of mankind desists not from his 
 infernal task of sowing tares in the field of the 
 Great Husbandman ; and to us it belongs, as sen- 
 tinels of the advanced post of the house of Israel, 
 to sound the alarm, lest his frauds and machina- 
 tions should prevail. We say this because we have 
 lately read, with profound grief, in a certain periodi- 
 cal recently published, that the Protestant Bible 
 Societies, and associations for the distribution of 
 bad books, are redoubling their efforts for inocu- 
 lating our Catholic Spain with the venom of their 
 errors and destructive doctrines, selecting, in par- 
 ticular, our religious Andalusia as the field of their 
 operations. 
 
 "Although we purpose hereafter to deal more 
 fully with this important matter, yet we would not, 
 beloved of our diocese, lose one instant in warning 
 you of the danger, seeing that to our keeping is 
 entrusted, by divine and ecclesiastical right, the 
 
The Bible in Spain. 131 
 
 custody of the sacred deposit of faith and evan- 
 gelical doctrine, in conformity with the apostolic 
 command (i Tim. chapter vi. and 2 Tim. chapter i.) 
 and the decree of the Council of Trent. And this 
 vigilance is so much the more necessary in our 
 day, inasmuch as the authors and propagators of 
 evil doctrines aim at attacking religion and society 
 at one and the same time, making use of books as 
 their artillery for battering down, if it were possible, 
 
 both of these solid edifices We exhort 
 
 you, beloved of our heart, to fly from and to detest 
 these bad books ; and that you may not be seduced 
 or surprised into error, we order and dispose as 
 follows : — 1st. Our fellow-labourers, the parochial 
 clergy, shall watch with the greatest care and dili- 
 gence, lest there should be introduced among their 
 respective flocks any books or pamphlets which 
 treat of matters of religion .... 2nd. They, 
 the parochial clergy, shall keep an eye upon those 
 who are distributors of these kinds of books . . 
 . . and let an account be rendered to us of every- 
 thing which may have been observed or ascertained 
 by them in these particulars. 3rd. The said clergy 
 shall, in their pastoral exhortations at high mass 
 and at vesper service, impress upon their flocks the 
 imperative obligation to which they are subject, of 
 refraining from the perusal of bad books, as also of 
 
 J2 
 
132 , Da ybreak in Spain. 
 
 delivering up any which they, either through ignor- 
 ance or wickedness, may have in their possession, 
 . . . . 4th. The clergy aforesaid shall remit to 
 us whatever prohibited books they may be able to 
 lay hands on, in order to our causing them to be 
 publicly burned." 
 
 The following cry, which has a tone of almost de- 
 spair in it, was sent forth by the priests in the same 
 year. After stating the terrible fact that the " Pro- 
 testant propaganda had infested Catholic Seville 
 with Bibles and other pernicious books " (what a 
 pollution, "Bibles and other pernicious books " !) they 
 cast themselves imploringly upon the " State." 
 Their cry was enough almost to bring up Philip 
 from his dark vault. " All the unaided efforts of 
 the clergy," say they, " and of faithful Chris- 
 tians, will only be shattered and destroyed against 
 the machinations of the propagandists, if the su- 
 preme government of her Majesty, to whom is 
 entrusted the preservation and protection of the 
 holy religion of the State, does not speedily issue 
 definite and decided orders to the governors of 
 provinces, constraining them to use all vigilance, 
 and to prosecute and chastise with all the rigour of 
 the law every impostor and distributor of the 
 above-mentioned publications and pamphlets." We 
 see that there are not wanting in Spain at this 
 
The Bible in Spain. 133 
 
 hour heroic spirits who burn with a desire to rival 
 Torquemada, and rekindle the autos-da-fe of other 
 days. 
 
 It is but an act of justice to record that the 
 Wesleyan body was one of the earliest labourers in 
 the Iberian Peninsula. In 1824 a beginning was 
 made by the Rev. William Barber to preach the 
 Gospel to Spaniards in Gibraltar, in their own 
 language ; he succeeded in forming a small congre- 
 gation, which assembled in a private house, and to 
 which he ministered till his death in 1828. In 
 1832 the Rev. Dr. Rule landed in Gibraltar as a 
 missionary ; his arrival gave a new impulse to the 
 work, which had languished since the death of Mr. 
 Barber. He planted a native school on the Rock, 
 ministered to the congregation, delivered public 
 lectures on Romanism, and carried through the 
 press several tracts and books in the Spanish 
 language, which were put in circulation in Gibraltar, 
 Spain, and Spanish America. He established a 
 school and a mission in Cadiz, which were pro- 
 tected by Espartero ; but were put down in 1840, 
 when that minister fell. Dr. Rule was the first 
 who undertook a missionary tour through Spain, 
 opening correspondence in the country for the 
 British and Foreign Bible Society. He had, as his 
 successors in this department of the work, Lieut. 
 
1 34 Da ybreak in Spain. 
 
 Graydon, Mr. Borrow, and Mr. Alicante Walpole. 
 Energetic, persevering, and wise. Dr. Rule prose- 
 cuted till 1842 — with a success which must be 
 accounted great, when the character of the times is 
 taken into account — those measures for the evan- 
 gelisation of Spain, which he still continues, in 
 another form, in his own country. 
 
 Another labourer in Spain in the dark days 
 before the revolution was the National Bible 
 Society of Scotland. The first copy of the New 
 Testament ever produced in Spain in modern times 
 emanated from this society ; it was printed in a 
 cellar in Malaga. Some of St. Paul's Epistles — the 
 lights of all ages — were written in a dungeon. 
 This society has now an extensive colportage in 
 the Peninsula, and has just sent out a highly quali- 
 fied clergyman (the Rev. John Jameson) to superin- 
 tend it. 
 
 We find the society saying, in their last report, 
 " Every effort was made to improve the providential 
 opening in Spain. Colporteurs were employed in 
 Madrid, Seville, Granada, Malaga, Valladolid and 
 Burgos, La Mancha, Galicia, and Valencia. At 
 the October fair held on the Campo Grande of 
 Valladolid, Colporteur Flores, once an exile with 
 the lamented Matamoros, was one of a little com- 
 pany who sold some 400 Bibles and Testaments, 
 
The Bible in Spain. ■ 135 
 
 and 2,700 Portions, from a Bible-stand erected 
 near the spot, on which, 309 years before, sixteen 
 martyrs were burned alive. An important depot 
 was opened at Barcelona. The society's corre- 
 spondent sold at the Christmas fair in that city 
 upwards of 20,000 Gospels. Extraordinary excite- 
 ment was caused by the efforts of the priestly 
 party to interfere with the sale ; but their oppo- 
 sition tended only to further the work. * This,' 
 says Mr. Lawrence, ' is but the beginning : we shall 
 do like glorious things in other places of the pro- 
 vince. God be praised for all His goodness!' A 
 Bible-carriage is now being built at Barcelona 
 through the kindness of a few friends, who intend 
 to present it to the society. It will be employed 
 in visiting the great fairs in Spain. In all, 3,666 
 Bibles and Testaments, and 59,242 Portions, were 
 circulated in this country." 
 
 Scarcely had the labourers we have mentioned, 
 and others we have yet to name, begun their 
 operations in the Spanish Peninsula, when there 
 appeared signs in the political heavens, which 
 prognosticated change. Providence had come to 
 the help of these workers. About the year 1830 
 there opened an era of revolutions and civil strifes 
 in Spain. "How very unfortunate!" said many ; 
 and it is true that this state of things did appear to 
 
136 Daybreak IN Spain, 
 
 multiply the perils, already sufficiently numerous, 
 around the evangelist. It was, in reality, a shield 
 over him and his work. It was the commissioned 
 pioneer to open those dynastic and hierarchic 
 barriers which obstructed his path. Far from 
 pleasant were the rough blasts and the violent 
 shakings by which this was accomplished ; but 
 while these stood, he could not go forward. Now 
 it was the party of progress that was in power ; 
 now there would come a furious reaction, and all 
 that had been won would seem on the point of 
 being lost. Yet no ; it was not lost. Taking one 
 decade with another, liberal ideas continued 
 steadily to advance ; the dynasty, the miserable 
 tool of the priests, was getting progressively 
 weaker. "Anarchy," said some, " is coming fast 
 upon us." But, as the government lost political 
 power, the nation gathered moral strength. Band 
 after band of Spanish patriots were driven 
 from their country. " What a loss," was the com- 
 mon exclamation, " to the cause of Spanish 
 liberty!" It was, in reality, a gain. In England 
 these men learned lessons which, at a future day, 
 they returned to their native country to put in 
 practice. The whole nation was put under train- 
 ing — was sent to school — and select Spaniards 
 were sent abroad, that they might be the more 
 
The Bible in Spain. 137 
 
 thoroughly fitted for being instructors of their 
 countrymen. Thus, amid the rise and fall of 
 ministers, the flight and return of sovereigns, the 
 conflicts of factions in the senate, and of armies in 
 the field, the march of liberty was onward and 
 still onward. 
 
 The issue, which we state in brief here, and to 
 which we will return more at ' length afterwards, 
 was the new Constitution of Spain, which bears 
 date the ist of June, 1869, and which was pro- 
 claimed at Madrid on the 6th of June, and which 
 enacts, in sections 20 and 21, that, while the worship 
 and ministers of the Roman Catholic religion are 
 to be maintained by the nation, the public or private 
 exercise of any other form of worship is guaranteed 
 to all foreigners resident in the country^ and to 
 Spaniards. This formal, and it is believed perma- 
 nent, establishment of it affords cause for great 
 joy and thanksgiving. The Cortes deserve much 
 praise for its unreserved and unequivocal assertion, 
 in the face of a dominant and intolerant Church, 
 of this great principle. This enactment, new in 
 the charter of Spain's Constitution, has up till now 
 been faithfully carried out in practice. 
 
 In no country in Europe — not even in Italy — 
 was the " Church " so powerful as in Spain. At 
 this hour, we may say that what remains of that 
 
1 3 8 Da ybreak in Spain. 
 
 once enormously wealthy and powerful hierarchy is 
 but the ruins ; but even these are so gigantic, as to 
 strike the traveller who visits Spain with astonish- 
 ment. One does not wonder that it should still 
 exist; one wonders that it should ever have been 
 overthrown. The decline of the "Church" in 
 Spain is one of the most striking proofs which modern 
 times have furnished of the power and beneficence 
 of that Providence which rules over human affairs. 
 The process of its gradual consumption has been 
 going on for a century ; its revenues have been 
 drying up ; its lands and buildings are being dis- 
 posed of by public sale ; the number of its priests 
 has been cut down ; its monastic establishments 
 have been broken up ; its cathedrals and con- 
 fessional boxes are no longer crowded ; dispensa- 
 tions and pardons stagnate in the market ; and its 
 power over the conscience — the last to be lost — is 
 fast waning. And a most merciful arrangement it 
 truly is, by which prop after prop has been with- 
 drawn from beneath the building ; for the sudden 
 fall of so enormous a structure would have most 
 certainly involved society itself in ruin. 
 
 The growth of the nation in material prosperity 
 has kept pace with the decadence of the " Church." 
 Railroads have been introduced, and a new start 
 given to agriculture and trade. The army has been 
 
The Bible in Spain. 139 
 
 remodelled ; the national revenues have increased ; 
 the population, which had sunk to 7,000,000, has 
 risen to 16,000,000 ; schools have been multiplied ; 
 and a general quickening has visited the Spanish 
 mind, which has been unknown to it for centuries. 
 
 Such was the point reached by the country be- 
 fore the recent great change. No one dreamed that 
 the movement had advanced so far, till the flight 
 of the queen allowed it to reveal itself It is the 
 law of all great movements that they begin in 
 silence ; and the greater and deeper they are, the 
 slower and the more silent are they in their initial 
 stages. So is the rising of the tide. Millions and 
 millions of drops are in motion at the bottom of 
 the sea ; but there is no rush, no roar. The mass 
 of Ocean is silent as the grave. So, too, is the 
 growth of the forest. The sap is circulating from 
 root to leaf in every tree, through myriads and 
 myriads of vessels, yet the ear, listen as it may, 
 can hear no sound throughout the bounds of the 
 forest. So, too, is the ascent of the vapour to 
 heaven. Unseen, unheard, it rises through the air 
 from the whole face of the landscape, and we know 
 it not, till the black cloud covers the sky, and the 
 shower descends in blessing upon the earth. After 
 the same fashion did the work advance in Spain. 
 The seed had been largely scattered ; but the 
 
140 Da y break in Spain. 
 
 thoughts that seed had engendered in the hearts into 
 which it had fallen did not make themselves audi- 
 ble. They were kept in most cases within the 
 bosom in which they had birth ; nay, the expres- 
 sion of them was forbidden as a crime. But they 
 were none the less a power — a power which was 
 surely, though silently, transforming the nation. 
 For it is of the nature of Christianity to hide itself, 
 to turn inward, to go down, and yet deeper down 
 into the heart, that so it may incorporate itself 
 with the whole substance and being of the man, 
 and transform him, body and spirit and soul, into 
 its own likeness. Make a man a republican, and 
 straightway he begins to declaim and make a noise. 
 The new wine within him, being of the vine of the 
 earth, ferments, and must have vent. But the 
 water that cometh from above is not so. It enters 
 not into the brain, but into the soul. It with- 
 draws the man into his closet, and it leads him to 
 pour out his heart to that Father who hears in secret. 
 The ponderings of heart these years in Spain, 
 the searchings of Gospel and tract, the prayers, 
 the doubts and hopes, the fears and joys — which 
 alternately agitated and soothed the bosom of 
 thousands and thousands — are fully known to none, 
 and partially known to only a very few. But they 
 existed notwithstanding ; and we see in them the 
 
The Bible in Spain. 141 
 
 first embryotic elements of a new Spain. We behold 
 the foundations being laid of a kingdom which 
 will reign, not by the sword, but by reason and 
 righteousness, and which is destined, not to collapse 
 in rottenness, like that of Philip, but to endure, 
 and to wax in stature and in renown as the ages 
 pass on. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE SEED-TIME. 
 
 The Bible— All Great Moral Epochs come out of it— The World's 
 Great Missionary — The Bible enters Spain — Pioneers of 
 Spanish Evangelisation — Rev. John Ogle — Mr. Alicante Wal- 
 pole — Mr. Robert S. Clough — Effect of hearing the Bible for 
 the First Time— Dr. James Thomson — Incidents of Bible Col- 
 portage — Darkness of Spanish Mind — Perils of Colporteur and 
 Convert — A Scene — A Pilgrim — Eagerness for the Scriptures — 
 Fruits of Colportage — A New Start— British and Foreign 
 Bible Society, &c. — The '* Incorruptible Seed." 
 
 If any one asks, Whence has come that movement 
 which is stirring Spain ? we reply, It came out of 
 the Bible. Facts leave us in no doubt of this. It 
 is " the finger of God." No better guarantee can 
 we have that human power can neither arrest it 
 nor turn it from its course ; but that it will go 
 onwards, and at an earlier or a later day, through 
 many or fewer obstacles, reach its goal, and that goal 
 how sublime — a noble nation restored to itself; a 
 great country rescued from a degrading yoke, and 
 once more resplendent in knowledge and art, devot- 
 ing the whole energy of its renovated powers to 
 the diffusion of that Christianity which broke its 
 fetters, and brought it forth into the light ! 
 
The Seed-time. 143 
 
 How much has come out of the Bible ! " All 
 the rivers run into the sea," says the wise man, 
 " yet the sea is not full." All former moral cre- 
 ations — early Christianity, the Reformation — have 
 come out of the Bible, yet the Bible is not ex- 
 hausted. The harvests of all former years have 
 come out of the earth, yet the earth's fecundity 
 is not spent ; there remain as many harvests 
 behind. The light of all former days of time has 
 come out of the sun, yet the sun remains as full 
 of splendour as ever. So the succession of glorious 
 eras, destined to come out of the Bible, is not yet 
 closed. The glory of the latter day, whose dawn- 
 ings we behold in present changes, will yet come 
 out of it. What a wonderful book ! What a fount 
 of blessing ! Of all the proofs of the Bible's 
 divinity this is the grandest — it " renews the face 
 of the earth." 
 
 The Bible is the world's great missionary. Burn 
 it, it is still alive. Imprison it, it is all the while 
 pursuing its great mission. It is found journeying 
 in every land, speaking the tongue of every people. 
 When other missionaries die, and rest from their 
 labours, it may be said of the Bible, as of its 
 Author : " it fainteth not, neither is weary." On- 
 ward it goes, overthrowing the empires of despotism, 
 razing the altars of superstition ; nor will it pause 
 
1 44 Da ybreak in Spain. 
 
 till the new heavens shall span the globe, and the 
 first paradise be forgotten in the greater happi- 
 ness and glory of the second. 
 
 Comparatively few Bibles could enter Spain 
 while Isabella and the priests bore sway. Every 
 box that crossed the frontier was searched ; every 
 ship that entered a Spanish port was watched, 
 lest peradventure it contained the forbidden Book. 
 Day and night the guardians of superstition went 
 their rounds on the walls of Spain, and if in any 
 quarter of the sky they discerned a ray of light, 
 they instantly raised the alarm. Yet the vigilance 
 of the Bible's enemies was sometimes baulked by 
 the greater zeal of its friends. And certainly 
 nothing could exceed the mortification and chagrin 
 of the priests on finding that, despite all their pre- 
 cautions, the Scriptures and religious publications 
 were being circulated in Spain. How got in, or 
 by whom brought, they could not divine ; but there 
 they were in all the cities of Spain, in remote 
 hamlets even, stirring hearts, and initiating a revo- 
 lution which they well knew could have but one 
 issue — the downfall of their own power. 
 
 It may not be uninstructive to select here a few 
 examples. They are taken from a multitude, and 
 while they bring out in strong and beautiful relief 
 the activity, the perseverance, and the faith of 
 
The Seed-time. 145 
 
 those men, who in the evil day worked so hopefully 
 and wisely for Spain's deliverance, they bring out 
 not less prominently the fact, that it is indeed a 
 hard task to untie the fetters of slavery and rescue 
 a nation from superstition. The first three names 
 are those of men personally known to ourselves, 
 and from their own lips we had the recitals which 
 we are obliged to present in a sentence or so. One 
 of these was the Rev. John F. Ogle, of Jesus 
 College, Cambridge. He was a man of rare powers, 
 which were all devoted to the cause of the Gospel. 
 He resigned the living of Flamborough, in York- 
 shire, that he might go and evangelise in Africa. 
 Returning in the end of 1865 to his mission-field, 
 he was shipwrecked on the Algerian coast, and 
 there he sleeps till that day when "the sea shall 
 give up her dead." This devoted man would at 
 times cross the straits of Gibraltar, and make a 
 missionary tour in Spain. His journeys were per- 
 formed not unfrequently in weariness and hunger 
 He would lie on the hard couch and sit at the 
 meagre board of the natives — when fortunate 
 enough to find a meal by day and a bed by night 
 — and all this that he might give to this poor 
 people the Book that ''maketh wise unto salvation." 
 But he had worse foes than hard fare and sleepless 
 nights, namely, the Spanish police. When they got 
 
 K 
 
146 Da ybreak in Spain, 
 
 upon his track, as they often did, he would retire 
 to the mountains and remain in hiding till the 
 pursuit was over. He would then again venture 
 forth, and descending to the plains would resume 
 his work of scattering the good seed. Nor was 
 Mr. Ogle one who would neglect to water with 
 his prayers the seed he sowed, and He whom 
 he served is not unfaithful to forget these 
 prayers. The harvest will yet come, and when 
 it does, and the reaper is seen bringing back his 
 sheaves, not a little of that increase will be the 
 fruit of the seed sown by this devoted man. 
 
 Let us name another. We chanced, by the 
 merest accident as it seemed, to stumble on Mr. 
 Alicante Walpole, at Jerez, last October. He, 
 too, was one of the labourers in the vineyard of 
 Spain while it was yet dark. He told us that, 
 while engaged as colporteur to the British and 
 Foreign Bible Society, he had distributed 'in Spain 
 with his own hand not fewer than 60,000 copies of 
 the Word of God. In those days the roads in Spain 
 were too dangerous to permit of travelling, unless in 
 caravans, as is still the custom in Turkey. Even this 
 brought Mr. Walpole at times unlooked-for oppor- 
 tunities. When overtaken by a tempest, as would 
 sometimes be the case, the cavalcade would seek 
 shelter in the nearest wood. Here was an extern- 
 
The Seed-time. 147 
 
 porised congregation, made up of Spaniards of all 
 classes and from every province. Unloading his mule, 
 Mr. Walpole would draw forth a Bible and read from 
 it to the assembly. When the storm passed the 
 Bible was put back and the journey resumed ; but 
 the words of the prophet or apostle which had been 
 heard beneath the boughs of the cork or oak-tree 
 would remain and be rehearsed in distant parts 
 of the country. It happened on one occasion, that 
 a British nobleman, unknown to Mr. Walpole, was 
 in the company, and so much pleased was he with 
 what he saw, that he afterwards sent a large re- 
 mittance to the funds of the society. Mr. Walpole 
 was oftener than once imprisoned for his services 
 in the cause of Bible circulation. 
 
 We name a third — Mr. Clough, at Seville. Mr. 
 Clough is an Englishman, and had a previous and 
 special training for operating evangelistically in the 
 Peninsula. He became acquainted with Spain, first 
 of all, professionally ; next, he travelled over it as 
 a colporteur ; he is now connected with the work of 
 training its future preachers. We were much in- 
 terested to hear Mr. Clough relate the adroit way 
 in which he managed to introduce the Bible into 
 not a few of the rural parishes of Spain. On ar- 
 riving at a village his first care usually was to wait 
 on the cur6. "There must," would Mr. Clough 
 
 K 2 
 
148 Da ybreak in Spain. 
 
 say, " be many poor people here ; permit me ta 
 hand you a dollar for their use." This would im- 
 mediately put him on good terms with the priest 
 This was an important point gained. Very soon — 
 it might be next day, or the day after — there 
 would come a message to him, to the effect that 
 the priest wished to see him. At the interview 
 that followed Mr. Clough would take care not to 
 be the first to speak on religion. He always 
 allowed the priest himself to introduce the subject, 
 and usually not many minutes elapsed before he did 
 so. "Ah!" would Mr. Clough say, in reply to 
 some observation which had dropped from the 
 priest, " that is not according to what I read in the 
 Bible." *' A Bible ! " would the priest exclaim, 
 "have you a Bible V "Of course, as an English- 
 man, I have a Bible. Have you no Bible V " No," 
 would be the reply ; " but I should much like to 
 have one." " But permit me to caution you," would 
 Mr. Clough say ; " it is a dangerous book for you 
 to have; it may get you into trouble." "But," 
 would the priest reply with animation, "no one 
 shall know of it. I shall be careful." " But should 
 your bishop come to know that you have a Bible, 
 I should very much regret what might follow." " I 
 will keep it under lock and key," would the priest 
 say, with increasing energy ; " I shall take good 
 
The Seed-time, 149 
 
 care that the bishop shall know nothing of 
 it. Don't be afraid." And having brought 
 the matter to this point, Mr. Clough would 
 give the cure a copy of the Scriptures. In 
 a day or so the village doctor would come beg- 
 ging a Bible, and Mr. Clough would supply him 
 also. He would then once more wait upon 
 the cure. "Well, you have been reading the 
 Book, I presume.^" ''To be sure I have." "And 
 what do you think of it V " Oh, it is a very good 
 book ; I like it much." " Have you any objection 
 that I assemble a few of the villagers, and read a 
 chapter or so to them." " None whatever." Not 
 an evening would Mr. Clough let pass before he 
 had gathered a little knot of the villagers round 
 him, and commenced his readings to them from the 
 Bible. Not a man of them had seen or heard a 
 line of it all their lives before. The intensity of 
 their interest, said Mr. Clough, no man can de- 
 scribe. They were spell-bound ; they stood en- 
 tranced, like men listening to some wondrous 
 melody wafted to them from some far-off sphere. 
 Its simplicity, its beauty, its majesty, like electric 
 fire, touched their souls, and awoke within them 
 emotions unfelt till then. The earlier narratives of 
 the Bible, and, above all, the story of Joseph and 
 his brethren, specially fascinated them. As the 
 
1 50 Da ybreak in Spain. 
 
 story went on, the corresponding emotion showed 
 itself on their faces. They loudly denounced the 
 " rascality " of the men who could sell their 
 brother into slavery, and very plainly hinted, as 
 did the French king in similar circumstances,. 
 that, had they been there, they would speedily 
 have put the matter to rights. They wept when 
 they read how the torn and bloody coat was shown 
 to the old man, "their father." But when they 
 came to the close of the history, and the higher 
 ends of Providence began to break upon them, 
 loftier and calmer feelings took possession of their 
 minds. Mr. Clough was very much struck with 
 the wisdom shown in placing the biographies 
 and narratives of the inspired volume first, and 
 reserving the doctrines to the close. If any one 
 wishes to test the immeasurable superiority of the 
 Bible to every other book, let him take a grown 
 man who has never read a line of it, and let him 
 recite to him, first, the work of highest human 
 genius, and, next, a chapter from the Bible, and let 
 him mark the difference in the effect produced. 
 Without previous culture the one cannot be appre- 
 ciated at all. The very savage feels the power of 
 the other. What an instrument of humanising 
 and civilising the species — to assign the Bible no 
 higher function — have we in this Book ! Literature 
 
The Seed-time. 151 
 
 is like a man going round the earth at midnight 
 with a lantern ; the Bible is the rising of the sun. 
 
 Among the pioneers of Spain's regeneration we 
 must inscribe a fourth name — that of Dr. James 
 Thomson. No one who has met him can forget the 
 humility, the sweetness, the unaffected piety, and the 
 robustness of character underneath a velvety surface, 
 which marked the man. He cherished a strong 
 conviction that the emancipation of Spain was at 
 hand. It was a grand faith in those days when 
 there was neither green upon its fields, nor cloud 
 in its sky ; but " faith," like " wisdom," is justified 
 of her children, and events since have more than 
 justified the Christian forecast of Dr. Thomson. 
 He laboured assiduously in devising plans for in- 
 troducing the Scriptures into Spain, and had just 
 extended and matured those plans when he died. 
 But his work did not stop. From his ashes, we 
 may truly say, sprang the "Spanish Evangelisation 
 Society of Edinburgh." Its founders were those 
 whom — it was the last labour he was to do for 
 Spain — he had interested in the cause, and on 
 whom his work now devolved. That society con- 
 tains names, some of which (as the Rev. Sir Henry 
 Wellwood Moncreiff, Bart.) are of ancestral dis- 
 tinction in the Christianity of Scotland, and others 
 of men (as Andrew Jameson, Esq., Sheriff of 
 
152 Da ybreak in Spain. 
 
 Aberdeenshire) in high official position, or known 
 for their Christian philanthropy ; but it is only- 
 justice to state, that the founder of the society 
 was a lady, who, ever since the death of Dr. 
 Thomson, has laboured for Spain with a rare hope- 
 fulness, and a success equal to her hopefulness. 
 In doing justice, we wish to avoid giving pain, 
 but we must here record the name of Maria D. 
 Peddie. That name is indelibly inscribed in 
 the annals of the Spanish Reformed Protestant 
 Church. 
 
 Numerous incidents might we here relate, did 
 our space permit, illustrative of the perils with 
 which Spanish colportage was beset in former 
 years, as well as of the dense ignorance of the 
 Spanish mind, which had begun, however, to grope 
 for the light. We find, for instance, a Spanish 
 peasant addressing the evangelist thus : — " If you 
 profess to teach religion, why is your head not 
 shorn 1 " Alas ! for the wisdom which the scissors 
 of Rome imparts. Another we find inquiring as 
 to the price of pardons, '"according to the new 
 worship. Another objects to receive a New Testa- 
 ment, because he has been told that it is a book 
 written to propagate a new religion, and is opposed 
 to the Old Testament, a copy of which he has at 
 home; but on submitting his "Old Testament" 
 
The Seed-time. 153 
 
 to examination, it is found to be made up of a 
 " catechism and missal." Another, who had re- 
 ceived a Bible from the colporteur, on again meet- 
 ing him, says, " I see it is not necessary for a man 
 to wear a priest's robe in order to do good to his 
 fellow-creatures. Your book has been the balm to 
 heal my broken heart ; the priest would have asked 
 me for so many dollars for masses and lighting 
 candles." Another complains that " the Queen of 
 the angels never answers her prayers," and is 
 directed to One who will. " Senores, I am a good 
 man — a very good man," we find another saying, 
 declining at the same time the offer which had been 
 made him of a New Testament ; " I was born a 
 Catholic, and am a Catholic still, and, please God, 
 I intend dying in the faith I have lived, which is the 
 only true faith. I confess regularly, comply with all 
 the obligations laid on me by the Church, and am 
 content to be guided by my spiritual advisers. I 
 thank you for your offer of the New Testament, 
 but it would be of no service to me." In some 
 places the vicario publicly denounces the evan- 
 gelists, and the citizens come by night to learn 
 what this new gospel may be. In another instance, 
 the colporteur arrives in a certain town, and finds 
 that he has an hour to wait. He visits the cathe- 
 dral, and, finding it quite empty, places a copy of 
 
1 54 Da ybreak in Spain. 
 
 the Bible upon the high altar and departs. On the 
 doorstep of the Fonda, where he is to pass the 
 night, the evangelist would sometimes preach the 
 " good news " to a chance congregation of passers- 
 by. When he has ended, the people might be over- 
 heard, saying, " What man is this ? Whence has 
 he come ? What strange things are those he has 
 told us ! " During the tyrannical administration of 
 Narvaez, when the secret police were continually 
 on the colporteurs* track, it fared hard with the 
 evangelist, and still harder with the convert. To 
 quote from the report of one of the colporteurs of 
 the "Spanish Evangelisation Society," in 186$: 
 *' They always carefully examine the room, and lock 
 the doors, before saying a word. Upon one occa- 
 sion I spoke for some time to several persons 
 without eliciting a single expression, either of 
 assent or dissent. Muffled up in cloaks to the eyes, 
 they sat mute hearers of the Gospel, not daring to 
 express an opinion, for fear of betrayal. *Is not 
 my Word, saith the Lord, like a fire, and like a 
 hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces } ' " We 
 find another writing: "As an instance of the destitu- 
 tion and ignorance of the Spanish mind, I may 
 
 mention a visit in P , where I found nine men 
 
 in one place, none of whom had ever seen a Bible, and 
 two of them did not know what a Bible was. It really 
 
The Seed-time. 155 
 
 was pitiable to see their perplexity, as they wonder- 
 ingly said, * Biblia, Biblia, que es ? ' (Bible, Bible, 
 what is it ?) Yet these men could employ sensibly 
 enough the phraseology of the religion of Rome in 
 such inquiries as these — Who is your patron-saint ? 
 How many saints do you worship ? " 
 
 On another occasion we find the colporteur and 
 a priest thrown together in a railway carriage. The 
 priest, hearing the colporteur speak of a certain 
 mountain on which is a shrine of " our Lady," and 
 knowing that he has just come off a tempestuous 
 sea -voyage, says, " I see you made a vow to the 
 Virgin, and are going on a visit to her shrine." 
 " No," replies the other, " I prayed to God, and He 
 stilled the winds and the waves." " Sefior Inglis," 
 responds the cure, " it is a good thing to pray to 
 the Virgin." Then follows a sharp controversy on 
 Mariolatry. A lady in the carriage counsels the 
 colporteur to have a care what he is about — that the 
 cures of Spain are well up'in the Fathers, and that 
 if he continue the argument, he will certainly be 
 annihilated. The colporteur, however, does con- 
 tinue the discussion, even at this formidable risk. 
 Pulling out a Bible, he reads passage after passage 
 condemnatory of image and creature worship, and 
 presses home these Scripture texts by argument. 
 The priest, overwhelmed by the boldness and 
 
156 Da ybreak in Spain. 
 
 fulness of the assault, makes no reply, and sits, 
 silent for the rest of the journey. Soon, however, 
 the train arrives at the station where he is to leave. 
 Getting quickly out, he no sooner steps upon the 
 platform, than, turning round and crossing himself, 
 he addresses his opponent, " God deliver us from such 
 company ; of a truth thou art an English heretic 
 of the first water !" " Well, I would have answered 
 you, at any rate," interposes the lady, who had been 
 watching the result. " If I were a man I would 
 never give in." " Unless you were vanquished," 
 responds the colporteur. "Well, if beaten in 
 honourable combat," replies the other, " I would 
 not curse my conqueror." 
 
 The following is a specimen of colportage in 
 the year 1863. The writer is " Sigma," whose fre- 
 quent and interesting letters are well known to the 
 readers of the Spanish Evangelical Record, and 
 who, there is now no impropriety in saying, is the 
 Mr. Clough to whose labours in the cause we have 
 referred above. " This month my labours have 
 been principally upon the high-roads and bye-roads 
 
 of , I generally leave home about nine o'clock 
 
 in the morning, and take a walk varying from five 
 to twelve miles away from the town. I always 
 select a spot by the roadside, where every passer- 
 by must see or hear me, and then commence 
 
The Seed-time, 157 
 
 reading aloud a chapter in the New Testament. A 
 crowd soon assembles ; first one stops and listens, 
 then another, and another — Arrieras, Carreteras, 
 Gitanas, and travellers on foot — till I sometimes 
 have as many as forty people round me. My 
 hearers frequently listen reverently and patiently, 
 and thank me when I have concluded. Some 
 laugh and scoff, declaring the priests alone are 
 able to read and understand the Scriptures aright. 
 Others walk thoughtfully away, while upon several 
 occasions some have even threatened to kill me. 
 *Thou heretic !' said a man, 'dost thou counsel me 
 to fly to Jesus, as the only way whereby I can be 
 saved ? Art thou wiser than the tens of thousands 
 of Fathers in this and other lands } Wilt thou set 
 thy insignificant self in opposition to El Padre 
 Santo, and make the Vicar of Christ a liar } Wilt 
 thou tell me to my face that my forefathers are 
 condemned, because they lived and died in the 
 Roman Catholic faith 1 for thou sayest there is but 
 one Mediator between God and man, the Man 
 Christ Jesus. I say thou liest, for the Mother of 
 God has power to intercede for us with God, and 
 to bestow good things upon those who faithfully 
 believe in her name. Friends,' he added, 'there 
 are already too many heretics in the land, and if 
 you love your country, God, and the Virgin, you 
 
158 Da vbreak in Spa in. 
 
 will follow my example.' And the man struck me, 
 spat in my face, and threw dirt upon me. A tall, 
 powerful man immediately stepped from the crowd 
 and said, 'You have heard why we should strike 
 and otherwise ill-treat this person ; let me tell you, 
 then, why we should not do so. The words which 
 he has read are not his own, but God's words ; 
 therefore, if they are untrue, the fault rests with 
 God alone. Several here have known me for years, 
 and can vouch for my being a good Catholic. As 
 a good Catholic, I am bound to love my neighbour 
 as myself, and I protest against any man being 
 treated as has been proposed. Let us have fair 
 doings ; away with cowardice, and Viva Espana ! 
 First of all, prove that the words said are false, and 
 then we shall consider what should be done.' This 
 speech elicited a shout of applause." 
 
 During all these years, as shown in the record 
 of these labours, we can trace a growing eagerness 
 on the part of the Spanish people to possess the 
 Bible. The government hangs its penalty and the 
 priest his anathema over their heads ; nevertheless, 
 the people crowd round the colporteur, not simply 
 to beg but to buy, and his stock of Testaments 
 and tracts is hardly opened before it is gone. He 
 writes home for a fresh supply, and that, too, has 
 scarcely arrived in Spain when it is scattered ; eager 
 
The Seed-time. 159 
 
 hands grasp the precious Book, and sparkling eyes 
 tell the joy its possession gives. How many thou- 
 sands of copies of the Word of God, and how many 
 hundreds of thousands of gospels and tracts have 
 thus been distributed in the Peninsula, no man can 
 tell. The sower does not count the seed he sows 
 in spring ; he flings it wide around him over the 
 fields, knowing that it will all be found again in 
 harvest. And so did those sowers in Spain. They 
 scattered the seed with liberal hand, knowing that 
 it could not die, and that each seed would contri- 
 bute its share to the great coming harvest. 
 
 Let us here introduce the testimony of a some- 
 what remarkable witness. An agent of the Spanish 
 Evangelical Society, travelling in the province of 
 Estremadura, overtook, one day in 1865, a pilgrim 
 on the road ; he was a Spaniard — verging on seventy, 
 though his natural force was but little abated — and 
 wore the pilgrim habit — a close-fitting, black skull- 
 cap ; a long, loose gown of serge ; a band of the 
 same, ornamented with small shells, round his neck; 
 rope-sandals on his feet, and in his hand a long 
 staff. This man had drunk of that water whereof 
 he that drinketh shall never thirst, and was anxious 
 that his countrymen also should taste its sweetness. 
 And here he was, and had been for years, traversing 
 the rough roads of Spain, climbing its sierras, and 
 
i6o Da ybreak in Spain. 
 
 going from hamlet to hamlet, quietly imparting the 
 good news to the villagers. He had no connection 
 with any society, but was entirely dependent on 
 Providence ; he had gone forth, as Dante describes 
 the first evangelists, " eating his bread, as chanced, 
 at the first table." The Bible had been his only 
 teacher, and what he knew he communicated to 
 those of his countrymen in the secluded districts, 
 who were willing to listen. His statements regard- 
 ing the then religious condition of Spain are of 
 great interest; they were made to "Sigma," and are 
 given in the Spanish Evangelical Record for 1865. 
 We extract only a small portion. " The efforts of 
 English societies to circulate the Scriptures in the 
 Peninsula have already met with great success. 
 The owner of a Bible invariably has some bosom 
 friend with whom he reads its divine truths, and he 
 again generally has another confidant ; and thus a 
 knowledge of the Word is spread, till, like a grain 
 of mustard-seed, it grows into the largest of all 
 trees. Among the wild fastnesses of the Sierras 
 Nevada and Morena are numerous little hamlets, 
 inhabited by hardy mountaineers, who meet to- 
 gether to read the Word. I have lived among them 
 months at a time, devoting every spare moment to 
 copying the Gospels, and some of Paul's Epistles, 
 upon large sheets of paper, which have again been 
 
The Seed-time. i6i 
 
 exactly copied and extensively circulated. From 
 Seville I carried five Bibles, all I could procure, to 
 as many influential men who lived in these out-of- 
 the-way districts ; and they have lent them about, 
 till I believe nearly every book in the whole Bible has 
 been copied and re-copied. The books mostly in 
 demand are Genesis, ist and 2nd of Samuel, 
 Esther, Psalms (especially). Proverbs, Isaiah, 
 Jeremiah, the four Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, 
 Romans, Hebrews, and Revelation. Even in the 
 midst of the dreary and almost desert province. La 
 Mancha, portions of the sacred Scriptures have been 
 extensively circulated ; and I know of two priests 
 in adjoining hamlets who, for years, have not said 
 a mass, or officiated at the altar. They live upon 
 alms, and spend their days and strength in the 
 cause of the Saviour. In every province the Lord 
 has his own. They live peaceably and quietly, and, 
 where I have thought it prudent, I have endeavoured 
 to bring them together. I have known Christian 
 men, desirous of partaking of the Lord's Supper, 
 meet together at a half-way house that has taken 
 them two or three days' journey to reach. The day 
 invariably chosen is the Sabbath ; and I can testify 
 that such meetings are seasons of much refreshing 
 from above, for the Lord confirms their faith, and 
 gives richly of his Holy Spirit the Comforter." 
 
 L 
 
1 62 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 Just three years after came the revolution, which 
 abolished all restrictions, with the exception of that 
 which time only can remove — the lingering bigotry 
 of the people. Since 1868, Bible colportage in 
 Spain has taken a fresh start; there are, at this hour, 
 no limits to it, save those which the amount of home 
 support necessarily imposes. But, as we wish to pass 
 to another stage of the movement, we shall speak 
 only of what the British and Foreign Bible Society 
 has done since the larger opening. This Society 
 printed, before the revolution, an edition, amount- 
 ing to 5,000, of the Scio, or Roman Catholic 
 version of the Bible. The government, however, 
 forbade the distribution of it ; but since 1 868, this 
 Society has thrown itself energetically into the field. 
 
 We state the details as the Rev. M. Curie, its 
 intelligent and assiduous agent, stated them to us 
 in Madrid. There are now more than eighty Bible 
 depots in Spain in connection with the British and 
 Foreign Bible Society. This gives about a dep6t 
 to each province, and in some provinces there are 
 more than one depot. At all of these, of course, 
 the Bible may be bought; but, as many will not 
 come to buy, the services of the colporteur are 
 essential. There are twelve colporteurs; the centres 
 of the greatest activity are Madrid, Barcelona, 
 Saragossa, Valladolid, Corunna, Leon, Ciudad Realy 
 
The Seed-time. 163 
 
 the whole of Andalusia, but more especially Ali- 
 cante, Carthagena, Valentia, and many other towns. 
 We have named them in the order of their import- 
 ance. 
 
 As to the number of copies of the Scriptures 
 circulated by the British and Foreign Bible Society 
 in Spain since the flight of the queen in 1868, we 
 are to take into account that the statement of ope- 
 rations comes down only to the ist of October, 1869 
 — ^that is, eleven months. Making allowance for 
 copies which may be lying at depdts throughout 
 the country, not yet put into circulation, and fixing 
 that allowance as high as 78,000, which is nearly 
 one-half of the whole, we have this result, viz. : 
 100,000 copies of the Scriptures, in whole or in 
 part, circulated in Spain since the monarchy fell. 
 And we ought to add, that of the number put into 
 circulation two-thirds at least have been sold. And 
 when we consider the deep poverty of the Spaniards, 
 it is not conceivable that any large number, at 
 least, would buy the Bible, unless they were really 
 desirousto possess and read it. 
 
 Not more than six months ago we met at 
 Madrid two of the Directors of the British and 
 Foreign Bible Society. Those gentlemen told us, 
 that in their journey over the country many inci- 
 dents had come to their knowledge which had sur- 
 
 L 2 
 
164 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 prised and gladdened them, showing the silent 
 action of the heavenly seed in years gone by, and 
 the incipient evangelism which was even then, like 
 the first green of the year, appearing on the fields 
 of Spain, although it escaped the eye of man. In 
 reading portions of the New Testament to the 
 people in the rural parts, those to whom they read 
 would at times interrupt them, and say, " Oh, 
 we know all that ; we have heard it before. Our 
 father," would they say, "was wont to take out an 
 old book from its place at stated times, and to read 
 all that, and much more, out of it to us. Yes, we 
 never can forget the poor prodigal. We saw him 
 come back from feeding his swine. We saw him 
 present himself at his father's door, and, oh ! how 
 lank and hungry, and what a pitiable figure he 
 looked in his rags. We saw the old father rush 
 out, and, oh, with what a burst of joy and tears he 
 folded him to his bosom ! Ah ! may not we be that 
 poor prodigal.? And well, too, do we remember 
 the woman who took her little bit of leaven, and 
 hid it in the meal ; and we watched till we saw it 
 leaven the whole lump, and we thought. May not 
 that Book be the little bit of leaven t And the 
 sower too — Did we not see him take his bag of seed, 
 and go out into the field where there was no green 
 thing, and did we not see him scatter the seed on 
 
The Seed-time. 165 
 
 that field ? and oh ! what a lovely harvest soon 
 covered the barren ground. Since hearing these 
 things we have gone but seldom to mass. If that 
 be Protestantism, then we are Protestants." 
 
 In the first eight months of 1869, the Spanish 
 Evangelisation Society circulated 335 copies of 
 Valera's (Protestant) Bible, 7,289 New Testaments, 
 41,749 portions of Scripture, and 69,831 evangelical 
 tracts ; making a total of 1 19,204 publications 
 containing Divine truth.* American societies 
 and numerous private parties have largely supple- 
 mented the efforts of these two British organisa- 
 tions. Daily do these labourers multiply, and 
 daily does the sphere widen over which the seed is 
 being sown. 
 
 This is that Word which calls the dead from 
 their graves. It has been largely sown on the soil 
 of Spain these years past, and will be still more 
 largely in years to come. We cannot look below 
 the surface and describe the process of germina- 
 tion. The eye of man seeth it not ; we only know 
 the fact that the seed has been sown — sown where 
 there has been no such sowing for at least a thou- 
 
 * Contributions for this Society received by Mrs. Robert Peddle, 
 Hon. Secretary, Grange Bank, Edinburgh ; Ebenezer Mill, Esq., 
 51, Princes Street, Edinburgh; Messrs. Nisbet and Co., Berners 
 Street, London. 
 
1 66 Daybreak in Spain, 
 
 sand years gone by, if ever, and we know, too, that 
 it is seed that cannot die, and that we have God's 
 promise that it shall not return to Him void, but 
 shall prosper in that whereunto He hath appointed 
 it. We leave it where it has been cast; the 
 harvest will come next year, or the year after, or 
 many years after that — that will be as God wills, 
 and as may suit His plans of large good for the 
 world ; but it will come. The seed will grow up 
 amid the calm of peace, or, as is more likely at this 
 hour, it may grow up amid the storms of war ; but 
 grow it will. The laws and reasons of the spiritual 
 world are as surely determined, and as certain in 
 their revolution, as those of the physical. "Seed 
 time and harvest shall not cease." "They who 
 have gone forth bearing precious seed shall return, 
 bearing their sheaves and rejoicing." 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 A REFORMED CHURCH RISES IN SPAIN. 
 
 The Bible First — Next, a Church in Spain — First seen in a Dungeon 
 — A Church in Fine Linen — A Church under Persecution — 
 Which is the True Church ?— The Flight of the Queen— The 
 Opening of the Door — What Enters ? — The Unity and Order 
 of these Events — A Lighthouse in the Midst of fa Great Dark- 
 ness — Moral Ends of the Rock of Gibraltar as a British Pos- 
 session — A Band of Refugees — Senor Cabrera — Foundations 
 laid of the Reformed Church of Spain — Transports itself from 
 Gibraltar to Spain — The Fall of a Great Prisonhouse — A 
 Romance or a True History? — Grand Proof of the Bible's 
 Divinity. 
 
 Wherever the seed is dropped, there the Spirit 
 will brood ; and wherever the Spirit broods, there in 
 due time will be seen a new creation. Already it 
 is so in Spain. It is but the first year of its liberty, 
 and yet this year has witnessed the rise of a Re- 
 formed Church in Spain. This is another and 
 higher stage of the work ; of which let us now 
 speak. 
 
 The Bible, beyond doubt, it was which called 
 into existence a Church in Spain. By His Word 
 did God create the old heavens and the old earth 
 at the beginning, and by His Word will He create 
 
1 68 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 the "new heavens and the new earth, wherein 
 dwelleth righteousness." The Romanist and the 
 Ritualist tell us that the Church must come first,. 
 and the Bible next, and that we cannot have the 
 Bible till we have the Church, because we cannot 
 know what is the Bible till the Church informs us. 
 This is much as if one should say that we cannot 
 have the sun till first we have a select body of 
 men whose eyes alone have the power of discern- 
 ing him ; and who, therefore, are to tell the rest of 
 mankind that this is the sun, and that they are 
 to walk by his light. But God's order is not 
 that of the Romanist. First came the Bible in 
 Spain. The poor people of that country had no 
 Church to tell them what was the Bible ; they re- 
 cognised it by its own Divine authority ; and oa 
 the truth contained in it there arose a young Church. 
 Amid the defiles of the Morena and the snows of 
 the Nevada, in the solitary hamlets of La Mancha 
 and the inner chambers of Seville and Barcelona, 
 the converts met by twos and threes in the name of 
 Christ ; they sang his praise, they read his Word, 
 and they showed forth his death by partaking to- 
 gether of bread and wine. They had neither altar, 
 nor stoled priest, but they had a greater among^ 
 them, even Christ ; and where Christ is, there the 
 Church is. 
 
( 
 
 A Reformed Church rises in Spain. 169 
 
 The Reformed Church of Spain had already 
 come into existence. No edict of monarch, no 
 consecration of bishop called it into being. It rose 
 in silence, as did the Temple of old. It was as if 
 the ashes of the men who died in the autos-da-fe 
 had come forth from the burning grounds, and were 
 walking the earth. But no man lighteth a candle 
 and putteth it under a bushel. Soon this little 
 Church was forced out of its obscurity ; and, though 
 small, had a position assigned it whence it was 
 seen by all Spain. When first beheld it was dwell- 
 ing in a dungeon, with malefactors as its com- 
 panions. A poor candlestick, some will say, for 
 such a light ! Yet, no. 
 
 Matamoras, Alhama, and their companions, 
 exhibited to the Spanish people the spectacle of 
 Christianity under persecution. It often happens 
 that -events at the time appear to come of chance, 
 and to have no special significance ; but when we 
 view them in their issues, we see that they formed 
 part of a chain ; that they had a special place as- 
 signed them in that chain ; and that, had they been 
 left out of the chain, or had they not occurred at 
 that particular part of it, the end could not have 
 been gained. There was a special end to be served 
 by the sufferings of these men at the time : what 
 was it ? 
 
1^0 Daybreak in Spain, 
 
 The Spaniards had long been familiar with a 
 Christianity in purple and fine linen — a Chris- 
 tianity whose ministers bore princely titles, sat 
 at sumptuous tables, rode in magnificent equi- 
 pages, and went to the altar blazing in robes of 
 purple, and ministered in jewelled mitres. With 
 a Christianity of this sort, the Spaniards were, 
 unhappily, but too well acquainted. But here was 
 a new thing in Spain. Here was a Christianity 
 in chains. Here was a Christianity coming forth 
 from a prison. Nothing less than this could have 
 arrested the attention of the Spaniards. This did 
 arrest their attention. They said. We will turn 
 aside and see this great sight — a Christianity that 
 can suffer ; a Christianity that can dwell in a 
 prison among felons ; a Christianity that needs 
 neither smoking censer nor mitred priest nor 
 material altar for its worship. We have heard 
 that in ages long gone by there were martyrs on 
 the earth. Have these ages returned } What is 
 this new thing which has come to pass } 
 
 Thus did the Gospel, when it would re-enter 
 Spain, after so long an absence, return to the ways 
 of its youth. Christianity appeared in the same 
 humble guise which it had worn in the first ages. 
 The world ever looks to the wrong quarter for its 
 deliverance ; it expects that deliverance from the 
 
A Reformed Church rises in Spain. 171 
 
 halls of princes, from the cabinets of statesmen, or 
 from the schools of philosophy. God sends his 
 ambassadors and apostles from the cottage of the 
 peasant, from the workshop of the artisan, or, it 
 may be, from the prison of the malefactor. So did 
 God send his Son for the redemption of the world 
 from the stable at Bethlehem ; so sent he his apostle 
 to the Gentiles from the prisons of Rome. " I, 
 Paul, the prisoner of the Lord Jesus," was not un- 
 frequently the subscription of his epistles to the 
 churches. In like manner, in our own day, the 
 Gospel returned to Spain. How.^ From the prison- 
 cells of Granada and Malaga. 
 
 When the eyes of the Spaniards had for some 
 time been fixed upon the Gospel in this, to them, 
 unusual guise ; going from one tribunal to another, 
 dwelling first in this prison, and then in that ; 
 finally, condemned, yet bearing all with meekness, 
 and rendering blessing for cursing ; the Providence 
 of God advanced the work another step. Suddenly, 
 the throne was made vacant. As if she had heard a 
 voice in her father's halls, saying that the hour of 
 her race was come, and bidding her depart, Isabella 
 II. suddenly arose and fled. 
 
 The flight of the queen brought a sudden 
 shifting of the scenes to all parties — to the priests, 
 to the prisoners for the Gospel, and to the people. 
 
172 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 The priests were caught red-handed — in the very- 
 act of persecuting, filHng up the measure of their 
 fathers' iniquities, and making themselves heirs to 
 their fathers' sins. This gave the finishing blow to 
 their influence with the people, which had long 
 been on the decline. They might have fled with 
 the queen. It would have cost them small trouble 
 to pack up the tools of their trade — their vestments 
 and crucifixes, their chalices and censers, and their 
 gods of silver and gold ; the wooden ones, we fear, 
 would have run no small risk of being left behind 
 in the hurry and confusion. A sufficient number of 
 mules would have carried all these things away; 
 but their cathedrals and revenues could not be 
 transported. So, instead of sharing the exile of 
 their royal patron, they remained behind, to main- 
 tain, as they said, the cause of *'Altar and Throne," 
 an act of patriotic devotion for which the Spanish 
 people have shown a scarce corresponding amount 
 of gratitude. 
 
 "Wonderful in counsel, excellent in working," 
 is He who sits on the right hand of Power. . It is 
 impossible not to see — and seeing, not to admire — 
 the wisdom which made all things fall out in the 
 right order, and at the right moment. Had the 
 queen gone sooner, matters would not have been 
 ripe. Had she stayed longer, the crisis which had 
 
A Reformed Church rises in Spain. 173 
 
 arisen in the public mind would have passed, and 
 the converts would not have been able to profit by 
 it. It was when the conviction had been produced 
 in the public mind that there was, after all, a reli- 
 gion — not the religion of the cathedral, but the 
 religion of the prison-cell — which was true — that 
 the queen fled. Again : had the priests not perse- 
 cuted, or had Matamoras and his brethren not been 
 Avilling to suffer, the door opened by the queen's 
 flight would have been opened in vain ; for it was 
 the stirring of the embers of the old mitos-da-fe on 
 the one hand, and the rattling of martyr-chains on 
 the other, which broke the torpor that weighed 
 upon Spain. In a word, the Spanish nation saw two 
 Christianities before them — a Christianity that was 
 persecuting, and a Christianity that was suffering ; 
 and of these two Christianities, they had no diffi- 
 culty in saying which was the true one. And now, 
 when the Spaniards were, in some measure, pre- 
 pared to make a choice, the opportunity of choice 
 was given them. The queen, smitten rather by 
 terror than driven out by revolution, fled, and in 
 at the door left open by her departure, and which 
 the priests were not able to shut, rushed the Bible 
 and the missionary. 
 
 But more entered at this open door than the 
 Bible. This takes us a step or so back, and also 
 
174 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 invites us to look a little way beyond the frontiers 
 of Spain. Lying between the two great divisions 
 of the Kingdom of Darkness — that is, between 
 western Romanism and eastern Mahommedanism, 
 in the very centre, as it were, of this vast region 
 of doleful serfdom — there is a little spot of earth, 
 a circuit of not more than six miles, over which 
 floats the flag of Great Britain. We refer, of 
 course, to the Rock of Gibraltar. The end for 
 which that Rock was given to England now begins 
 to be apparent. For no political object, for no 
 military purpose, was the Rock of Gibraltar com- 
 mitted to our keeping by Providence. The flag of 
 England would never have floated there, had there 
 not been higher ends to be gained. For great, moral, 
 and spiritual uses was it given to us. It was meant 
 to be an ark for the persecuted ; a city of inviolable 
 refuge, whither the slave, whether escaping from 
 physical or spiritual bondage, might flee. It was 
 meant, moreover, to be a training-school, where 
 the convert from Popish or Mahommedan delusions 
 might be fully instructed in the truth, and sent 
 forth as a missionary into the dark lands around. 
 For here, towering in rocky grandeur, and embat- 
 tled strength, is this Rock, looking down upon 
 Spain on the north, Africa on the south, Italy and 
 Syria on the east ; and occupying that very point 
 
A Reformed Church rises in Spain. 175 
 
 on the globe, which is fittest of all others for the 
 radiation of the light. We trust Britain will never 
 surrender this magnificent fortress — this key of the 
 mighty empire of superstition — till that empire has 
 consented to liberate its millions of captives, by 
 opening its gates to the light ; and we know, that if 
 we are disposed to retain it, it is not in the power 
 of ten Spains to take it from us, even were she so 
 blind to her own highest interests as to attempt 
 to do so. 
 
 During the years immediately preceding the 
 revolution, a little band of refugees from the 
 Church of Rome had been slowly assembling on 
 the Rock of Gibraltar. They came one by one, 
 chased thither by the priests, who thus uncon- 
 sciously helped to promote a cause which they 
 wished above all things to crush. They were taken 
 under instruction by the Rev. Andrew Sutherland, 
 minister of the Scotch Church in Gibraltar, and 
 were enabled more clearly to perceive the errors 
 from which they had fled, as well as the light to 
 which they had come. Among these refugees was 
 Sefior Juan Bauptista Cabrera. We speak from 
 personal knowledge when we say that Sefior Ca- 
 brera is a man of varied accomplishments in science 
 as well as in theology, and possesses moreover a 
 sagacious forecast, and a fine genius for organisa- 
 
1/6 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 tion. This man foresaw the changes that were 
 approaching to his country, and felt it his duty to 
 be prepared to take advantage of these changes 
 whenever they should occur. He showed great 
 wisdom as well as faith in the matter. Assembling 
 one day his brethren, the other converts in Gibral- 
 tar, he addressed them solemnly, reminding them 
 that they owed a duty to their countrymen whom 
 they had left in the immemorial darkness from 
 which they themselves had escaped ; that although 
 the gates of Spain were still shut, and the priest 
 and the gendarmes keeping watch beside them, yet 
 He who "turneth the shadow of death into the 
 morning" would open them, and he felt assured 
 that that day was near, and it became them to be 
 prepared for its coming. We wish we could quote 
 the whole of the stirring address of Senor Cabrera 
 on this occasion. We give but a few lines. " The 
 Gospel given to regenerate the world," said he, " and 
 to make it free, has been wrested by many into an 
 instrument of oppression and slavery. A man 
 who has usurped the title of ' Infallible,' and endea- 
 voured to make himself equal with God, has suc- 
 ceeded, through the ignorance of the times and 
 the persecution of force, in being received as such 
 by a great portion of mankind. Rivers of blood, 
 mountains of ashes, ages of horrible annals, mark 
 
A Reformed Church rises in Spain, i yj 
 
 the path, denote the means, and manifest the aim 
 of this wicked man. Our beloved country, poor 
 Spain, is a Hving testimony (if, indeed, we can even 
 speak of Kfe in connection with her) of the deca- 
 dence and misery to which she has been brought 
 by the tyranny of him who calls himself the Vice- 
 gerent of God." 
 
 Sefior Cabrera next laid before the little com- 
 pany certain practical measures for their adoption. 
 He proposed that they should band themselves 
 together in a holy organisation, the better to with- 
 stand the terrible combination of Rome, and the 
 more systematically to prosecute whatever mea- 
 sures they might deem expedient for the evangeli- 
 sation of their native land. The proposal was 
 unanimously acquiesced in ; they all felt the neces- 
 sity of being ready to enter Spain the first moment 
 the door should be opened, and that it would be of 
 immense advantage to enter, not as isolated indi- 
 viduals, but as an organised body or church. 
 Meanwhile they had a base of operations in Gib- 
 raltar, and they proceeded without delay to 
 sketch a plan of work, which could be carried on 
 where they now were, and transferred at any 
 moment to the soil of Spain, and there carried out 
 more extensively. That work they subdivided as 
 follows : — I. The revision of the Scriptures, with 
 
 M 
 
178 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 the view of giving to the Spaniards a purer version 
 than any now extant. 2. The formation of rules 
 for the regulation of their own affairs. 3. The 
 compilation of a Creed, or system of doctrines, on 
 which their Church might rest, and which they 
 might hold out to their countrymen. 4. The par- 
 titioning of their native land into synodical districts, 
 so that, when Spain should become the actual 
 scene of their work, they might be able to prose- 
 cute it on a common plan and as a united Church. 
 In this transaction we see the foundations laid of 
 the Reformed Church of Spain ! That glorious 
 event took place under the flag of Great Britain. 
 The day is well worthy of being noted ; it was the 
 25th of April, 1868. This was the birthday of 
 that Church, and this day will long be a memorable 
 one in the annals of Spain and in the annals of 
 Christianity ! 
 
 The day which Senor Cabrera had foreseen 
 came sooner than even he anticipated. It was but 
 five months after the event we have narrated when 
 the gates of Spain were opened. On the 25th of 
 April were laid the foundations of the Evangelical 
 Church of Spain, and on the 29th of September 
 of the same year (1868) the monarchy fell, and 
 power departed from the priesthood. As the 
 queen made her exit by the northern frontier, 
 
A Reformed Church rises in Spain, ijg 
 
 General Prim entered at the southern. He halted 
 a day at the little town of Algeciras, opposite 
 Gibraltar. Senor Cabrera, crossing the bay, had 
 an interview with the general. "Are you of 
 those," the general asked, "who were prosecuted 
 by the late government as being bad religionists ?" 
 " We are," replied Senor Cabrera. " Then I have 
 to tell you," continued Prim, " that you may enter 
 Spain with the Bible under your arm." 
 
 Cabrera made haste. It was a day of good 
 tidings, and he felt he would not do well to sit still. 
 In the reply of the man in whose hands was 
 now the government of Spain he heard a great 
 voice saying that the hour of deliverance had 
 struck — "The land is thine : arise and possess 
 it." As adown Mount Ararat, when the waters 
 of the Flood were assuaged, came the fathers of 
 the post-diluvian world, so now, adown the Rock 
 of Gibraltar — their ark when the flood of tyranny 
 lay deep on the face of their native land — came the 
 founders of the Reformed Church of Spain, seeing 
 the waters were assuaged. They directed their steps 
 towards Spain. No one now stopped them on the 
 frontier ; the gate stood open, and they entered 
 with their burning torch. Now was fulfilled the 
 prophecy spoken of old time — " How beautiful 
 upon the mountains are the feet of them that 
 
 M 2 
 
i8o Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 bring good tidings : that publish peace . . . that 
 proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and 
 the opening of the prison to them that are bound." 
 Was there ever vaster prison, or one more securely 
 barred ? Did ever captives endure more doleful 
 thraldom ? For three centuries have the people 
 of Spain lain bound in chains of darkness. But 
 lo ! suddenly the trumpet of Jubilee is blown ; a 
 great earthquake shakes the foundations of the 
 prison, and the walls of that House of Bondage 
 fall flat upon the earth. 
 
 Is it a romance or a true history which we have 
 been writing .? The genius of Sir Walter Scott 
 never invented anything half so wonderful. The 
 imagination of Cervantes never devised plot so 
 intricate or astonishing as that of which his own 
 country has become the scene. Simply by keep- 
 ing to the line of sober narration, inventing no 
 fact, and straining no occurrence, we have pre- 
 sented the reader with one of the most marvellous 
 chapters in modern history — perhaps we might say 
 in all history. Over what a vast field does the 
 plot range ! What a variety of motives and pas- 
 sions does it exhibit at work ! What a multitude 
 of actors does it bring upon the stage ! — the 
 despotic queen, the crafty priest, the intriguing 
 courtier, the ambitious statesman, the plotting 
 
A Reformed Church rises in Spain. i8i 
 
 republican — each acts his separate part, and pursues 
 his own individual end. But it is seen in the issue 
 that all were moved by a Hand which none of them 
 saw, and were working towards an end which none 
 of them sought — the opening of Spain, to wit, to 
 a little company of evangelical disciples, who are 
 seen to enter and kindle, in that benighted and 
 down-trodden land, a light which we believe neither 
 king nor priest will ever be able to put out. 
 
 Viewed aright, this movement is one of the 
 grandest proofs of the divinity of the Bible. A 
 book that can do what we now behold the Bible 
 doing in Spain — calling a nation from its sepulchre 
 — must be more than human ; it can be only the 
 Word of Him who calleth the dead to life. A book 
 which can renew the face of the world, can come 
 only from Him who made the world. Men arise 
 to cavil, and doubt, and deny the Bible's inspira- 
 tion. How does the Bible reply .-* By opening 
 out into a new burst of vitality and glory. It is 
 as if one should deny the existence of the Sun, 
 when lo ! the Sun himself comes forth, and pours 
 his light upon mountain and plain. It is no more 
 possible to extinguish the Bible than it is possible 
 to extinguish the Sun. From the darkness of 
 the tempest the Sun emerges brighter than ever; 
 from the cavils, or the eclipse, of scepticism the 
 
1 82 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 Bible comes forth to pursue its glorious career, and 
 to attest anew its divinity, by shedding a new and 
 more copious flood of blessings upon the nations. 
 To criticism, to science, we give the widest margin. 
 Go on, say we, multiply your discoveries, and push 
 forward your boundaries. We no more fear that 
 you will one day disprove the Bible than we fear 
 that some one will one day put out the Sun. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 PROTESTANT CHURCH IN MADRID. 
 
 How the Light Spreads — Madrid and Seville its two Main Centres 
 — Calle de la Madera — Crowded Meeting — First Lesson — No 
 Symbol — Seiior Carasco — The Service — The Singing — The 
 Sermon — The Audience — The Place of Meeting — The Con- 
 trast ; or, The Escorial and the Calle de la Madera — The 
 Resurrection. 
 
 We go on to tell how the light spreads. The night 
 of Spain has lasted long ; it has been more than 
 usually dark, but it does seem as if now the morn- 
 ing had fairly broke. It is not a few streaks upon 
 the horizon which the watcher can descry ; it is a 
 glow so intense and strong that it is filling the whole 
 heavens with light, and awakens the hope that 
 other skies beside those of Spain may by-and-by 
 be illumined with the coming day. We cannot 
 expect such a night as that which has passed over 
 this poor country to pass all at once into the blaze 
 of noon. But the points of light continually mul- 
 tiply, and from one hour to another the heavens 
 grow clearer. 
 
 It is the highest mountains that catch the first 
 ray. It is the two chief cities of Spain — Madrid and 
 
184 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 Seville — which have begun to reflect the beams of 
 the evangeHcal day. Not, indeed, exclusively. There 
 is Cadiz on the western shore, looking out upon the 
 Atlantic, and connecting itself with that mysterious, 
 but golden region, of which we so oft catch brief 
 glimpses in the Old Testament — the ancient Tar- 
 shish. There are the important towns on the 
 Mediterranean coast, Malaga, Valentia, and Barce- 
 lona—whose commerce is of ancient days, seeing 
 the Phoenicians were their builders, and the ships 
 of Tyre and Sidon were wont to crowd their har- 
 bours. Nor is it only along the seaboard, where 
 trade and commerce may be supposed to stir and 
 enlarge the minds of men, that we trace the dawn 
 of the new day. Its light gilds the Alcazar towers 
 of Cordova and Toledo and Granada, names 
 which recall the dominion and glory of the Moors, 
 as their edifices still bear the traces of their genius 
 and refinement. The desolate plains of Old Castile 
 are beginning to be clothed with the new verdure ; 
 the cathedral-steeples of Burgos and Valladolid, 
 which so oft reflected the lurid gleam of the auto- 
 da-f^, have caught the beams of a better light ; and 
 the silence, that so long brooded over the desert 
 plains of La Mancha, begins to be broken by the 
 praises of little companies of disciples which there 
 assemble to worship the Saviour. In short, there is 
 
Protestant Church in Madrid. i 8 5 
 
 scarce a town of any note in Spain which the move- 
 ment has not reached. With foot unheard by priest, 
 the Bible, these many years, has been going 
 through Spain, in the length of it, and in the 
 breadth of it, and now there begins to be a wide- 
 spread conviction on the part of the people, that 
 they and their fathers have lived in darkness, and a 
 cry for light is coming from all parts of the land. 
 It is not a few in this city and in that province : it 
 is the NATION that is moved. 
 
 The day following our arrival in Madrid was 
 the Sabbath. We worshipped, of course, with the 
 Protestant congregation in the Calle de la Madera. 
 We were told to be early there, otherwise we might 
 find it impossible to get in. We arrived half an 
 hour before the time fixed for the commencement 
 of the service. The place of meeting was already 
 all but full ; and in a few minutes more it was 
 completely so. We had time to take note of the 
 assembly, which, every moment, was getting 
 more densely crowded. Knowing how undevout 
 generally are the worshippers in the Popish cathe- 
 drals of the Continent — hurrying in, as is usually 
 the case, from market, basket on arm, dipping their 
 finger in the basin, kneeling hastily on the floor, 
 crossing themselves, counting a few beads, and then 
 snatching up their basket, which contains the day's 
 
1 86 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 provisions, and hurrying away home — we expected 
 to find something of the same air about the wor- 
 shippers in the chapel in the Calle de la Madera. 
 We saw nothing of the sort, however. There was a 
 hush over the assembly. The preachers had 
 not entered, and nothing was going on, yet it 
 seemed as if the worship had already commenced ; 
 and so, indeed, it had in spirit, and the very silence 
 and awe in which the crowd sat, neither whispering 
 to one another, nor crossing themselves, nor gazing 
 on picture or image, was itself a lesson to the 
 Spaniards, on what in all Popish countries is a for- 
 gotten truth — the spirituality of worship, and the 
 fact that devotion is an affair, not of the body, but 
 of the mind. We thought we could point out 
 those who were present that morning for the first 
 time. They looked eagerly all round the building 
 on entering, as if their eyes were searching for 
 something, and when they could not find it, they 
 sat down in silence with the others. How one can 
 worship what one does not see, is more than the 
 Spaniard can understand, at least till he has been 
 once or twice to the Calle de la Madera, or some 
 other Protestant chapel. 
 
 One day a Catalonian entered one of the 
 Spanish Protestant chapels. He gazed round him, 
 but could see no symbol. ** How is this .?" he said, 
 
Protestant Church in Madrid. 187 
 
 " I see no image or picture ; what on earth do 
 you worship?" "We worship nothing on earth," 
 replied the pastor; "our God is in the heavens. 
 He dwelleth not in temples made with hands. 
 Hear what He says in His own Word." And 
 taking out the Bible, he read to the Spaniard these 
 words (Exodus xx. 4, 5) : " Thou shalt not make 
 unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of 
 any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the 
 earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth : 
 thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor 
 serve them : for I the Lord thy God am a jealous 
 God." " And listen," he continued, " to those words 
 spoken by Christ at the beginning of Christianity 
 (John iv. 24) — * God is a Spirit : and they that 
 worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in 
 truth.' " 
 
 Every seat had been occupied for some time. 
 The people, however, still came crowding in ; and 
 now two tall rows marked where the passages had 
 been ; for, in lack of seats, many of the congrega- 
 tion were content to stand during the whole service. 
 How many more would have crowded in had there 
 been room, we cannot say ; probably twice as 
 many. The multitude extended outwards, filling 
 the lobby ; it extended outwards still, into the 
 street, where a crowd, seeking admission but un- 
 
1 88 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 able to find it, was gathered round the door. The 
 congregation consisted almost entirely of Spaniards 
 — the majority being labourers and artisans. There 
 was, however, a fair proportion of the middle 
 classes present. Persons of title, and occasionally 
 a Popish cure, do at times find their way to the 
 Protestant sermon. The bulk of the audience were 
 in their working or every-day clothes — a statement 
 which, if made in Spain or to a Spaniard, would 
 provoke a smile, seeing the Spanish artisan has no 
 Sabbath-suit, for this plain reason, that he has no 
 Sabbath-day. Unwashed and uncombed, they had 
 come straight from the factory, or from the shop, 
 or from the street ; and there they awaited with 
 their grave earnest faces the entrance of the 
 preacher. 
 
 At the hour fixed Sefior Carasco entered, and 
 took his place in a small desk edged with blue, 
 which was placed at the extremity of the hall, and 
 raised a foot or so above the level of the audience. 
 He was attired in the time-honoured fashion of 
 Genevan gown and bands. This is not a sacer- 
 dotal but an academic dress, having been that 
 universally worn by learned and professional men 
 three centuries ago. Seiior Carasco is a Spaniard, 
 to whom Providence sent a blessing in the guise 
 of a calamity. Compelling him to flee from his 
 
Protestant Church IN Madrid, 189 
 
 native land, it opened to him the opportunity of 
 studying theology at Lausanne and Geneva. He 
 returned to Spain only a few weeks after the 
 queen's flight, and began preaching in Madrid 
 immediately on his arrival. His first sermon was 
 preached on the 15th of November, 1868, to an 
 audience of thirteen persons. We were present on 
 the first Sabbath of October, 1869, when hardly 
 eleven months had elapsed of Seiior Carasco's 
 ministry, and we found more hundreds than for- 
 merly there had been individuals gathered round 
 him ; or would have been, could the place have 
 admitted them. As it was, the assembly in the 
 chapel could not be less than from 900 to 1,000 
 persons. 
 
 The service opened with a short prayer: all 
 present rose. The few, simple, yet magnificent 
 vocables in which the supplication was offered 
 came rolling over the assembly, and the deep 
 silence which fell upon it seemed to indicate 
 that the minds of the people were being wafted 
 upwards with the words. "The Spanish," said 
 Charles V., " is the language in which to speak to 
 the Almighty." It truly is. There needed no 
 incense ; that prayer was like a cloud of sweet 
 spices ascending into the heavens. The prayer 
 lasted no longer than two minutes ; the assembly 
 
190 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 resumed their seats. Seiior Carasco now read out 
 a hymn ; the whole assembly again rose. A few 
 voices, low but melodious, were heard near the 
 pulpit ; scarcely had the first strains echoed through 
 the building, when the whole assembly, as it seemed, 
 struck in, and then there came a burst of melody 
 truly thrilling. It fell and rose ; it paused and 
 burst out anew. It rose yet louder and clearer 
 in grand swells, which seemed to come from the 
 heart, and to be inspired with deep, impassioned 
 feeling. Was this Spain t Was this the land 
 of the auto-da-fe f Have the burning-grounds 
 opened, and have the men who went down singing 
 into the flames come up again with a shout — a 
 shout so mighty, that its echoes will yet ring over 
 all Spain, and be sent back from other lands } We 
 had to bury our face in our hands to hide what 
 might have seemed a weakness. 
 
 After another and a longer prayer, the reading 
 of two chapters, and the singing of another hymn, 
 Sefior Carasco gave out his text. His discourse, 
 that day, was on the Creation and Fall ; and this 
 gave him an opportunity of explaining how man, 
 formed in the image of God, lost that image, and 
 passed under the dominion of death. The sermon 
 was in simple, eloquent phrase, and running over 
 with the old Gospel — that Gospel which came down 
 
Protestant Church in Madrid. 191 
 
 from heaven in the first age, and which our era 
 finds still young, and still guiding men to the skies. 
 And as if the preacher had come direct from 
 another sphere, so did these men of Madrid gather 
 round him, and listen eagerly to him. There was 
 wonder and awe, as well as earnestness, on their 
 faces. They were listening to tidings which had 
 never saluted their ears before, and which, they 
 felt, had a mysterious power to awaken all the 
 faculties of their nature. This was no pantomimic 
 scene, such as they might see any day in any one 
 of their many cathedrals. It was a message from 
 the skies ; and, from beginning to end of his dis- 
 course, not an eye was for a moment off the 
 preacher. 
 
 The building in which the worship was per- 
 formed was plain and humble in the extreme. It 
 had been a printing-office, and the only adornment 
 its walls had received, when it was converted into 
 a place of worship, was a coating of whitewash. 
 A row of upright beams supported the roof, and 
 two rows or panes *of glass, which extended from 
 end to end of the roof — for there was no window 
 in the walls — admitted the hght. A Ritualist 
 might doubt whether worship in such a place — 
 where was neither crucifix nor blessed candle — 
 could possibly benefit any one, or possess convert- 
 
192 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 ing power. But the audience that day assembled 
 in the Protestant chapel in the Calk de la Madera 
 were troubled with no doubts of the sort. They 
 were intent only to hear tidings which were 
 brought to them from another world, and spoken 
 to them as it were by a voice from heaven. 
 
 But humble as is the Spanish Protestant sanc- 
 tuary in Calle de la Madera, it has a glory which no 
 one of the many magnificent cathedrals of Spain 
 can boast. Theirs is the grandeur of marbles and 
 oriels, of stoled priest and arched roof. In the 
 other there shines the light of truth ; in it is the 
 open Bible, and it might be truly said of it, '' The 
 glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the 
 light thereof." From that chapel there went up to 
 heaven something better than the smoke of incense 
 — even pure, fervent, holy worship. Its roof re- 
 echoed the praises of men who had been brought 
 out of darkness into light ; the shout of those who 
 had been redeemed from a great slavery. When 
 Senor Carasco ended his sermon, and gave out a 
 hymn, we shall never forget how it was sung. It 
 carried us back to the times of Miriam, when, by 
 the shores of the Red Sea, she led with timbrels 
 and with dances the song, " Sing ye to the Lord, 
 for he hath triumphed gloriously : the horse and 
 his rider hath he thrown into the sea." 
 
Protestant Church in Madrid. 193 
 
 The scene had to us all the power and emphasis 
 which sharp contrast could give it. We had come 
 straight, in a manner, from the horrors of the 
 sixteenth century into the midst of this Protestant 
 congregation of the nineteenth. We had passed 
 the immediately previous day in the Escorial, and 
 in the very cabinet of the man who had extermi- 
 nated the Spanish Reformed Church of three cen- 
 turies ago. Most frightful is the place, linked for 
 ever as it is with the memory of unparalleled and 
 unnatural wickedness. One shudders to enter it, 
 lest some avenging doom should meet him on the 
 threshold. There had we passed just the day 
 before. We had sat in the very chair in which the 
 tyrant sat ; we had leaned on the very table at 
 which Philip toiled all those dreadful years. There 
 had he written those despatches which covered so 
 many of the most flourishing kingdoms of Europe 
 with burning and slaughter, with lamentation and 
 woe. From this spot had these fiats of extermi- 
 nation gone forth. It seemed to us, while we 
 sat in that chair, as if the past had returned ; 
 as if Philip had just left his cabinet for a 
 few minutes, and would straightway be back ; 
 and as if the sixteenth century, with all its 
 tragedies, would be enacted around us. We saw 
 armies on the march, towns blazing in the flames of 
 
 N 
 
194 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 war ; the cities of Belgium and Holland enduring 
 the horrors of siege, or hiding from the fury of the 
 tyrant beneath the waves of the North Sea. We 
 saw men burning at stakes, dangling in halters, 
 nailed to crosses, tortured on racks. We saw canals 
 choked up with the dead, fields strewn with corpses, 
 homes converted into blackened ruins, and desola- 
 tion reigning in what had lately been hives of in- 
 dustry and trade. We looked round and round, 
 in what seemed more than fancy, on this boundless 
 theatre of crimes and woes. Here, in this very 
 closet, was all that wickedness conceived — had all 
 those lightnings gone forth to scathe and burn. 
 Let the curse of Babylon, we said to ourselves, be 
 on this chamber and on this palace! "The cor- 
 morant and the bittern shall possess it ; the owl 
 also and the raven shall dwell in it. They shall 
 call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none 
 shall be there ; and all her princes shall be nothing. 
 And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles 
 and brambles in the fortresses thereof : and it shall 
 be a habitation for dragons, and a court for owls. 
 The satyr shall cry to his fellow ; the screech-owl 
 also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of 
 rest." 
 
 Well, it was but a few short hours since we 
 had been in the Escorial, with all its sad memo- 
 
Protestant Church in Madrid. 195 
 
 ries, seeming more than a memory — an actual 
 reality — and now, by a rapid transition, we were in 
 the midst of a congregation of Spanish Protestants. 
 We felt as if, without living, through the intervening 
 years, we had passed from the sixteenth to the 
 nineteenth century ; from the autos-da-fe and the 
 scaffolds, and all the horrible work of Paul IV. and 
 Philip II., to far different scenes — scenes reminding 
 one of a blessed and joyous resurrection. Yes ! it 
 is the past that has returned ; not Philip, but the 
 martyr. He has left his san benito in the grave ; he 
 brings with him his crown, and that crown he casts 
 at the feet of Him who is worthy. These thousand 
 Spaniards, with voices melodious and loud, " as the 
 voice of a great multitude, and as the voice 
 of many waters," say, " Blessing, and honour, 
 and glory, and power be unto Him that sitteth 
 upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and 
 ever." We felt as one who dreams ; but this was 
 no dream, it was a reality. Again they lift up their 
 voices; again they shout for joy, and that shout will 
 one day re-echo from San Sebastian to Gibraltar, and 
 be wafted round the globe. These stand upon the sea 
 of glass, harping with their harps, and sing the song 
 of Moses and the song of the Lamb. Never before 
 could we enter so fully into the meaning of the 
 prophecy, which, speaking of the joyous scenes of 
 
 N 2 
 
196 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 the latter day, foretells that the " ransomed of the 
 Lord shall return and come to Zion, with songs 
 and everlasting joy upon their heads ; they shall 
 obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing 
 shall flee away." 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 PROTESTANT CHURCH IN MADRID — 
 
 {continued). 
 
 The Madrid Protestants — The Audience — The Chapel — The 
 Worship — Tidings from another Sphere — The Interest they 
 Awaken — Senor Ruet — ^Week-day Attendance — The Congre- 
 gation Proper — Its Government — Its Constitution — Evangeli- 
 sation powerful in Madrid— Has a Weak Point — Necessity of 
 Organisation and System — A Discussion — A Green Spot 
 
 We have already adverted to the remarkable ap- 
 pearance of the men convened on the first Sabbath 
 of October, 1869, in the Protestant chapel in Calle 
 de la Madera, Madrid, drawn thither by the tidings 
 that something like a new revelation had come to 
 men, and that the Gospel, which walked the world 
 in the primitive ages, had again returned to earth. 
 Their eye, we have already said, was never off the 
 preacher from the moment he began till the mo- 
 ment he ended. One wish and feeling absorbed 
 them ; and that was, to hear what Senor Carasco 
 had to say. We watched their faces, and it was 
 by no means difficult to read them. They were 
 not the faces of men who were criticising what they 
 heard ; nor were they the faces of men who were 
 objecting to what they heard ; nor could they be 
 
198 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 said to be the faces of men — some of them, at 
 least — who were fully and intelligently assenting. 
 They were the faces of men who were inly marvel- 
 ling at the strange things which were being told 
 them. If one should come from Jupiter, or some 
 other planet, we can picture to ourselves the faces 
 which would gather around the strange man, as he 
 narrated tidings from a sphere from which no intelli- 
 gence had ever before reached us. Sefior Carasco 
 was a man from another sphere. He was opening 
 a new world to his audience, and they were looking 
 across the gulf at that new world ; and upon 
 their faces was painted the wonderment and awe at 
 what met their gaze in the region now being un- 
 veiled to them. 
 
 Sefior Ruet preached in the afternoon. He is 
 a great favourite with the people of Madrid, and 
 they pressed in, in even greater crowds, to hear 
 him. He has dramatic powers of a high order. 
 After the first few deliberately-pronounced sen- 
 tences, his utterance and gesture become animated 
 indeed. The firm-set, well-rounded, and ringing 
 vocables of the Spanish tongue were showered upon 
 his audience like a rattling hailstorm. But if a 
 great master of words, he is not, if we may venture 
 an opinion, so great a master as Sefior Carasco of 
 ideas, and of those ideas which the Spanish people 
 
Protestant Church in Madrid. 199 
 
 need at this hour to have told them. Providence 
 was specially kind, as we have already said, to 
 Carasco, in compelling him to leave for a while his 
 native country and to enter the Theological School 
 at Geneva, where he spent five years. And now 
 he has returned to Spain, laden with richer 
 treasures than any which in former days the gal- 
 leons of Mexico and Peru brought across the sea 
 to nourish the luxury and prepare the downfall of 
 the Peninsula. 
 
 In Spain, where a week's labour might easily 
 be despatched in half a week's time, it drags on 
 for seven days. This makes the large audiences 
 now flocking to hear the Gospel in the cities of 
 Spain the more marvellous. The Sabbath attend- 
 ance, in these circumstances, is a good test of the 
 earnest desire of the Spanish people to learn what 
 that Gospel, which was burnt out of their country 
 3(X> years ago, and which ever since has lain under 
 a ban, as some horrible thing which converts into 
 monsters all who receive it, really is. Still, week- 
 day attendance is perhaps even a better test. A 
 sermon is preached in the Spanish church at 
 Madrid every Thursday afternoon. We made a 
 point of being present, and found the church, 
 not crowded, indeed, as on the Sabbath, but very 
 respectably filled. There is scarcely a service which 
 
200 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 is not followed by the celebration of baptisms and 
 marriages. These baptisms and marriages are re- 
 cognised by the municipality of Madrid, and, so 
 far, we have thus the recognition of the Spanish 
 Protestant Church by the authorities of Spain. 
 
 The congregation, as distinguished from the 
 audience, consists of nearly 400 enrolled members. 
 These have been examined and admitted by the 
 pastors — of course, on a competent knowledge and 
 credible profession of the Gospel. The affairs of 
 the congregation are directed by a consistory 
 composed of the pastors and six laymen, the 
 pastors having the sole power of administering the 
 sacraments, and of admitting to them. The six 
 laymen, of whom Senor Vizcarondo is president, 
 share the government of the young Church with 
 the pastors, and are the same who took the 
 initiatory steps in forming the congregation. 
 They bound themselves to resign their powers 
 into the hands of the congregation whenever it 
 should number 100 members. It speedily num- 
 bered 300 ; they resigned their office into the 
 people's hands, and were all re-elected. They are 
 now no longer self-appointed, but rule at the will 
 and choice of the congregation. 
 
 The following is the substance of a manifesto 
 or appeal which was issued by the Madrid Consis- 
 
Protestant Church in Madrid. 201 
 
 tory, with the view of making known to the Protes- 
 tant churches the doctrines which they hold, and 
 on which their organisation is founded : — " In 
 calling upon you, dear brethren, we deem it our 
 duty to let you know what we believe in religion. 
 We believe and confess the fall of man by his sin, 
 and his restoration by the divine mercy shown in 
 the coming of Jesus Christ the Son of God — Him- 
 self God in the form of a man, who died for our sins, 
 and rose again for our justification. We hold that 
 the sacrifice of our Lord secures our salvation by 
 our faith. We recognise the work of the Holy 
 Spirit, who, in regenerating us, developes in us the 
 works of righteousness and love, which are so 
 pleasing to God our Father. We acknowledge 
 these truths, which form the foundation of Chris- 
 tianity, because they are all found in the word of 
 God, the only infallible authority in matters of 
 faith. We further declare that, using the liberty 
 which the word of God gives us, we have adopted 
 a system for the management of our churches 
 which combines the concurrence of the people 
 with the pastor in the administration of the affairs 
 of Christian congregations ; and we are constantly 
 praying God that the day may come when all the 
 Protestant churches in Spain may be united in one 
 common bond." 
 
202 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 Regarding the evangelisation at Madrid 
 generally, it is altogether vigorous — vigorous, 
 because placed in Madrid, the capital ; vigorous, 
 because it is taking hold of the most influential 
 minds. One gentleman, holding a high professional 
 and literary position, was specially named to us as 
 having become a truly converted man. It would 
 be imprudent to allude more particularly to him at 
 present, but, should the opening the Gospel now 
 enjoys in Spain continue, we may yet expect from 
 him essential service to his country's highest in- 
 terests. The evangelisation in Madrid is powerful, 
 because the congregation there embraces a fair 
 representation of all classes of the community. 
 In our former chapter we have brought mainly into 
 view the working-men, which form the bulk of it, 
 but it has besides a sprinkling of the middle-class 
 — if middle-class there can be said to be in Spain — 
 and we understand even some ladies of title oc- 
 casionall}^ attend. In fine, it is powerful, from the 
 number of hearts and hands it is enlisting in its 
 service. Some of these must remain unnamed. 
 Their names and labours will all one day be read 
 out, and will meet their reward. But we must not 
 omit the name of Mr. Armstrong, who entered 
 the field years ago, who was chased out of Spain 
 by the police, but who, the moment the revolution 
 
Protestant Church in Madrid. 203 
 
 of September guaranteed liberty of worship, re- 
 turned, and is now busied in the formation of 
 week-day and Sabbath-day schools. The prevention 
 of the young will be found easier than the con- 
 version of the old. 
 
 But the Madrid evangelisation has its weak 
 point ; that weak point is the inability to appreciate 
 the value of organisation. As yet the congrega- 
 tion of Madrid stands alone ; its organisation 
 begins and ends with itself. That army would win 
 few victories, in which every man should fight for 
 his own hand. A number of congregations, having 
 a centre of union and action, giving and receiving 
 strength, will be of more importance in the eyes 
 of the authorities and of the nation, and will act 
 with far more effect in the great work of Chris- 
 tianising the country, than the same number of 
 isolated congregations, however flourishing indi- 
 vidually they may be. " Two are better than one ; 
 and a threefold cord is not quickly broken." 
 As the work goes on, we doubt not that the wise 
 and zealous men in whose hands it is will come 
 more clearly to see that to organise is at once to 
 conserve liberty and to increase power. 
 
 In one subordinate point, this dread of order 
 and method came curiously out before us. When 
 visiting some of the schools we were struck to 
 
204 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 observe that the youths attending them had no 
 catechisms, and, instead of being questioned, were 
 simply addressed. On our way home we said to a 
 friend, " Why not have a simple catechism which 
 the youngsters might commit to memory and 
 repeat in school ; they must forget much of what 
 is said to them ?" 
 
 " Oh, we do not want to teach doctrine." 
 
 " But unless you teach doctrine, you teach 
 nothing ; for what is doctrine but fact — the facts of 
 God's revelation ? You cannot tell the children 
 that there is a Saviour, and that that Saviour is 
 Christ, and that God saves men freely for the sake 
 of his Son's meritorious death, without teaching 
 doctrine. Each of those facts is a doctrine." 
 
 " But if we have a catechism, we must have a 
 creed, and we want no creed-making." 
 
 " Then you must not teach any one of the doc- 
 trines just mentioned ; for what are those doctrines 
 which you are teaching, night by night, but a 
 creed — just as much a creed when spoken as 
 when written ? Don't take fright at mere names. 
 Besides, does not your excellent sense tell you that 
 this is the method taken by men in every other 
 matter in which they wish to make progress ? Is 
 it a language which one wishes to learn ? He 
 learns first its alphabet. Is it arithmetic ? He 
 
Protestant Church in Madrid. 205 
 
 begins by making himself master of the multiplica- 
 tion-table : whatever branch of knowledge it be, 
 he begins with its elements, and till he knows these 
 he knows nothing. Let the truths you are teach- 
 ing be written down, simply, clearly, orderly — don't 
 call it a catechism, or a creed, or anything at all, 
 but let the boys and girls in the schools have some- 
 thing which they may learn at home, and which, 
 once in their memory, will be in their memory for 
 life, and your progress and satisfaction in the work 
 will be much greater. 
 
 The friend to whom we refer may have, and we 
 believe does have, a little more fear of method and 
 organisation than others engaged in this great work ; 
 still, this is the quality in which the evangelisa- 
 tion at Madrid is most lacking — even the capacity 
 to estimate the vastly increased safety, stability, 
 and power which organisation gives. 
 
 By-and-by, however, there will come before us 
 another part of the field, where we think we can 
 perceive an element springing up which is destined 
 to be a root to the work in Spain, and to rally round 
 it at a future day all the evangelical forces now 
 distributed at will, and acting without much con- 
 cert — perhaps, necessarily so, at this early stage 
 — over the Iberian Peninsula.* 
 
 * Already this anticipation has been fulfilled. As these sheets 
 
2o6 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 Still, what a green spot amid the wastes of 
 Spain is this congregation in Madrid ! How re- 
 freshing to the heart of the Christian who chances 
 to visit the Spanish capital ! And this little garden, 
 placed here in the most waste and arid spot of the 
 whole Peninsula — amid the political conflicts, the 
 bull-fights, the gambling, the vices of all kinds that 
 abound in Madrid — is not only retaining its green- 
 ness, but is growing brighter, and enlarging its 
 bounds every day. The same heavenly dew that 
 created this little garden is able to create another 
 such in every city of Iberia ; nay, to make the 
 whole land as green and blossoming as this little 
 spot is ! Let us pray without ceasing, and labour 
 without fainting, and one day it will be so ! 
 
 are passing through the press we learn that a union has been formed 
 of all the Protestant congregations in Spain. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 OTHER WORKERS IN MADRID. 
 
 Help from Many Lands — Professor Knapp — His Preaching-halls — 
 Boys' and Girls' School — Extraordinary Influence acting on 
 Spain — Theological Training-school — A Little Sufferer — A 
 Female Convert — The Bible in the Tobacco-factory — Tran- 
 sition from Romanism to the Gospel — from an Image to God, 
 who "is a Spirit." 
 
 There are other workers, besides those we have 
 mentioned, in Madrid. Men from various lands are 
 here doing what they can to break the yoke that 
 is upon the soul of Spain. It is a token that the 
 day of deliverance to that most wretched country 
 draws nigh. Prayers went up, and missionaries 
 went forth in behalf of Italy, of India, and of 
 countries even more remote ; but it seemed as if no 
 voice were pleading for Spain, and as if the foot of 
 missionary were destined never to tread its soil. 
 The herald of mercy passed it by, although the 
 cry of its misery struck upon his ear, as he skirted 
 its coasts. But now, on every hand, there arise 
 friends to Spain. We rejoice in this ; for there are 
 few events which would contribute more to the 
 progress of civil liberty and religious truth, than 
 the evangelisation of the Iberian Peninsula. 
 
2o8 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 We had the good fortune to make the acquaint- 
 ance in Madrid of a most accomplished young 
 American. He held a professional appointment 
 in his own country which he gave up, that he might 
 devote himself to Spain. And there he is in 
 Madrid, labouring heart and soul for the evangeli- 
 sation of the country. His fine talents he is 
 setting to work to discover how best to penetrate 
 the thick crust that envelopes the Spanish mind. 
 He has rented a hall in the worst quarter of Madrid, 
 where even the women carry knives, and where 
 a year ago it would have been dangerous for one 
 to let the accents of the English tongue be heard ; 
 and there, night after night, in the midst of a 
 stifling crowd, gathered from this social pande- 
 monium — the adults this night, the youths the night 
 after — he is to be found, trying by every means 
 to tame the savageism before him, and to find 
 entrance for that light which it is sweeter for the 
 soul to see than it is for the eye to behold the 
 sun. 
 
 We accompanied Mr. Knapp (for that is our 
 friend's name) to his school one night. We tra- 
 versed streets filled with ragged men and haggard 
 women, and at last we turned down a bye-street. 
 It swarmed throughout its length with youngsters — 
 boys and girls — ^who were on the look-out for their 
 
Other Workers in Madrid. 209 
 
 teacher, and who, meanwhile, were finding amuse- 
 ment for themselves of a sufficiently noisy and 
 boisterous character. The door was opened, but 
 what a rush ! In a few minutes the school was 
 crammed, the boys sitting on one side, the girls on 
 another ; and still there was a crowd in the street 
 clamouring, with no gentle voices, for admission. 
 For a moment we doubted the possibility of esta- 
 blishing quiet, or of doing anything in the business 
 of instruction ; but our fears were speedily dis- 
 pelled. It needed but a few gentle words and a 
 proposal to sing a hymn to quell the tiger within 
 them, and make them all — ragged and begrimed 
 with dirt as they were — as quiet and attentive as 
 the same number of youths at home would have 
 been. 
 
 Of these pupils we find Mr. Knapp saying, in 
 one of his reports : — " I have about 3CX) of these 
 * Murillos,* as a good American lady-friend calls 
 them, because they all resemble so much the paint- 
 ings of children by that great artist. These were 
 at first very unruly — shouting, laughing, and cuffing 
 one another during the prayers ; and great patience 
 had to be exercised to calm them into an orderly, 
 well-behaved school. Now they all sing the beau- 
 tiful hymns we have taught them, all of which you 
 know ; and these same little children, by singing 
 
 o 
 
210 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 at home and at their work, attract their parents to 
 our meetings, where they have been greatly 
 blessed." 
 
 Singing is employed as the main vehicle of 
 instruction. The hymns contain the more essential 
 facts of the Gospel ; they are set to beautiful airs ; 
 they are got by heart ; and so, without any strain 
 to which their mental powers would be unequal, the 
 truth is lodged in the memories of the youths. The 
 hymns were alternated with verbal instruction, also 
 very elementary in its character ; indeed, any other 
 would be as good as none. The dismissal was 
 accompanied by a liberal distribution of little 
 tracts; and thus were the scholars converted into 
 missionaries or tract-distributors. We felt that, 
 verily, there was no eclat about our friend's work ; 
 but that the seed which he was sowing, and sowing 
 at the right time, would at the right time yield 
 fruit. 
 
 Let us take an instance, which fell under our 
 own notice, of the readiness of the Spanish people 
 to listen to the Gospel. It came into Mr. Knapp's 
 mind to rent another room in the same quarter of 
 the city, and open it for evening sermon. Only 
 two days before he circulated printed notices in 
 the district of his intention ; otherwise he took 
 no particular pains to make known the fact. We 
 
Other Workers in Madrid. 211 
 
 went with him on the Sabbath evening to witness 
 the result of the experiment. Well, a few minutes 
 after the service had commenced the room was 
 filled. It would contain not less than 300. We do 
 not believe that such a thing could be done in our 
 own country. Weeks would have to be spent in 
 visiting the people at their homes, and plying them 
 with arguments to come to sermon ; and, after all, 
 the place might not be half filled. But here, in the 
 most sunken part of a sunken capital, one has but 
 to say, At such an hour and in such a place I will 
 preach the Gospel ; and straightway there gathers a 
 crowd round him. This is truly marvellous. We 
 have seen nothing like it in Italy. A few nights 
 afterwards, in Seville, the Rev. Mr. Thugwell, the 
 English clergyman, who himself is toiling in the 
 work, said to us, "Although we could multiply a 
 hundredfold our agents in Spain, we should still 
 have too few. Go to what town or village you will, 
 it is the same ; say it is a Protestant sermon you 
 are to preach, and an audience you will get." 
 And the night after, Seiior Alicante Walpole said 
 to us in Jerez, " Send a pastor to this town, and I 
 promise you that in a short time he will have a 
 congregation of 4,000 people." Surely some in- 
 fluence of a^ extraordinary kind is moving upon 
 Spain at this hour ! We question whether there b^ 
 
 O 2 
 
212 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 a mission-field like this in the wide earth at this 
 moment. The ultimate result we cannot say ; but, 
 meanwhile, the case of Spain is, so far as we know, 
 without example, and calls for prompt and com- 
 bined effort ; for should the tide ebb, we know not 
 when it may flow again. 
 
 On the faces of Mr. Knapp's new congregation, 
 even more than on those of the congregation in 
 Calle de la Madera, we could read the wonder 
 with which they were listening, most probably for 
 the first time in all their life, to the simple truths of 
 Christianity. Take a man out of a pit and show 
 him the landscapes and seas of earth, and mark 
 the wonder that sits upon his face as he gazes on 
 a world which, though it always existed around 
 him, he now beholds for the first time. Or bring a 
 man from prison and show him the lights of that 
 ancient vault which spans the globe, and which are 
 as new to him as if they had never been created 
 till that hour. The men before us had been brought 
 from a deep pit, from a dark prison, and the truths 
 which were being announced were as new to them 
 as if this had been the first moment of their reve- 
 lation. To them, in fact, it was so ; the Jehovah 
 of the Bible, the Cross of Calvary, the Blood that 
 cleanseth, in short, all the lights of the spiritual 
 universe were being for the first time unveiled 
 
Other Workers in Madrid. 213 
 
 to them ; and the surprise and wonder these truths 
 created showed themselves in their looks. Is this a 
 dream, and will it vanish ? or is it a reality, and 
 will it abide ? Such were the questions they were 
 inwardly putting. 
 
 The above account of Professor Knapp's work 
 was written in Madrid last October. It has since 
 opened out greatly, and the following particulars, 
 gleaned from the monthly letters of this gentle- 
 man, show the variety of his operations, and the 
 zeal and success with which they are being prose- 
 cuted. It is right to add that Professor Knapp, 
 like Mr. Miiller of Bristol, trusts entirely to Provi- 
 dence for the funds necessary to carry on his work. 
 
 "It will be remembered," says Mr. Knapp, speak- 
 ing of the hall to which reference has already been 
 made, " that hall. No. 2 (Cabeza), was taken the 
 1st of October, since which time from 300 to 400 
 have been in almost nightly attendance there, and 
 on one occasion as many as 600 were crowded 
 inside, in the adjacent rooms, and on the stairs out- 
 side. The average may be justly set down at 350. 
 In each station we have preaching ^z/^ nights in the 
 week. This hard work is necessary by reason of 
 the almost utter ignorance of the people respect- 
 ing the Gospel, and the desirableness of presenting 
 the truth under a great variety of aspects, so as to 
 
214 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 reach all classes of minds. On one evening in the 
 week I hold, personally in each locale, an inquiry or 
 class meeting, for the converted and the serious. 
 On these occasions I have explained several chap- 
 ters of the Epistle to the Hebrews on the eter- 
 nal priesthood of Christ, and the sufficiency of 
 His sacrifice made once for all, with special refer- 
 ence to a Romish community. The attendance 
 of adults alone now averages 500 daily, in both 
 locales. The number would be much greater, if we 
 had room. Many come from a great distance, and 
 we often find them patiently waiting at the door ; 
 the maimed, the halt, and the blind are there. 
 Almost every night, in No. i (San Cayetano), a 
 party of four blind men enter early, holding fast 
 to one another, and guided by our attendant at the 
 door. It is an afTecting sight. The angels of 
 heaven must be moved by the situation in Madrid, 
 for the multitude are pressing in at the invitation 
 of the Master. I have just secured a third hall, 
 which will accommodate some 300, located in an 
 opposite part of the town." 
 
 Mr. Knapp also holds meetings for children ; 
 and of these he says, "About 250 children are thus 
 being taught the principles of the Gospel. We 
 have four ' Sunday ' schools a week, two in each 
 hall, one on Sunday and one on a week-day. The 
 
Other Workers in Madrid. 215 
 
 facility with which Spanish children learn is equal, 
 if not superior to our ' little folk ' at home. Several 
 have committed to memory all of Matthew's 
 Gospel, and every Sabbath boys and girls may be 
 seen repeating forty or fifty verses of the New 
 Testament, which they have committed to memory. 
 I give a few rewards, but not many, for the children 
 seem to find in the privilege of coming an adequate 
 compensation for their diligence." 
 
 As regards the Fruits of the Work, he says : 
 " Hardly a night passes without bearing witness to 
 the deep emotions of young and old, timid and 
 strong. Several cases, like those we often see in 
 Protestant countries, have arisen of prolonged 
 agony on account of sin, followed by the most 
 unmistakable evidences of conversion. The ma- 
 jority, however, believe with much more readiness 
 and simplicity than with those who have the faci- 
 lities of the home field ; and, therefore, the trans- 
 formation is more difficult to determine. A large 
 number of the inscribed are persons in the maturity 
 and decline of life, between the ages of forty-five 
 and sixty. Under all these circumstances we feel it 
 is wise to exercise large charity, knowing well 
 the almost total darkness their souls are in with 
 respect of Christian experience and duty. Rome 
 has done her work with fearful thoroughness, and 
 
2i6 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 we must labour here with much patience, sym- 
 pathy, and love. We hope, by a well-ordered sys- 
 tem of visiting and personal instruction, to assist 
 them in treading the new way that leads to the 
 celestial city." 
 
 Mr. Knapp has also undertaken the formation and 
 conduct of a theological training-school, than which 
 few things are more necessary for the permanence of 
 the work. " The great difficulty of securing earnest 
 men as evangelists, and the ephemeral relations to 
 our work of those who have preached for us, have 
 led me to undertake the formation of a theological 
 training-school, for the constant supply of men for 
 all branches of the work. Among the converted 
 in each mission I have gathered the most intelli- 
 gent of those who felt called to labour exclusively 
 with us. The number of such has now reached 
 seven. These meet me every week-day morning, 
 from nine to eleven, when I give them instruction 
 in the Bible, principles of interpretation, sacred 
 history, Biblical geography, topography, and anti- 
 quities ; for which my former avocations, as pro- 
 fessor of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, seem to have 
 been a providential preparation. Most of these 
 young men (their ages range from twenty to thirty) 
 have been obliged to abandon their business for 
 this object, so that they are in a measure dependent 
 
Other Workers in Madrid. 217 
 
 upon us for support. They assist in holding the 
 children's meetings, in Sunday-schools, and in visit- 
 ing the sick and distressed of our congregations. 
 Much of their time is likewise spent in the prepa- 
 ration of Scripture biographies, which I give them 
 as subjects to meditate and to narrate publicly. 
 They also hold a daily prayer-meeting among 
 themselves." 
 
 The following is a touching picture of a poor 
 little sufferer, who has only one thing to soothe 
 his pain, but that one thing is everything. "I 
 must tell you about a poor lad who has lain on 
 his bed ill for eight years — nearly all his life. His 
 father came to our meetings by some strange pro- 
 vidence, although they live in the opposite extreme 
 of the town. When I learned of the case, I sent 
 children from the Sunday-school to sing, and good 
 young men to read and pray with him every day. 
 One day last week I went myself to see him. 
 I found him in the garret of the house, in a room 
 — the only one they possess — about twelve feet 
 square, in which were two beds, one for the lad, 
 and the other for the mother and father. In it 
 besides was a box, one chair, and a Spanish kitchen- 
 range. This was all. Here the child had suffered 
 eight long years. He was very thin and pale 
 in the face, and his end cannot be far off. But, oh. 
 
2i8 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 what a happy boy! He loves Jesus, for he had 
 received him at once, as soon as the friends came to 
 tell him the good news. 
 
 "I read a chapter, or several passages in different 
 chapters applicable to his case, and then we sang 
 a sweet hymn, in which he tried hard to join, in 
 a faint yet eager voice, that broke away at times 
 from its feebleness, then ceased as exhaustion 
 succeeded. After prayer I asked him a few 
 questions : ' Do you suffer much, dear ?' — 'Oh, yes, 
 sir, terrible pain ! Yesterday I tried to get on my 
 knees in the bed, but I am so swollen in my body 
 (he had dropsy, and was fearfully distended) I could 
 not, then I put my hands together so, and begged 
 Jesus to take away this pain in my head, I 
 am so weary of it ; and it all went away, and 
 now every time it comes I pray, and it goes 
 off.' — ' Do you believe in Jesus as your only 
 Saviour.?' — 'Oh yes! I sing and believe, / know 
 'tis Jesus saves my soul T — 'Have you patience 
 to bear all your afflictions t ' — ' Yes, I do it now 
 for Jesus' sake. It's all I can do for him. I 
 wish I could do more, but I can't; and Jesus 
 knows it.' We were all bathed in tears — parents, 
 friends, and myself, standing about the room, for 
 seats there were none." 
 
 Not less interesting is the following, giving as 
 
Other Workers in Madrid. 219 
 
 it does a sample of the simplicity and fervour of 
 those who are coming under the power of the 
 Gospel in Spain. 
 
 " A fine tall young woman of twenty-one came 
 from the first to our meetings in San Cayetano. 
 My attention was called to her by her strong, 
 sweet, though untrained voice in singing. Her 
 whole soul seemed poured out in those beautiful 
 hymns. Every night, in all weathers, she attended, 
 and it was soon evident to me that she was one 
 of those cases that silently pass into a believing 
 state. I called her into the Mission office one 
 day, with two of the evangelists, and asked her 
 as follows: ' Antonia, do you love the Saviour.^' 
 — ' Oh yes ! I live a new life now.' — ' But I want 
 you to tell me your religious experience.' — 'I don't 
 understand.' — ' I mean the story of your change ; 
 you say you live a new life now.' — ' I cannot' — 
 ' Well, Antonia, did you always love Jesus ? * 
 — * I didn't know about Him, but as soon as I heard 
 of Him, and that I could come to Him without 
 paying a cuarto, just as I am, I did, and I've loved 
 Him ever since.' — ' Do you pray to Him V — * Oh 
 yes ! at home, at my work, anywhere.' — ' But I 
 want some further proof that you are a converted 
 person, Antonia ; it isn't words, you know, that 
 save us. Can't you help me ? I would like to 
 
220 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 record your name in this book.' — ' I am very igno- 
 rant,' said she, at last, ' and I can scarcely tell what 
 you desire, but all I can say is that when I pray, / 
 feel God {siento a Dios)' — ' That will do, Antonia,' 
 said I with enthusiasm, 'that will do ; I believe you 
 are saved! In a few days after she was rudely 
 repulsed from her home late at night, followed by 
 the epithets, terrible indeed in Spain, of ' Judia,' 
 'herege' (Jewess, heretic). She wandered up and 
 down the streets in that dangerous ward, in the 
 cold, malarious night air, when a poor Galician 
 water-carrier, who knew her family, meeting her, 
 took her temporarily to his own home. The day 
 following she was dismissed from her work in the 
 factory, but we soon got her restored, when the 
 facts came to be known. In all these afflictions 
 Antonia bore up with true Christian humility — 
 ever cheerful, ever happy. Now see the Providence 
 of God ! She worked in the Government 'Fabrica 
 de Tabacos,' or cigar factory, where more than 
 5,000 women are employed. We had often wanted 
 to get the Gospel among those women, as we do in 
 the government hospitals, where we send readers, 
 by permission of the authorities, and are trying to 
 do so with the military barracks. But these 5,000 
 women in the factory will not even suffer Spaniards 
 to enter the building; more than one insurrection in 
 
Other Workers in Madrid. 221 
 
 Madrid has taken its rise from that building near the 
 S. Cayetano Mission. One day Antonia came to us, 
 saying if we would give her Gospels and tracts, she 
 would not be afraid to distribute them among the 
 operatives. We did so, and now from twenty to 
 thirty of those fierce Amazons are constant attend- 
 ants at our meetings, ^clothed and in their right 
 mind,' led by this one girl. In a short time we 
 hope the general temper of the employes there 
 will have been so moderated, that we can send a 
 native evangelist among them to read and expound 
 the Gospel in the establishment itself" 
 
 After a short campaign of seven months Pro- 
 fessor Knapp found that he had enrolled 1,325 
 professed converts on his books. This compelled 
 him to face a very important question ; were all 
 these persons, who had cut themselves off from the 
 Church in which they were born to have no equi- 
 valent t Preaching, although a principal, is not 
 the only means of evangelising. The Church, the 
 communion of saints, is an important agency for 
 edifying and building up the body of Christ. It 
 was now — that is in the beginning of April of this 
 year — that Professor Knapp came to the resolution 
 of receiving ordination from the United Presby- 
 terian Church of Scotland, two of its ministers 
 having providentially visited Madrid, and of form- 
 
222 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 ing the various preaching-stations under him into 
 a Church on the Presbyterian platform, adopting 
 the Westminster Confession and the Larger and 
 Shorter Catechisms as its creed, and arranging its 
 order in all things according to the Universal Pres- 
 byterian Church. In carrying into effect this 
 resolution, Mr. Knapp acted from the conviction, 
 he tells us, that " the Presbyterian form of church 
 government and discipline was the best suited to 
 Spain under all circumstances." 
 
 The transition undergone by a Romanist in 
 being made for the first time to comprehend the 
 Gospel is one which can scarce be understood by 
 those who have read the Bible from their infancy, 
 and known, intellectually at least, all its truths. 
 The spiritual world around the Romanist is al- 
 together different from the spiritual world around 
 the Protestant. Indeed, the Romanist can scarce 
 be said to know a spiritual world at all. He lives 
 all life long in a region of sense, for he has nothing 
 in common with the Protestant but a few names 
 of things. When, therefore, he hears the truths of 
 Christianity, it is the opening of the eye ; it is the 
 passing the threshold of a spiritual universe, and 
 the moment of transition is and must be one of 
 wonder, astonishment, and awe. 
 
 The world in which he formerly dwelt departs. 
 
Other Workers in Madrid, 223 
 
 This adds to his wonder, and almost breeds terror, 
 as would the sinking of the earth below one's feet. 
 The Pantheon of his gods — Mary and all the saints 
 — melts into thin air ; and he is left alone with 
 the great idea of God, and the old, but to him new, 
 story of the Cross. To be brought so suddenly 
 into the presence of a pure spirit — a holy God — 
 a God so unlike his former ones, who were men 
 like himself, whom he saw painted on the walls of 
 his churches, with whom he could take great 
 liberties — and with whom, at times, he took very 
 extraordinary liberties indeed — to pass from such 
 deities into the presence of a God who is a spirit 
 is to him painful. " How," says he, " can I stand 
 before this holy Lord God t " Perhaps he goes 
 back to his wooden deities, as men, who have grown 
 old in a dungeon, prefer to end their days in the 
 darkness rather than in the light of day. More 
 frequently, however, he goes forward into the 
 light, feeling now, as in the instance detailed 
 above, that for the first time in his life he comes 
 to God — the living God. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 TOLEDO AND THE SIERRA MORENA. 
 
 Departure from Madrid — Husbandry around the Capital — Sierra 
 Toledo— The Tagus— Beauty of Aranjuez — Toledo— Romantic 
 Site — Moorish Monuments — Weird look of the Interior — The 
 Old and the New — New Castile — Sierra Morena — La Mancha 
 and Cervantes — The Guadalquivir — Frontier of Andalusia — 
 Approach to Cordova. 
 
 The roll of the Spanish drum, as we passed along 
 the Prado in the early morning to the station of 
 the Southern Railway, was assembling the troops, 
 and officers and men were hastening to join their 
 regiments, which were under orders to march against 
 the republicans in the south. The men seemed to 
 have no heart to the work, and little wonder, seeing 
 it was not a foreign foe, but their own countrymen, 
 against whom they were about to unsheath their 
 swords! Preparatory to starting, they were busy 
 in the unwarlike occupation of spending a few 
 coins in the market, in the purchase of bread and 
 fruit. The soldiers took their departure in a 
 separate train. In the ordinary passenger cars was 
 a strong detachment of the municipal guard, to 
 see after the safety of the travellers in the then 
 unsettled state of the country. 
 
Toledo and the Sierra M or en a. 22S 
 
 Outside the city, we were again, we felt, in the 
 wilderness, and our heart sank at the sight of the 
 desolation all round us. It seemed as if the inhabit- 
 ants looked for bread to fall to them from the clouds, 
 for certainly they had ceased to seek it from the 
 ground. There sat the city with its thousands of 
 starving men, and there, far and wide around, lay 
 the silent plain, unturned, unwatered, undecked 
 by flowers, unclothed by tree, with the fierce sun 
 glaring down upon its naked bosom. What mad- 
 ness has seized the men of this unhappy land, 
 that from year to year, and from century to 
 century, they will shed the blood of one another, 
 while, would they but cast away the sword and 
 betake them to the plough and the pruning-hook, 
 their land would be as full of blessings as it is of 
 wretchedness ? 
 
 Some dozen miles south of Madrid, however, 
 we were cheered by a sight unusual in Spain — two 
 ploughs at work. True, they were what are called 
 " Adam's ploughs," and looked so primitive, that 
 they might have come down from Adam's day. 
 They were scratching only the surface, leaving 
 the, riches of the subsoil untouched ; still, we 
 were glad to see them ; for it told us that plough- 
 ing was not wholly a lost art in Spain, and 
 that under a better state of things husbandry will 
 
 P 
 
226 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 revive, and the herbless land be transformed into 
 a garden. 
 
 Going still farther south, the country became 
 even better adapted for the operations of the 
 husbandman. It ran out into plains of from a 
 dozen to twenty miles in length to from six to 
 eight in width, evidently of the finest soil ; the 
 edges of the plains curling up as it were, and 
 swelling into low hills. Only clothe these valleys 
 with corn, and plant these hills with the olive and 
 the vine, and what a garden would Spain be ! The 
 day, surely, will yet come when the curse will be 
 lifted off, and then the "plowman will overtake the 
 reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth 
 seed ; and all the hills shall melt." 
 
 One is glad when he finds himself approaching 
 the foot of the Sierra Toledo, for now the swelling 
 heights begin to break the dismal uniformity ; and 
 as we climb the low hills, the eye is refreshed by 
 here and there, on their slopes, an olive-yard, or a 
 little bit of green. 
 
 We descend into the valley of the Tagus. Here 
 we light on what is quite an oasis in this treeless 
 and streamless land. Aranjuez, on the confluence 
 of the Tagus and the Jarama, is, or was, a royal 
 residence. The court of Isabella was wont to visit 
 it for a few weeks in spring. It gives proof of 
 
Toledo and the Sierra Morena. 227 
 
 what Spain might be with a httle pains. Here 
 are gardens of tropical luxuriance ; elms and 
 oaks of enormous girth and of mighty stature ; 
 cascades of water, and birds flitting from bough to 
 bough, and enlivening the place with their singing. 
 One is loath to leave this spot, which looks a very- 
 Eden in this wasted land ; but a few minutes 
 suffice for the necessary alterations in the train, 
 and so once more we are out into the naked, dusty, 
 sunburnt wilderness. 
 
 The course of the railway is not far from that 
 of the broad, full-flooded, and slow-flowing Tagus, 
 with its fringe of green and its belt of cultivation. 
 We approach Toledo. This town must delay our 
 steps a little while. It is an antique gem of un- 
 rivalled beauty. As it rises before the traveller 
 on its throne of crags — for they say of it that, like 
 Rome, it is built on seven hills — so airy, graceful, 
 and romantic, it looks a fairy creation, summoned 
 up for his special delight by the wand of a magician. 
 The magic wand that called up Toledo was the 
 genius of the Moor. We question whether in the 
 East there is a finer specimen of architecture to 
 be seen ; certainly in Spain Toledo stands without 
 a rival. At its feet thunders the Tagus, sweeping 
 round the city, through savage gorges and frown- 
 ing rocks, as grand and romantic as almost 
 
 P 2 
 
228 Daybreak in Spain, 
 
 anything which the Scottish highlands can boast. 
 And then aloft, in the clear brilliant sky, on a 
 pedestal of hills, are Moorish castles, battlements, 
 and gateways ; and mingled with them are the 
 aspiring roofs and towers of cathedrals and con- 
 vents, and in the midst, eclipsing them all by its 
 inimitable grace, is the Alcazar. 
 
 But the moment we enter Toledo the spell is 
 dissolved, or rather it is continued in another form. 
 There is a weird look about the place. You see 
 scarcely anybody in the narrow silent street, and 
 those you do meet look so very old. For anything 
 you can tell from their dress and faces they may 
 have been born about the time those edifices were 
 erected, and have lived here all the while. They 
 seem not to belong to the present generation at all, 
 or to have any relations with the world that now 
 is ; but to be a little colony of the fourteenth 
 century, preserved by some strange talismanic 
 influence till now. We thought of Tadmor in the 
 desert ; and of Thebes amid the sands of Egypt, 
 with its silent temples and tombs, and its mummies 
 vivified, and set a-walking in its streets. The 
 whole thing— Moorish edifices, inhabitants and all 
 — ought to be put under a glass case, and pre- 
 served as a curiosity; and, certainly, although 
 Toledo were to be so dealt with, its isolation could 
 
Toledo and the Sierra Morena. 229 
 
 hardly be greater, nor its disseverment from the 
 modern world more complete. 
 
 We left it at eventide. A lovelier evening we 
 never beheld. The sky was one mass of gold, and 
 its rich light falling on the naked hills, and on the 
 old Moorish monuments of Toledo, clothed them in 
 the most brilliant hues, and gave them an unspeak- 
 able beauty. As we descended the hill on which 
 the city stands, and passed under the Moorish castle 
 which guards the bridge which spans the Tagus 
 and "binds rock to rock," we turned again and 
 again, to gaze on the wondrous creation of cupolas, 
 towers, and ramparts which rose behind us, pic- 
 tured against the sky, their "hoar" hidden by 
 the vermilion of eve. What a paradise must this 
 region have been when the Moor and the Jew 
 dwelt in it ! Then this neglected valley was a 
 garden, and the gleam of a thousand casements 
 lighted up those hills at eve, where now scarce a 
 human habitation is to be seen. 
 
 The railway station is at the foot of the hill, 
 some mile or so outside the city ; it is simply a 
 branch to Castellejo, where the main line is joined. 
 We did not know which most to marvel at — the 
 representative of the Middle Ages in the weird town 
 behind us, or the symbol of Modern Times in the 
 puffing and snorting engine before us. How very 
 
230 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 close to each other had come the two! The Past, 
 with all its age upon it, sitting so silent and so 
 grand on its mount ; and the PRESENT pushing im- 
 petuously forward, and threatening to undermine 
 and cast down the Old. But we must leave the 
 two to fight out the battle between them, which 
 they are doing in the valley of the Tagus as every- 
 where else. Having reached the main line, we 
 resumed our course to the south. Our way is once 
 more over the dreary plains of New Castile. Night 
 brings with it a bitter wind, without tree or hill to 
 break its force ; and the brilliant moon on the 
 desert plain makes it look white as chalk, and 
 almost as clear as day. 
 
 By morning, we are threading the defiles of the 
 Sierra Morena. The ravines are narrow, the 
 tunnels are frequent ; the bottoms of the gorges are 
 far beneath, and high above us are the naked, 
 splintry peaks, with here and there a picket of 
 soldiers stationed amongst them, to guard the pass 
 from the violence of revolutionary bands. 
 
 We descend on the plains of La Mancha ; the 
 traveller discovers that he has not seen the worst 
 till now. The genius of Cervantes has thrown a 
 charm over this region, for here were done the 
 exploits of his imaginary hero, Don Quixote. One 
 almost expects to see the gaunt figure of the 
 
:0L DE PERTT 
 
Toledo and the Sierra M or en a. 231 
 
 knight, attended by his trusty squire, riding slowly 
 and solemnly athwart the plain, so much do the 
 creations of Cervantes dwell in the mind as reali- 
 ties. But nothing is now to be seen here but 
 desolation, scarce relieved by a single dwelling, or 
 a single wayfarer. It is well the novelist has clothed 
 these plains with his wonderful conceptions, for 
 they are clothed with nothing else. The region is 
 a tawny wilderness — a vast despopolado — with here 
 and there a long line of melancholy road, on which 
 traveller is now rarely seen ; or a few villages, 
 dotting with patches of black, at wide intervals, 
 the white surface of the plain, mere assemblages 
 of huts, like Santa Cruz, such as one would 
 look for in Kaffirland perhaps, but would hardly 
 expect to find in Spain. The Sierra Morena, 
 however, somewhat redeems the tameness of the 
 plain ; it runs along in a blue line on its northern 
 edge, bounding a desert, where, were man not 
 incurably stricken, there would be a paradise. 
 
 The Guadalquivir, ho ! Adieu the desolate 
 Castiles ! They are now behind us. Let us dis- 
 miss the images of desolation and hideous ruin, 
 physical and moral, with which they have filled 
 our mind. We are now at the gates of the sunny 
 South. We are now on the frontier of Andalusia 
 — " the land that once was Paradise." This is its 
 
232 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 bounding stream that is flowing past. With the 
 Guadalquivir how much romance and poetry are 
 associated ! Let us see it. Let us feast our eyes 
 upon its waters, its pahns, its gardens, its Moorish 
 castles, its opulent cities, where dwelt knightly 
 Saracen and learned Jew, and where shone beauty, 
 and grace, and chivalry. Let us see the famous 
 stream. Better not. Better for once that we shut 
 our eyes, and be carried across without seeing 
 it. This we would undoubtedly do, were it not 
 that we must journey some couple of hundreds of 
 miles along its course, and must, perforce, see it at 
 some point ; so better make up our minds to the 
 shock now. There it is ! A broad canal of bluish 
 water, stagnating between banks of white earth. 
 
 A vast robe of brown, with a fringe of green. 
 So may Spain be described. The Castiles, Old and 
 New, are the brown ; all round goes the emerald 
 border. The Pyrenees on the north ; the seaboard 
 of towering crag and watered ravine on the west ; 
 the sweet Andalusia on the south ; and on the east 
 and north-east the fertile strip, in which are situated 
 the towns of Valentia and Barcelona : these make 
 up the fringe. But the fringe is not so green, after 
 all. Bits there are of surpassing luxuriance and 
 beauty ; spots that do indeed look an Eden ; but 
 they are the exceptions, the brown much predomi- 
 
Toledo and the Sierra Morena. 233 
 
 nates. Still, no one can have any difficulty in 
 seeing that in Spain, wasted as it is, there are still 
 all the elements of its former fertility ; and that 
 were some moral Spring to set in, it would speedily 
 be followed by a physical Spring, which would do 
 more than restore the Andalusia of past times. 
 Especially do its wonderful natural facilities for 
 irrigation remain. Mountain-chains, running from 
 east to west, traverse the country, holding, betwixt 
 their several ranges, plains of vast extent and 
 amazingly fertile soil. These are so many cisterns 
 or aqueducts, not literally hung in the clouds, yet 
 suspended above the plains, amply replenished 
 with water ; for these mountain chains abound in 
 fountains, in torrents, and, some of them, in snows, 
 ready, when the clouds are sealed, to pour their 
 contents upon the thirsty plains at their feet. It 
 needs nothing more to make the land run over with 
 flower and fruit. The Moors, it is well known, 
 dealt in this way with the Vega of Granada. They 
 were wise enough to see for what end the snows of 
 the Sierra Nevada were hung in mid-heaven above 
 them. By means of canals they made them water 
 every foot-breadth of their plain, and its fertility 
 and beauty passed into a proverb ; and a real 
 " Garden of Hesperus " bloomed where the glowing 
 fancy of the classic writers had placed the fabulous 
 
234 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 one. There is scarce a plain of any extent in all 
 Spain that does not admit of being dealt with as 
 the Moors dealt with their famous Vega. And 
 were it so, the sowing and the gathering would go 
 on together at all seasons, and an eternal Spring 
 would clothe the ground. As it is, two-thirds of 
 Andalusia are lying in a state of nature— the hills 
 unplanted, the fields unploughed, the torrents run- 
 ning to waste, and the arid earth affecting the very 
 sky, and sealing up the rains, so that long periods 
 of drought combine with man's neglect to smite the 
 ground with a double barrenness. Yet no dawning 
 of this seems to visit the poor inhabitant. Enter 
 any country village, and, ten to one, you will find 
 the greater part of its population lying in groups 
 in the streets, and sleeping in open day. 
 
 We are now drawing nigh Cordova — that 
 " Athens " of the West, which burned like a lamp 
 when the night of the Middle Ages covered 
 Europe. We are on the out-look for it, for the 
 guide-books tell us that its approach is signalled 
 by groves of palm and of lemon and orange trees. 
 These, alas ! flourish only in the guide-books. 
 Still, as we draw nigh it there is a perceptible in- 
 crease of cultivation. The hills of the Sierra Mo- 
 nena are here clothed with trees and sparkle with 
 white villas, reminding one somewhat of the lovely 
 
Toledo and the Sierra M or en a. 235 
 
 Colina which walls in the valley of the Po at 
 Turin. Aloes along the road-side become fre- 
 quent, with occasional thickets of orange ; but up 
 to the very gates of Cordova, and all round it on 
 the south, the white thirsty plain continues. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 CORDOVA. 
 
 Expectation of Better Things — An Incident — Railway-station — 
 Cordova — Past Populousness and Grandeur — Desolation Within 
 and Without — Its Mosque, or Cathedral — Its Streets — Their 
 Names — Its Inquisition— Its Archbishop — Its Evangelisation — 
 Its Promise at First — A Blight — Apostacy — Burning Scene — 
 Linares — Commencement of its Evangelisation. 
 
 It was nearly noon when we reached the station at 
 Cordova ; the cold during night had been excessive, 
 but now the heat was almost tropical. Breakfast 
 awaited us at Menjibar, and it helped to improve 
 the relish with which we partook of it, to think 
 that it was eaten on the frontier of Andalusia, 
 and within a stone's throw of the Guadalquivir. 
 Farewell the sterile mountain and the arid plain ! 
 now we are about to enter the land of the orange 
 and the palm-tree ; and surely we may expect in 
 the sunny South, if anywhere, to see the flowers 
 appearing on the earth, and to hear the singing of 
 birds. Away we went, hoping against hope ; our 
 expectations were moderate, and a very slight 
 improvement would have contented us. But that 
 improvement was long in coming. The plain still 
 
Cordova. 237 
 
 kept its whiteness ; the green came not to reheve 
 the almost intolerable glare of the sun, whose rays 
 were reflected from its naked surface. The Sierra 
 Morena, however, kept us company, walling in the 
 valley on the north with a line of peaks, the lower 
 slopes of the mountain being softened with olive 
 woods, with here and there a villa or castle gleam- 
 ing out from amid their foliage. Nearer us, along 
 the railway's course, grew the aloe and the cactus 
 with a powdering of white dust upon their branches 
 and occasionally would come a clump of orange- 
 trees, the fruit just passing into the golden hue. 
 
 At this part of the journey an incident occurred 
 which gave us a little insight into the Spanish 
 character. A small party of soldiers travelled in 
 the same train ; at one of the stations where we 
 halted they stepped out upon the platform, and, 
 gathering around one of their fellow-passengers, 
 an old man, they asked him for whom he was — 
 Serrano or the Insurrection } He at once replied, 
 "Serrano!" The soldiers cheered him again and 
 again, till the tears rolled down the old man's 
 cheeks. We were pleased to see it ; it bespoke, we 
 thought, an enthusiasm not yet trodden out of the 
 Spanish character, and which a greater cause may 
 yet kindle into generous and devoted effort. A 
 people that can weep are not wholly lost. They 
 
238 Daybreak in Spain, 
 
 have within them the elements of restoration. Who 
 can tell but that when the Gospel shall fully enter, 
 and they see what they did three centuries ago, 
 they will weep — aye, the whole nation — till the 
 voice of their lamentation shall be heard in other 
 lands; and when "the time to weep" shall have 
 passed, then will come the time for effort — com- 
 bined, resolute, heroic effort — to repair the injuries 
 and crimes of the past ? 
 
 The railway-station is a mile from the town. It 
 is a roomy and rather handsome erection, on the 
 model of our English ones. There, as everywhere 
 in Spain, a small detachment of the civil guard, 
 armed with muskets, attend the arrival and depar- 
 ture of the trains. The approach to Cordova from 
 the station is by a new and spacious promenade, 
 just beginning to be adorned with edifices, which 
 as far surpass their fellows within the city in their 
 showy exteriors as they fall beneath them in mas- 
 siveness and durability. We are close on Cordova, 
 and yet nothing of it is visible save the summits 
 of a few church-towers, and here and there a ma- 
 jestic palm, which rises aloft, and hangs its crown 
 of leaves above the buildings. 
 
 Of this town, as of another yet more ancient 
 and renowned, it may be said, " How doth the city 
 sit solitary that was full of people !" More popu- 
 
Cordova. 239 
 
 lous than Jerusalem ever was, Cordova is said in 
 the tenth century to have contained 1,000,000 in- 
 habitants. In those days, instead of occupying 
 the modest space on the plain to which it is 
 now restricted, it ran over its walls, and filled the 
 surrounding region with suburban magnificence. 
 Along the banks of the Guadalquivir, and up the 
 low hills on the east, ran a gay profusion of villas 
 and gardens. " A circuit of twenty miles," no 
 smaller area, it is said, could suffice for the Cor- 
 dova of those days. It was a sight worth seeing. 
 Industry filled it with wealth, genius clothed it 
 with beauty, and learning spread its renown wide 
 abroad. It was the pride and boast of the 
 Moor ; it counted 600 mosques, 900 public baths, 
 and 4,000 minarets. In all the West there was 
 no city like Cordova ; but, alas ! into what sorry 
 dimensions has Cordova now shrunk. It cowers 
 within its old walls ; it is silent almost as a moun- 
 tain hamlet. The only signs of trade in its narrow 
 winding lanes is an occasional mule with his sack 
 of charcoal, or a market-woman with her basket of 
 half-ripened fruits on her head. Outside the city 
 all is desert ; there is now neither garden by the 
 Guadalquivir nor villa on the mountain-side, and 
 were it not for the Sierra Morena on the north, 
 where linger still a few olive woods, the prospect 
 
240 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 around Cordova would be one of unmitigated 
 barrenness. 
 
 The most remarkable monument in Cordova, 
 indeed the only one worth one's special attention, 
 is the cathedral or mosque. It is unique in 
 Europe, and, so far as we know, in the world. It 
 is in a style of architecture unknown to the 
 Egyptians, unknown to the Greeks, in short, un- 
 known to builders of all ages and all countries ; 
 and as it had no predecessor, it is not at all likely 
 that it will ever have successor. Its taste may 
 be questioned ; its originality cannot, yet is its 
 plan simple. It is a plantation of marble columns, 
 ranged in line and at regular distances, with a 
 roof thrown over them. The space covered cannot 
 be less than from ten to a dozen acres. At 
 whatever point one stands, there stretch out 
 before him vast avenues of pillars, surmounted by 
 light Moorish arches, on which the roof rests. Let 
 us suppose Palmyra, or Jerash in the Hauran, 
 roofed in, and you would have a spectacle some- 
 thing like the cathedral of Cordova. But whence 
 came all these pillars — for there are upwards of a 
 thousand of them, of jasper, and porphyry, and mar- 
 ble, all finely polished, beautifully variegated, and 
 no two of them alike } The old temples and ruined 
 towns of Africa, Asia, and Europe, were ransacked, 
 
Cordova. 241 
 
 and hence this extraordinary assemblage. It was 
 the work of the Moors ; and was at first a Moslem 
 temple. When the monks took possession of it, it 
 underwent a thorough purgation. There were no 
 images to break in pieces, and probably if such 
 there had been they would have been spared ; but 
 the priests waged a war of extermination against 
 the inimitable arabesques with which the exquisite 
 taste of the Moors had adorned their mosque. 
 They covered them inch-deep with whitewash. 
 Some few memorials of the Moslem times and 
 worship however remain. The richly carved chest 
 in which the Koran was placed ; the seat, or recess 
 in which sat the Caliph while at his devotions, 
 and the Ceca or " Holy of Holies," and the Kiblah 
 turned towards Mecca — the high temple of the 
 Mahommedans — to which the Mosque of Cordova 
 was second. 
 
 Along one side of the cathedral runs the orange 
 garden of Abdu-r-rahman, with its palm-trees and 
 its marble fountains : the continual dripping of 
 the water suggests cooling fancies to slake one's 
 thirst. In the times of the Moors the mosque 
 opened into the orange court, and the devotee, as 
 he wandered amid the streets of columns within, 
 could see the golden fruit which grew luxuriantly 
 without, and hear the cool trickle of the fountain. 
 
 Q 
 
242 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 But the priests, deeming it a work of merit to dis- 
 figure whatever the genius of the Moor had left per- 
 fect, shut out the view by a dead wall, and put down 
 in the very centre of the columns a square coro, 
 which reaches from floor to ceiling, and mars the 
 striking effect of the vista which otherwise would 
 be seen running on in long lines of pillars from end 
 •to end of the vast enclosure. 
 
 Under the cathedral are, it is said, ranges of 
 ■subterranean chambers, enough to accommodate 
 all the priests of Cordova, and, it may be, a few 
 from the neighbouring villages in addition. This 
 underground retreat may be useful on occasion. 
 The bishop, who lives next door to the British 
 consul, is well known to be not at all displeased 
 that the heretical flag should float so near the 
 episcopal residence. Its proximity neither hurts 
 his digestion by day, nor disturbs his sleep by 
 night, but very possibly improves both ; indeed, 
 he has been heard to hint that the arrangement 
 may yet be found a convenient one. We visited 
 the cathedral at all hours, but never saw any one 
 in it, save some half-dozen priests within the coro, 
 and double that number of beggars outside of it. 
 Indeed, had it been built and maintained solely for 
 the use of the latter, they could not be more com- 
 pletely at home in it, or ply their trade with greater 
 
Cordova. 243 
 
 sang froid. They hunt the visitor all over it, and 
 round and round it ; they whistle and halloo after 
 him, utterly regardless if the noise they make 
 should spoil the fine chantings of the choir, or dis- 
 turb the devotions of the priest at the altar. Some 
 one has said that the mosquito and the Spanish 
 beggar are equally gifted as respects their scent, 
 the one for English blood, the other for English 
 money. But what can the poor people do? 
 Their misery is great. The heavens over them 
 are as brass; and the earth around them is as 
 iron. But, alas ! can any possible amount of alms 
 meet their case .'* The only true charity is to give 
 to Spain that "Bread that cometh down from 
 heaven ; " and to that Bread the bread of earth, 
 and all other necessary things will soon be added. 
 Cordova is a truly Moorish town. Its streets 
 are exceedingly narrow, so that one standing in 
 the middle of the path, should he extend his arms, 
 may almost touch the opposite walls with his 
 finger-tips. They are crooked and winding, being 
 the most ingenious riddle of the sort we ever at- 
 tempted practically to solve. " It is a long lane," 
 the proverb says, •' that has no turning." Where- 
 soever that proverb had its birth, it was not in 
 Cordova, for there all the lanes are long, and there 
 is not one of them without a dozen turnings. In 
 
 Q 2 
 
244 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 traversing its mazes we had — as if on the trackless 
 sea or the pathless desert — to look up to the sun 
 by day, and to the stars at night. It imposes 
 upon one, too, as regards its wealth. One would 
 take Cordova, at first sight, to be little better than 
 a collection of prisons ; for its houses, like those 
 in Pompeii, have either no windows in the lower 
 story, or windows heavily grated with iron. But a 
 peep within the doorway shows that there is still 
 much splendour and some opulence in Cordova. 
 The outer door is of iron bars, but within is a 
 marble porch, leading into a central quadrangle, 
 paved with marble, gay with tropical flowers, open 
 to the sun, cooled by fountains, and surrounded by 
 elegant pillars, supporting a balcony which gives 
 access to all the apartments of the house. It 
 must be admitted, further, that Cordova is an 
 eminently evangelical city, if the testimony of its 
 streets is to go for anything. We noticed one 
 street named the *' Holy Trinity ;" another, the 
 " Incarnation ;" a third, " Christ Crucified ;" and so 
 on, till we had a whole body of divinity in stone. 
 Surely no one can deny that the citizens of 
 Cordova obey the Scripture injunction, and " walk 
 in the old paths." 
 
 The old walls of Cordova, washed by the 
 Guadalquivir, still remain. So, too, does the In- 
 
Cordova. 245 
 
 quisition, a huge pile of buildings running along the 
 banks of the river, and now converted into the 
 common prison. It was the ^3X3.0^ {Arabic^, Alcazar) 
 of the Moorish kings. We chanced to visit it just 
 as they were leading away two poor republicans, 
 whom the soldiers had brought in, to be locked up 
 in its cells. We did not penetrate farther than the 
 vestibule, where we found three priests in con- 
 sultation, one of whom was evidently the Bishop 
 of Cordova, for, after a few minutes' talk, he 
 crossed the street to the episcopal palace. The 
 porter at the gate, when he saw him coming, 
 dropped on his knee, and, as the bishop passed in, 
 he seized his hand and kissed it. 
 
 It remains that we speak of the evangelisation 
 in Cordova. The evangelisation is one in all the 
 towns of Spain — it is the same old Gospel which is 
 being revived, or rather planted, in them all — but 
 in each it is seen under a different form. In Cor- 
 dova we behold it in an aspect under which we 
 have not yet met it in Spain. But, first, let us tell 
 how it began in Cordova. Its commencement, 
 which was unobtrusive in the extreme, shows what 
 may flow from one step, even a small one, if in the 
 right direction. There has been resident in Cor- 
 dova for many years an energetic Christian gentle- 
 man, Mr. Shaw, who, moreover, is British consul. 
 
246 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 Mr. Shaw has a large factory in the neighbourhood 
 of Cordova, in which, in company with his nephew, 
 Mr. Poole, also an earnest supporter of the evan- 
 gelisation, he employs several hundred men. The 
 habit of profane swearing was common among the 
 workmen, and it occurred to Mr. Shaw to attempt 
 the suppression of the practice by imposing a small 
 fine on each oath. The workmen concurred in 
 his proposal, and very soon a reformation began 
 to be visible. Having begun to reverence the 
 Name of God, they were drawn to read the Word 
 of God. Why not introduce the Bible into the 
 factory } The Bible was introduced, and read at 
 meal-time and leisure hours. Soon thereafter 
 came the revolution of September, which gave 
 liberty of worship, and now the workers in Mr. 
 Shaw's factory took another step. Why not have 
 an evangelist t A preacher came, and instantly a 
 numerous audience sprang up. As many as a 
 thousand would assemble of an evening to hear the 
 sermon. Eventually a preaching-hall, school-rooms, 
 and the whole material machinery of the evan- 
 gelisation was provided, and the work progressed 
 in the preaching of the Word, in the distribution 
 of Bibles and tracts, and in the rapidly-increasing 
 numbers in the schools and in the chapel. But 
 this goodly promise of early and vigorous maturity 
 
Cordova, 247 
 
 was suddenly and lamentably blighted. And now 
 comes that peculiar aspect of the evangelisation, to 
 which we would call attention as one that might 
 have been expected to occur, and which has oc- 
 curred, and brings with it its special lesson. 
 
 Every one sees that if this work of preaching 
 the Gospel and distributing Bibles goes on, Spain 
 is lost to Rome. The priests see this just as clearly 
 as other men. What are they likely to do in these 
 circumstances } Sit still, and permit this movement 
 to sweep them away .'* Sit still, and permit this fair 
 realm of Spain, which has so long been their para- 
 dise, and which is still so rich in temples and 
 devotees, to be wrested from them } Not so. 
 Whatever art, stratagem, and cunning device she 
 practised in days gone by, Rome will assuredly 
 employ in this crisis, when she needs them all, 
 and needs them so much. No stratagem ever 
 served her better than that of sending Jesuits, 
 under the guise of very zealous evangelists, into 
 the Protestant camp, to sow divisions and create 
 scandals. We do not affirm that this is what 
 Rome has done in the case of Cordova, but what 
 has happened is as like it as if it were the thing in 
 reality. We only state facts, leaving every reader 
 to form his own judgment. One thing, unhappily, 
 is beyond the reach of doubt; even that, at one 
 
248 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 time, the evangelisation in this ancient and still 
 important town was almost ruined. 
 
 Senor Soler, the evangelist at Cordova, was 
 a professed convert from the Church of Rome, 
 where he belonged to the Order of the Jesuits. 
 Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the 
 leopard his spots 1 If Mr. Soler knew not how to 
 change his skin — which we by no means afifirm — yet 
 he knew how to conceal its blackness by drawing 
 another and a fairer skin over it. A man of de- 
 cided talent, he was employed during several years, 
 in various parts, in the evangelical work. He was 
 sent to Cordova soon after the revolution, and for 
 a few months all went well. By-and-by he began 
 to slacken in his efforts ; he would drop strange 
 remarks, which startled his hearers ; he began to 
 discourage the reading of the Bible — it was a book, 
 he would hint, that was rather dark without an 
 authorised interpreter ; he would suddenly dis- 
 appear and be absent for weeks, and, when he 
 returned, would excuse himself by saying that he 
 had been to see his mother. Some folks were un- 
 charitable enough to say that this mother was she 
 who is " mother and mistress of all churches," and 
 that this dutiful son was gone to make his report 
 to her through a superior. Mr. Soler became hand- 
 and-glove with the priests of Cordova ; the work of 
 
Cordova. 249 
 
 Bible and tract distribution entirely ceased ; the 
 congregation dwindled down to nine persons ; and 
 onedaycame a strange spectacle — a great burning, in 
 the cathedral square of Cordova, of Bibles and tracts, 
 with a man stirring the flames, dressed in the exact 
 style, an eye-witness assured us, which one sees 
 in "Foxe's Book of Martyrs." Soon after this, Sefior 
 Soler went for the last time to see his mother, and 
 cast himself upon her forgiving bosom, doubtless 
 to be parted from her no more. And this sad 
 drama ended by Senor Soler's public re-admission 
 into the Church of Rome, in the city of Cordova, 
 on Sabbath, the 31st of October, 1869. To give the 
 greater eclat to the event, and to complete the 
 triumph of the priests over the little evangelical 
 flock in Cordova, Sefior Soler was appointed the 
 preacher for the day. 
 
 Such occurrences as that which we have just de- 
 tailed ought not to cause one moment's surprise or 
 discouragement to the friends of the Gospel. They 
 ought to lay their account with such things. " It 
 must needs be that offences come, but woe to that 
 man through whom they come." Some may be 
 offended, and withdraw their hand from a work 
 which they think has been disgraced. Not so the 
 man of faith ; he will hasten to repair the damage 
 which has been inflicted upon a cause which will 
 
250 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 triumph in the future, as it has done in the past, 
 over the wiles of the hypocrite, as well as over the 
 bloody force of the man of violence. 
 
 But the most painful thing, after all, in such 
 occurrences, is the mistrust they are apt to engen- 
 der of the sincerity of Christian men, if not also 
 of the truth of the Gospel itself This doubt 
 ought also to be repelled. As no one can doubt 
 the sun, who sees him scattering before him the 
 darkness of night ; so no one can doubt Christianity 
 who sees her, like a blessed sun, scattering the 
 moral darkness on every land on which she rises. 
 And, as regards the other branch of mistrust, there 
 is no Christian man, who — conscious that the diffu- 
 sion of the Gospel is the uppermost thought, wish, 
 and prayer of his own heart — will not find unspeak- 
 able happiness in believing that the same gracious 
 Spirit, who has put this desire within his own breast, 
 has planted it — it may be in even stronger measure 
 — in the souls of thousands and thousands around 
 him. This reflection will restore his tranquillity 
 and vigour. Some, he knows, will fall, that others 
 may be tried and purified ; but the majority will 
 persevere unto the end, and the cause will triumph. 
 
 The reader is to bear in mind that the above 
 account was written in Spain in October last. It 
 states the matter as it stood then. Since that time 
 
Cordova. 251 
 
 a young evangelist, trained in the theological 
 college at Seville, has been stationed at Cordova. 
 The evangelisation has taken a new start; and the 
 adherents of the Protestant cause have so increased, 
 that it is in contemplation to purchase one of the 
 confiscated cathedrals for their use. 
 
 In the towns around Cordova we expect that 
 the evangelical movement will soon begin to attest 
 its presence ; indeed, it has done so already, and 
 preachers only are wanted to extend it indefinitely. 
 On the first Sabbath of February of the present 
 year, Mr. Benoliel, of the United Presbyterian 
 Church of Scotland, visited Linares and preached 
 — the first Protestant sermon ever preached there — 
 to a congregation of 600. Linares is situated in 
 the centre of one of the richest mining districts of 
 Spain ; it lies a league or so off the railway line, 
 near the Sierra Morena mountains. It has a popu- 
 lation, chiefly miners, of 18,000, a bull-ring, and a 
 theatre. The use of the theatre was granted wil- 
 lingly for sermon by the authorities. The scene 
 we shall permit Mr. Benoliel to describe : — 
 
 " At 1 2, yesterday, we proceeded to the theatre, 
 formerly a church. The doors were not yet open, 
 but the street was crowded with a mass of men. 
 We called at the house of the municipality near 
 by, and I was introduced to the alcaldes, who were 
 
252 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 together in session at the Hall. They received me 
 courteously, and at once ordered the theatre to be 
 thrown open. We found it no easy thing to force 
 our way on to the stage through the compact 
 crowd, eager to gain seats. Before we could reach 
 it, the place was crammed — galleries and every 
 available space, and even the projecting stones 
 near the ceiling; and large numbers must have 
 remained hovering outside. My first words were a 
 request for heads to be uncovered and mantles to 
 be cast aside, which was done promptly ; and then 
 I offered up a prayer of thanksgiving to God for 
 the establishment of religious liberty in this land. 
 The lessons read were Isa. li. and John iii. I 
 preached from Matt xi. 28. Mr. Poole, from Cor- 
 dova, and our English friends, assisted in singing 
 two hymns during the service, for which we had 
 trained our voices the previous evening, when there 
 burst forth a loud demonstration of applause with 
 clapping of hands, which I put a stop to, and it 
 was not repeated. Three of the alcaldes, several 
 members of the municipality, two theological stu- 
 dents, and a good sprinkling of the local aristocracy 
 were present. Considering it was a theatre, and 
 the first meeting of the kind, the conduct of the 
 audience was remarkably good and becoming. On 
 asking whether they wished to know why the 
 
Cordova. 253 
 
 reading of God's Word is forbidden them, a general 
 affirmative response rung through the place. There 
 were at least 600 souls inside the building, almost 
 exclusively grown-up men. When the service was 
 concluded — it lasted about an hour and a quarter 
 — the people appeared unwilling to leave, till 
 requested to do so with good order, and they 
 retired with evident reluctance. 
 
 " It is not for me to state the effects produced, 
 or the results likely to flow from this one day's 
 work at Linares. Suffice it to say that the Lord 
 gave me utterance, and the people heard the Gospel 
 gladly." 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 VALLEY OF THE GUADALQUIVIR. 
 
 Conscripts — Scene at Railway-station — Valley of the Guadalquivir 
 — Its Neglected Condition — Absence of Rain — Want of Irri. 
 gation — Natural charms of Region — Its Social Misery — Problem 
 presented by Spain — The Tree for the healing of the Nations. 
 
 A SOJOURN of two days completed our stay in 
 Cordova. If one should sweep away all the 
 monuments which the Romans and the Moors 
 have left in Cordova, nothing would remain which 
 could induce one to go a mile out of his way to visit 
 it. At the railway-station were a number of young 
 men, who had just been impressed into the army, and 
 who were being led away — not to risk life in the 
 wars of liberty or patriotism, but to the ignominious 
 fate of killing, or being killed by, their own 
 countrymen. Spaniard fights with Spaniard at the 
 bidding of factions, which climb to power, each in 
 its turn, only to squander the blood, and enrich 
 themselves with the wealth of their country. These 
 men were accompanied to the railway-station by 
 their mothers and sisters, and when they entered 
 the cars, and the train was put in motion, the shrieks 
 and wailings of their relations were truly heart- 
 
Valley of the Guadalquivir. 255 
 
 rending. We never, throughout our journey, were 
 able to disconnect the miseries of the present, 
 which every hour thrust themselves on our sight, 
 from the follies and crimes of the past ; so mani- 
 festly lies the hand of doom on the wretched land 
 and the poor suffering people ; and when these 
 bitter lamentations rang in our ears, we could not 
 help fancying that well might the martyr of the 
 sixteenth century, when he was being led away to 
 the stake, have addressed those in the crowd who 
 bewailed his fate, if any such there were — Weep 
 not for me, but weep for yourselves, ye daughters 
 of Spain ; for the days will come when they shall 
 say, " Happy they who died at the stake, or in the 
 dungeon, and did not live to see the calamities that 
 were to come upon their country!" Full, and 
 running over, is the land with misery — more even 
 than Spain herself knows ; for she cannot contrast 
 her condition with other nations, or see the 
 spectacle she presents to the eyes of the stranger ; 
 just as one in a pit, the deeper dc5wn, becomes the 
 more insensible to the darkness in which he lies. 
 This self-unconsciousness is one of the most 
 affecting features of Spain's degradation. 
 
 The railway to Seville runs along the valley 
 which the Guadalquivir waters — no, not waters 
 — makes its channel to the ocean ; for its floods 
 
256 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 roll along without refreshing the thirsty earth. For 
 that, however, the poor resourceless beings who live 
 on its banks, and not the river, are to blame. Spain 
 is one of the driest countries in Europe ; it is so, 
 partly by reason of its position, but mainly by the 
 improvidence of the inhabitants, who, for a 
 thousand years past have been cutting down the 
 forests, without planting a single tree to replace 
 them. The naked earth is thus left to be baked 
 by the sun ; after undergoing that process for 
 centuries, it is now tolerably baked — in short, is 
 about as dry and arid as the sands of Arabia. No 
 evaporation can it yield to cool the air, or to form 
 clouds ; and unless the winds bring rain from the 
 ocean, or from some distant region, the country 
 must go without it. When we were tHere it was 
 suffering greatly from drought. Only two or three 
 showers, we were told, had fallen in Andalusia 
 since April — that is, in a period of six months; the 
 rains of the former winter had failed, moreover, and 
 the peasants' crops — scanty at the best — had well 
 nigh perished outright. In the rain-forsaken plains 
 of La Mancha, five years will sometimes pass by, 
 it is said, without a shower. Revolution and 
 famine — two sore evils — are seldom absent from 
 that unhappy land. 
 
 But if Nature has made Spain a dry country, 
 
Valley of the Guadalquivir. 257 
 
 and if the stupidity and indolence of its natives 
 have made it still drier, a compensation has been 
 given it. It has noble rivers ; it has numerous 
 mountain-chains, some of them snow-clad, the 
 birthplace of springs and fountains. For what 
 purpose } To water the plains at their feet But 
 the poor ignorant native cannot see this, or will not 
 avail himself of it. The Moors were wiser ; they 
 introduced a system of irrigation at Granada and 
 some other parts of Spain, teaching the snows 
 which crown the summits of the Sierra Nevada to 
 water the sugar-canes and the palm-groves which 
 flourish at their feet. But the Moor had little thanks, 
 and eventually was forcibly thrust out of a country 
 which he embellished by his genius, and enriched 
 by his industry. 
 
 When we passed along the valley of the 
 Guadalquivir to Seville, it was suffering greatly 
 from drought ; and yet there was the river flowing 
 uselessly to the sea. Thousands of tons of water 
 were, hour by hour, rolling along in its bed ; but it 
 did not occur to the peasant, whose fields were 
 perishing from lack of moisture, to take so much as 
 a bucketful to water them therewith. A few forcing- 
 pumps, put down at intervals along the course of 
 the stream, would enable it to water the earth as it 
 passed onward, and to cover the sodden ground 
 
 R 
 
258 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 with a carpet of verdure, decked with such flowers 
 
 as might have bloomed, and such fruits as might 
 
 have ripened in Paradise. But no : the river runs 
 
 to waste. The Arab of the Nile knows well how 
 
 to utilise the river by which his hut is placed. But 
 
 the Spaniard, it would seem, is less skilful, or more 
 
 indolent than the Arab. In rags, and with no bread 
 
 to eat, he sees a river of gold flowing at his feet, and 
 
 will not stoop to pick up the precious ore. We 
 
 do not exaggerate in calling it a river of gold, for 
 
 water in these countries is the source of all fertility. 
 
 And yet the region has a charm, and no mean 
 
 one, to the traveller whose home is placed under a 
 
 northern sky. Many of the sights around him are 
 
 distasteful, some of them are disgusting ; but 
 
 others are novel and grand. There is the air so 
 
 dry and sunny; there is the vault overhead so 
 
 deeply azure ; there is the glow with which the 
 
 morning breaks ; there are the tints with which 
 
 evening beautifies sky and earth ; there are the 
 
 Moorish remains, carrying the mind back to an age 
 
 of intellectual splendour; there are the aloe and the 
 
 cactus, struggling through the dusty soil ; there is 
 
 the fig-tree by the way-side ; there is the olive, 
 
 dotting the fields ; there is the orange-tree, from 
 
 amid whose fresh foliage the golden fruit peeps 
 
 forth ; there is the banana, waving its gigantic 
 
Valley of the Guadalquivir. 259 
 
 pennon-like leaves ; and there is the palm, prince 
 of vegetable productions, displaying its feathery- 
 crown on its pillar-like stem high in air. The 
 traveller, fixing eye and mind on these, and 
 struggling to shut out everything else, succeeds in 
 creating around him a gorgeous Oriental scene, such 
 as he may have seen in pictures, or read of in 
 books, where such things are got up in much the 
 same way ; but, in an unhappy moment, his eye 
 chances to light on the arid mountain, or the brown 
 plain stretching far and wide around him ; or he 
 finds himself plucked by the sleeve, and turning 
 round he sees before him some dozen of wretched 
 creatures, with tawny faces, matted hair, and thick 
 black beard ; a blanket thrown over their shoulders, 
 hunger in their cheeks, the ferocity of the barbarian 
 in their eye, their head, bosom, legs, feet, all naked, 
 imploring him, para amor de Dios, for bread. Then 
 it is that his illusion is dispelled, and that he is 
 made to feel that, despite its magnificent cathedrals 
 and its Moorish monuments, despite its palms and 
 banana trees, Spain is a wreck — a most fearful 
 wreck. 
 
 The guide-books say nothing of all this. 
 They feel it their duty to embellish the land over 
 which they conduct the tourist, and to point his 
 eye away from the sights of human misery to some 
 
 R 2 
 
26o Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 monument of antiquity, all the more interesting 
 that the hoar of age is upon it. Ordinary travel- 
 lers mostly pass these things in silence, and dwell 
 on the pictures, the statuary, the theatres, bull- 
 fights, and hotels — as if these made up a country, or 
 formed the great and sole ends of travel. We 
 have looked at Spain itself — not its buildings, 
 museums, or even its mountains, but its people. 
 The people are Spain. We have found them kindly, 
 though proud ; richly endowed by nature, though 
 barbarised by superstition and tyranny ; possess- 
 ing a vivid fancy and a copious eloquence, though 
 all their noble faculties are running to waste, or 
 are perverted into passions. We have found them 
 without a moral principle of conduct, "without God, 
 and without hope." We have found the physical 
 ruin of their land but the type of the moral ruin 
 of the people ; much, very much, wretchedness and 
 vice on the surface, but this is the index only 
 to those abysses of deceit, hypocrisy, intrigue, 
 passion, and torment which lie below, and fully to 
 know which one must be a Spaniard, and go down 
 and dwell in the same frightful gulf with them- 
 selves. It is not the beggar only that feels the tor- 
 ment of these ever-gnawing pains ; it is every class ; 
 it is the entire nation. Surely it concerns humanity 
 to ask, " Who or what has created all this misery } 
 
Valley of the Guadalquivir. 261 
 
 Who is to be held responsible, at last, to God and 
 man for the ruin, moral and physical, of Spain ? " 
 This is a problem far more worth inquiring into than 
 thousands of those which political men so keenly 
 debate, and philosophical men so ingeniously dis- 
 cuss. We repeat, Who or what is it that has ruined 
 Spain ? and who is to be held accountable at the 
 bar of futurity, and at the bar of the Great Judge, 
 for this unhappy country ? For there must come 
 a day of reckoning for the destruction of the life of 
 nations, not less than for the destruction of the life 
 of individuals. Meanwhile it most of all concerns 
 Christian men and Christian churches to ask, 
 " What can be done towards preventing this vast 
 misery perpetuating itself, and going down, as 
 it has done hitherto, from generation to gene- 
 ration } " The Christian well understands that this 
 question admits of but one answer. It is not 
 a monarchy that is to regenerate Spain : it is 
 not a republic that is to regenerate Spain. It is 
 not ploughs or trade even that are to regenerate 
 Spain. Send the Spaniards all the implements of 
 Britain ; they would but let them rust. Where then 
 is the remedy } There is a Tree, the leaves of which 
 are for the healing of the nations. We must plant 
 that Tree in Spain. The " salvation " of the world 
 must come "out of Zion." 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 SEVILLE. 
 
 Beauty of its Climate — Its Antiquity — Promise of ** Dawn " in the 
 Sixteenth Century — The ** Dark " Returns — Imposing Appear- 
 ance on the Approach to it — Its|Winding and Narrow Streets — 
 A Moorish House — Repulsive Appearance of Exterior — 
 Elegance and Beauty of Interior — Drawbacks of Seville — 
 Idlers — Beggars — A Second Promise of Day. 
 
 Onward still, along the valley of the Guadalquivir. 
 This river is often mentioned by poets, whose 
 verses invest it with all the charms of romance ; but 
 we suspect those who have so sung of the Guadal- 
 quivir have never seen it. Nothing can be farther 
 removed from romance than the river itself Its 
 waters have a dull, bluish tint. It creeps sluggishly 
 onward between banks which the bloom of no 
 flower and the carol of no bird enliven. It seems 
 to feel the languor which weighs upon all 
 things and persons in this country. By-and-by, 
 as we go on our way, signs begin to appear 
 of a somewhat better system of husbandry. 
 Ploughs are at work here and there, preparing for 
 the winter sowing — if we can speak of winter in a 
 region where winter is all but unknown — the cul- 
 tivated patches become more frequent (and how 
 
Seville. 263 
 
 lovely they look by contrast with the white desert !), 
 olive plantations, hedges of aloes, and clusters of 
 orange-trees delight the traveller. At length the 
 valley begins to wear a continuous covering of green, 
 for now we are in the midst of the gardens which 
 supply the markets of Seville, the towers of which 
 are seen rising before us. 
 
 Were we to fix our residence in Spain, we should 
 be somewhat at a loss to decide between Malaga 
 and Seville. The former is laved by the sea, and 
 walled in grandly by the ragged purple mountains. 
 But there is a quiet charm in the valley in which 
 the latter is situated that wins upon one day by 
 day. The sky, air, and earth of Seville are truly 
 delicious. The daily sight of a firmament so tran- 
 quil, and an earth so exuberant, have a tendency to 
 engender that repose of mind which enriches and 
 strengthens it, and which gives warmth and colour- 
 ing to the imagination ; if one can but avoid the 
 seductive influence which comes along with all 
 this — the snare even of slothful, luxurious dream- 
 ing. To walk out at all hours of the day and 
 night and to find the air around one so balmy 
 and the light so pure — to find all things 
 breathing peace and speaking of enjoyment — to 
 hear the plash of the fountain in the marble-paved 
 court at heat of noon — and to look up at night to 
 
264 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 the moon-lit skies, and around upon the palm-tree's 
 feathery crown, tipped with silver, and the motion- 
 less, broad banana's-leaf — is to find that to exist is 
 to enjoy. But when mere existence becomes enjoy- 
 ment, one is apt to sit down content and to forget 
 nobler things. When at Seville we felt how sweet 
 it is to sit and dream under the orange-trees — to 
 sit and dream till the rust and the rags should 
 come upon us, as upon all around us. 
 
 Seville is one of the most ancient cities of the 
 West. Its foundations were laid by that ener- 
 getic race who were the pioneers of commerce and 
 of colonising, and, of course, of city-building and 
 husbandry — the Phoenicians. It has had a varied 
 but not a renowned career ; indeed, somewhat 
 stormy, considering its inland position and unob- 
 trusive character. Perhaps its most intellectual 
 age was the sixteenth century. From its towers 
 a light was then seen to break, which promised 
 to illumine all Spain, and inaugurate a day such 
 as had never before shone upon it. The greatest 
 of the Spanish reformers arose in Seville, and it did 
 seem as if the hour of Spain's emancipation was 
 come. But the "dawn" passed, and the "dark" 
 returned — darker than before. Rome took the 
 alarm ; nor did she long hesitate what measures to 
 pursue. The reformers of Spain and the hopes of 
 
Seville. 265 
 
 its liberty perished together in the cruel fires of the 
 Inquisition. It has truly been " Vce victis ! " for 
 the "chains " of political despotism, and the dark- 
 ness of superstition have ever since been the fate of 
 Spain's sons, who refused the light and the freedom 
 which the Reformation offered them. 
 
 He who goes to Seville simply to see its sights 
 will hardly deem that he has had a fair return for 
 his time and money. In former days — that is, 300 
 years ago — when the cities of Great Britain were 
 mostly of wood, or even of humbler materials, it 
 might have been worth one's while going all this 
 long way to see the glories of Spanish architecture. 
 But times have changed since then. The cities of 
 England have been rising as rapidly as those of 
 Spain have been falling, and now what remains of 
 the once opulent and magnificent towns of Cordova* 
 Seville, and others, is but the traces of a glory that 
 has passed away. The eve has come upon them, 
 and long and deep has the shadow rested where 
 once shone so brightly the day. 
 
 Still, Seville is imposing on one's approach to 
 it. Its balmy sky infuses into the soul a quiet, deli- 
 cious pleasure. The stately palms, the gigantic 
 cactus, the golden-fruited orange-tree, which herald 
 one's approach to it ; and the bits of cultivation 
 which dot its environs, so vividly green, and so 
 
266 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 tropically luxuriant, shown in contrast with the 
 brown desert out of which they spring ; these and 
 other things never fail to charm the eye, and even 
 the heart, of the traveller who comes from the 
 sterner climes of the North. And then, rising over 
 the Moorish walls which still encompass Seville, 
 stately and airy in the sunny firmament, are seen 
 its numerous monuments and turrets, conspicuous 
 among which are its cathedral and Alcazar towers, 
 imparting to the view a touch of Oriental grandeur. 
 The visitor's imagination, too, comes to his aid, 
 and hangs around these historic monuments the 
 halo of a traditional glory. All this is fine, or 
 would be, were the traveller to remain outside, and 
 never contemplate Seville but at a little distance. 
 Let him fix his dwelling here, two or three miles 
 away, and if possessed in any degree of the faculty 
 of ideality, what a treat awaits him ! There, hung 
 up against the sky, at the hour of dawn, or at the 
 still 'Sweeter hour of eve, is a gorgeous picture 
 of Moorish towers, battlements, and palaces, sug- 
 gestive of no small amount of earthly glory and 
 happiness. But should he enter the city of ideal 
 splendour, he will find that the illusion is gone, and 
 the spell broken. 
 
 The first stroll through the Queen of Andalusia 
 disappoints one. With one or two exceptions, the 
 
5ii VILLE. 267 
 
 visitor sees nothing in Seville that corresponds with 
 his idea of even a street. This city, which so im- 
 pressed him when viewed externally, he finds 
 to be but a labyrinth of narrow lanes. These turn 
 and wind as ingeniously and capriciously as if 
 devised on purpose to perplex him. He is a bold 
 man who will venture into them without a guide. 
 One might as well think of threading the catacombs 
 themselves. The visitor finds himself between two 
 lofty walls of dead mason-work, covered with 
 whitewash, and pierced here and there with a 
 square hole, grated with iron, suggesting the not 
 very agreeable idea of seclusion from the open air 
 by day, and peril and insecurity by night. The 
 turnings are so sharp and frequent, that the visitor 
 can see neither before him nor behind him, and 
 soon he loses all idea of his whereabouts, and must 
 just wander on, threading these endless mazes till 
 at last he finds himself at some known spot of the 
 city, or emerges on the open country outside its 
 walls. Yet is the cool shade of these narrow 
 streets most acceptable when the sun is high or 
 the dog star burns. 
 
 Most of the houses in Seville were reared by 
 Moorish architects, and for Moorish tenants. The 
 Moors are gone, but the edifices they erected 
 remain, and very nearly in a perfect state of 
 
268 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 preservation — monuments of the genius of that 
 remarkable people, and of the wealth which their 
 energy created. The age and the circumstances 
 In which these dwellings were erected determined 
 their character. The age was one of violence. 
 The Moor had to shut out not only the sun, but 
 the robber and the murderer, and therefore he 
 made his house In fact what every Englishman's 
 Is In law — " his castle." He surrounded It with a 
 wall strong and high ; he hid his wealth behind 
 this barrier ; and was as careful to conceal the 
 elegance of his abode as we sometimes are to dis- 
 play that of ours. And so It happens that the 
 stranger is apt to misjudge regarding the beauty of 
 the houses of Seville. " Palaces ! " says he ; " they 
 are more like prisons." 
 
 But let him pause before one of these un- 
 promising entrances, and take a glimpse, through 
 the Iron-fenced door in the outer wall, of the dwelling 
 within, and he will alter his opinion. He will per- 
 ceive that within this rude exterior is much elegance, 
 and possibly not a little wealth. Let him mark 
 the narrow passage which leads from the street- 
 door to the Interior of the mansion. It Is paved 
 with Moorish tiles, or azuelos. No mean know- 
 ledge of chemistry did It require to produce these 
 vivid and beautiful tints : and these tiles are useful 
 
Seville. 269 
 
 as well as ornamental, for vermin cannot lodge in 
 them. And then there comes the quadrangular 
 court, a glimpse of which the passenger gets 
 through the inner door of open ironwork. This is 
 the centre of the mansion. It is its drawing-room 
 and garden in one. It is beautifully paved with 
 white and black marble. How cool the drip of the 
 fountain in the middle ! Quite a grove of tropical 
 plants is gathered round that fountain, drawing 
 continual freshness from its waters. How richly 
 hung are they with blossoms ! and how sweet the 
 fragrance with which they fill the air ! Around the 
 four sides of the court runs a row of marble pillars, 
 sHm and elegant, which support a corridor. All 
 the upper apartments open upon this balcony, 
 giving the inmates direct access to the open air. 
 Sweet it is to come forth at the delicious hour of 
 eve, and sit here and listen to the soft drip of the 
 fountain, or inhale the fragrance which ascends 
 from the orange-trees and other plants in the court 
 below. Not unfrequently are all the meals of the 
 family taken in this court. There, without the 
 fear of chill, or other evil, one can breakfast, dine, 
 or even sup, while the stars look down upon him 
 from the open vault of night. 
 
 These are some of the beauties and delights ot 
 Seville, but there are drawbacks, and these are neither 
 
2/0 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 few nor inconsiderable. The heart, rather than the 
 sense, feels that here there is no true enjoyment. 
 Underneath that balmy sky, alas ! how much is 
 there of misery ! Everywhere signs meet the eye 
 of a deeply disordered social condition. There is 
 languor in the eye and languor in the blood of the 
 Spaniard. There is more : his face is sad, telling 
 you that his heart is unhappy. The once joyous 
 Queen of Andalusia — the beauteous capital of a 
 beauteous land, into whose warehouses and palaces 
 the gold of the Indies was wont to flow in a 
 continuous mighty stream — is now a forlorn city, 
 sitting mournfully by the Guadalquivir, which, 
 as if in sympathy, creeps in silence past it, 
 between treeless and verdureless banks. Every- 
 where there is filth — in the streets, in the 
 houses, in the churches, and on the persons of the 
 people. All the public places swarm with idlers. 
 There they stand, gathered in knots — for to move 
 about would imply too great exertion — their figures 
 draped in long brown capas, and their faces shaded 
 by huge sombreros, underneath the slouching brim of 
 which there is seen to curl up the inevitable puff of 
 tobacco-reek from the universal cigaritto. And then 
 there are — sorrowful sight ! — the beggars. Let one 
 go where he will the mendicant's rags are ever in 
 his eye, and the mendicant's whine is ever in his 
 
Seville. 271 
 
 ear. They are truly legion ; and custom, or 
 pressing hunger, has made them bold. They be- 
 siege the traveller at his hotel door ; they waylay 
 him in the narrow lane ; they encompass him by 
 dozens in the public square ; they halloo after him 
 in the cathedral ; and sometimes they beset him in 
 the railway-carriage, clustering at the window, or 
 clambering up upon the top, and vociferating, with 
 all the energy of their clear, ringing voices, for alms, 
 and not unfrequently carrying their suit by storm 
 and terror. But, meanwhile, let us drop the cur- 
 tain upon the deep humiliation of this once noble 
 but now fallen country. The evils at which we 
 have glanced are not a tithe of the wounds from 
 which Spain bleeds, but let us turn to more 
 grateful themes. There is yet hope of this fallen 
 country. 
 
 Now, again — and it is a most instructive illus- 
 tration of God's Providence, as well as a very 
 striking fulfilment of His Word — streaks as of 
 morning appear in that very quarter of the Iberian 
 sky, where, three centuries ago, there shone a 
 sweet but too brief dawn. The " souls " of them 
 who were slain for the testimony of Jesus in Se- 
 ville are coming out of their graves, and are begin- 
 ning to live and reign upon the earth. Consigned 
 to anathema by Rome; bound to her stakes, and 
 
2/2 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 burned to ashes ; forgotten by their countrymen, 
 whose freedom they sought to purchase with their 
 blood ; they yet, after the lapse of three centuries, 
 begin to reap the promised benediction — '' Blessed 
 are they who have part in the first resurrection." 
 They have waited long. How often has that cry 
 " how long ! " gone up from their martyred ashes ! 
 But now it would seem as if that Voice had spoken, 
 which shall assuredly one day say — if it has not 
 already done so — to the slain for the testimony of 
 Jesus, wherever they sleep — whether by the rivers 
 of Spain or of Italy, whether amid the fens of Hol- 
 land or the moors of Scotland, whether in the 
 lagunes of Venice or beneath the waves of the 
 English Channel — " Awake, ye that sleep in the 
 dust, arise and sing!" Over all lands ''the earth 
 shall cast forth her dead " — not her dead bodies, 
 but her buried principles. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE NEW REFORMATION. 
 
 The Revolution — Marshal Prim at Algeciras — Words which Mark 
 an Epoch— Cabrera goes to Seville — Preachers — The New 
 Life — Sermon at Grave of Inquisitor — Great Excitement — The 
 Movement spreads over all Andalusia — The Convent of Las 
 Virgenes— Testimonies — What do you bow to? — Madrid — Pro- 
 testant Congregation at Seville — Calumnies of Ultramontane 
 Press — Religious Press — Training-college — Personal History of 
 Students — Life of Senor Cabrera — Nursery. 
 
 At the foot of the Sierra Nevada, whose summits 
 are covered with perpetual snow, and whose feet 
 are planted amid orange and palm groves, did 
 the dawn of this new evangelical day, now rising 
 on Spain, take place. Its first ray issued, as we 
 have already said, not from a palace, but from the 
 prisons of Granada and Malaga. 
 
 In the lovely city of Seville, on the banks of the 
 Guadalquivir, the Reformation of the sixteenth 
 century — as every reader of Dr. McCrie's "Rise and 
 Suppression of the Reformation in Spain " knows 
 — found its head-quarters. That city is famous as 
 having in almost every age given birth to great 
 men. In Seville appeared the leading minds 
 among the Spanish reformers of the sixteenth 
 
 S 
 
2/4 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 century. Its Inquisition was of all others the 
 most dreadful, and its confessors and martyrs the 
 most numerous. At this day, as if the soil retained 
 its old qualities, the New Reformation is finding 
 here a centre of union and action. 
 
 It was the revolution which opened a great high- 
 way for the entrance of the Gospel into Spain. 
 On the 19th of September, 1868, the banished 
 generals landed at Cadiz, and hoisted the flag of 
 liberty. With the speed of lightning the news 
 reached Gibraltar, and travelled over all Spain. 
 The little Protestant Church, whose foundations 
 were laid just five months before, now under- 
 stood that the hour for which it waited was fast 
 approaching. Sefiors Cabrera, Alhama, and Hern- 
 andez crossed the Bay of Gibraltar, to obtain, if 
 possible, an interview with General Prim, who was 
 daily expected at Algeciras. Scarcely had they 
 landed at the little town, when the war-steamer 
 which bore the general was seen rounding the 
 point and entering the bay. A. few minutes 
 afterwards, the anchor was dropped, and Prim 
 stepped on shore amid the rejoicings of the popu- 
 lation. The representatives of the young Spanish 
 Church were among the first, if not the first, to be 
 admitted into his presence. " Are you of those 
 who were condemned in Granada because you 
 
The New Reformation. 275 
 
 were not good Christians?" he asked. "You are 
 welcome," he continued, '* from to-day there will 
 be liberty in our country — true liberty. The reign 
 of tyranny is over. Every man is master of his 
 conscience, and may profess that faith which ap- 
 pears to him the best. You can enter Spain with 
 the Bible under your arm, and preach the doc- 
 trines it contains." 
 
 ' These few words mark an epoch in history. It 
 was Canning who boasted that he had called a new 
 world into existence. With still more truth, might 
 Prim have boasted, not indeed that he had called 
 a new world into existence, but that he had 
 unchained influences that could. He might not 
 know the full meaning of his words; the changes 
 destined to follow from the regenerative forces he 
 let loose will be none the less on that account 
 The few quiet sentences he had let drop had in 
 them more real power than the thunder of a 
 hundred battle-fields, and sounded doubtless more 
 terribly in the ears of Rome. 
 
 The church on the Rock did not delay. She 
 knew that the hour was come. In the wonderful 
 events which these few days had witnessed, she 
 heard the voice of Providence, saying, " Behold the 
 Lord thy God hath set the land before thee; go up 
 and possess it. Fear not, neither be discouraged." 
 
 S 2 
 
2/6 Daybreak in Spain, 
 
 The pastors separated, and spread themselves over 
 Spain. Alhama went eastward to Granada: Cabrera 
 departed for Cadiz, setting out on the very day — 
 the 29th September — on which Queen Isabella 
 quitted the kingdom by the northern frontier. 
 From Cadiz Cabrera went on to Seville. On the 
 4th October, being Sabbath, he held his first service 
 in a vermicelli manufactory. Each Lord's Day the 
 audience increased. The room not being able to 
 contain the numbers, they now assembled in the 
 patio — the large quadrangular space in the middle 
 of the house, and which is invariably paved with 
 black and white marble. This, too, in a very 
 short time, was crowded to the street-door. A 
 petition, signed by 336 citizens, was now pre- 
 sented to the authorities, praying that one of the 
 suppressed churches might be given for the 
 Protestant worship. The answer returned was in 
 effect that the time for such a step had not yet 
 arrived; and the matter was not pressed. When 
 the evangelist appeared in the street, the multitude 
 pressed round him, grasping his hand, and otherwise 
 expressing their welcome. Hundreds came every 
 day to his lodgings, to obtain copies of the Bible ; 
 and the demand was far beyond his power of 
 supply. The political parties in Seville were very 
 anxious to enlist the preacher as a champion, and 
 
The New Reformation. 277 
 
 they took him to the empty churches and convents, 
 that he might address the people ; but Cabrera, 
 refusing to identify himself or his cause with any 
 political party, preached to them, as Paul on Mars' 
 hill, "Jesus and the resurrection from the dead." He 
 proclaimed the higher liberty which the Gospel gives. 
 On one occasion he found himself standing on 
 the tombstone of a noted Inquisitor. The epitaph 
 served him for a text. The marble on which he 
 stood spoke of the great deeds which had been 
 done in the days of his mortal life by the man who 
 slept underneath, in the way of suppressing the 
 heresy of the sixteenth century. Cabrera, noting 
 the glorying epitaph, took occasion to refresh the 
 memories of his hearers, who had not been reading 
 the tombstone much of late, touching the services 
 of the defunct Inquisitor, appealing in proof to the 
 memorial which still remains of those services in 
 the burning-ground outside their city. But, surely, 
 despite all the cruel stakes which had been planted 
 in the Quemadero, the " heresy " had not been so 
 completely suppressed as the tombstone affirmed ; 
 for here was he, the preacher, standing over the 
 Inquisitor's bones, and preaching the self-same 
 doctrines for teaching which the martyrs had been 
 burned. It was amid scenes like these that the 
 Protestant Church of Seville had its birth. 
 
278 Daybreak in Spain, 
 
 Writing of these scenes and times, we find Mr. 
 Clough, in whom Cabrera found a true yokefellow 
 in labour and suffering, saying (Times of Refresh- 
 ing, January, 1869), ''In this city — which has been 
 for centuries a stronghold of idolatry, where men 
 were torn asunder by horses, the horrors of the 
 Inquisition perpetrated. Christians burned, and un- 
 told numbers assassinated for adherence to the 
 truth ; where even, but a few months past, an open 
 declaration of belief in Jesus would have called 
 forth the vengeance and unalterable vindictiveness 
 of the enemies of the truth, the standard of the 
 Cross is now boldly upraised, the Lord Jesus is 
 openly preached, and songs of rejoicing are heard 
 in many parts for the great things the Lord is 
 doing for the salvation of souls and the glory of 
 His Name." 
 
 Sometimes in the public piazza, and sometimes 
 in the cafe, which, after the piazza, is the place of 
 greatest resort in the Spanish cities, did Senor 
 Cabrera take his stand, preaching the "good 
 tidings" to his countrymen; and wherever he 
 appeared congregations of from one to two 
 thousand persons gathered round him. The priests 
 raged and threatened, but the power to strike had 
 been taken from them. Threats of death, written 
 in chalk, appeared on the walls; but the courageous 
 
The New Reformation. 279 
 
 preacher went on undismayed. The archbishop, 
 unable to realise the new times which had dawned 
 on Spain, summoned Senor Cabrera to his bar, and 
 was not a little scandalised and amazed to find his 
 citation treated with contempt. Alas ! the once 
 mighty name of Rome had lost its power. Like 
 the descent of darkness in an eastern clime on the 
 sun's departure, so was the rapid wane of the 
 " Church's " influence, now that the queen was gone. 
 Like the rush of vegetation when the ice of winter 
 is melted, so was now the development of the evan- 
 gelical movement. Tired of the husks on which the 
 priests had fed them, the people eagerly desired the 
 " bread of life." Whole Bibles were preferred to 
 New Testaments or portions. Senor Cabrera had 
 brought five cases of books with him ; these were 
 soon borne ofif by the crowds that besieged him. 
 " What was this little bread among so many hungry 
 people.^" he asked, when writing for more. "Not 
 five, but five dozen of cases would be speedily 
 distributed." Other publications were scattered in 
 thousands. The Resena, or historic narration of the 
 first assembly of the Reformed Spanish Church, held 
 in Gibraltar in April, 1868, together with an appeal 
 to Spaniards by Senor Cabrera, its president, was 
 placed in the cafes ; and so great was the demand 
 for it, that it had to be printed and reprinted 
 
28o Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 many times. From the country appeared persons 
 on mules, who asked for Bibles, which they might 
 distribute to their countrymen in the rural parts. 
 From distant cities came letters, begging that a 
 preacher might be sent to them to show unto them 
 the way of life. Cheering signs, truly ; and yet 
 they awakened regret as well as joy — ^joy that the 
 harvest was so plenteous, regret that the labourers 
 were so few. 
 
 The next point gained was a suitable locale for 
 public worship. We have seen how the apartment in 
 the vermicelli manufactory speedily swarmed over 
 into the patio, and the patio, in like manner, soon 
 overflowed into the street. This compelled the Seville 
 Protestants to look out for a larger and more com- 
 modious place of meeting. They found that they 
 might have for hire a large apartment in an old 
 suppressed convent — ''the Convent of the Seven 
 Virgins." It was cleaned out, and opened as a place 
 of evangelical worship on 27th December, 1868. It 
 was the first Protestant Church publicly opened in 
 Spain. We find Senor Cabrera writing of it, "Our 
 church, which should hold 400, usually has 500, 
 hundreds being obliged to go away. The street is 
 lined by men and women sitting on the doorsteps, 
 waiting for the door to be opened ; and the church 
 is invariably filled, even to the pulpit-stairs, and 
 
The New Reformation. 281 
 
 indeed, every available spot, an hour and a half 
 before service. I get in with difficulty, and should 
 be unable to do so, but that I am the minister. 
 The congregation is composed of all classes, even 
 to priests and soldiers. The services are held every 
 Lord's Day at 12 noon, and at 6.30 p.m. ; and on 
 Thursday evening at the same hour. On Tuesday 
 evening there is a Bible class; a singing-class is 
 held several times a week ; a baptism has been 
 celebrated ; and application has been made for six 
 marriages, which will be performed when our 
 petition to the Alcalde of this city (to hold them 
 legitimate) is granted." {Times of Refreshings 
 April, 1869.) 
 
 We trace the onward progress of the move- 
 ment in the letters of Mr. Clough, some three 
 months later. " A steadily growing interest," says 
 he, " is clearly proved by the fact, that those who 
 have been once continue to attend, and bring their 
 wives and families and friends with them. If we 
 had a church capable of holding as many thousands 
 as ours can hundreds, I believe it would be filled 
 to the pulpit-stairs. At every service we are pained, 
 for the sake of the people, to see crowds turn away 
 with expressions of deep regret at their inability 
 to hear the preaching of the Gospel. They fre- 
 quently form themselves into groups down the 
 
282 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 streets, and, listen with intense interest to some 
 voluntary evangelists, members of the congregation, 
 who explain, so far as their knowledge and ability- 
 permit, the truths of the evangel. 
 
 " At first there was considerable surprise at our 
 church having nothing but plain walls. * Where is 
 the holy water V one would ask. ' What do you 
 bow to V would another say ; and looking towards 
 the pulpit, the only elevated object, they would 
 bend and cross themselves. Inquiries have been 
 made as to the price of masses, indulgences, &c., 
 and when told that neither holy water nor incense 
 was used, that crossing and bowing, masses, image- 
 worship, and indulgences were disapproved of, they 
 used to wonder how it was possible to worship 
 without such appliances. By-and-by, when the 
 service commenced, an interest was awakened, and 
 almost any night the following remarks may be 
 heard : * I understand everything said. I can cer- 
 tainly bless God better in my own language than 
 in Latin.' * These Protestants love Christ' ^ How 
 awfully our priests have deceived us, by saying 
 Protestants worship devils!'" 
 
 We have to add the testimony of the Rev. L. S. 
 Tugwell, of the Church of England, and chaplain 
 to the British residents in Seville. Mr. Tugwell is 
 himself a most indefatigable labourer in the cause 
 
The New Reformation. 283 
 
 of Spain's evangelisation. Writing 12th of January, 
 1869, he says : "The work has grown immensely. 
 It would gladden the hearts of British Christians, 
 could they but see the large and earnestly atten- 
 tive congregations which now regularly meet for 
 worship in the church. On Sunday evening last 
 I went with Mr. Clough to attend the service ; and 
 although there early, we could not possibly squeeze 
 ourselves into the church — it was literally crammed 
 with people. At least 500 must have been there, 
 and a great many more were unsuccessful in gain- 
 ing admittance. I believe, if four churches could 
 be established at once in different parts of the 
 city, that they would be all well filled, whenever 
 opened for Divine service. To visit systematically, 
 from house to house, all the Protestants, I conceive 
 to be as important as the preaching of the Gospel, 
 to form Bible-classes for young men, to receive the 
 visits of vast numbers of anxious enquirers after 
 truth, and to establish Sunday and day schools. 
 If this plan be energetically carried out, I feel con- 
 vinced that Seville, which has been the most fanati- 
 cally Popish city next to Rome, will become a very 
 important centre of the Reformation in Spain." 
 
 The awakening was by no means confined to 
 Seville. There was scarce a town of any import- 
 ance in the whole of Andalusia in which it did not 
 
284 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 show itself. It appeared in Cadiz, which, as we 
 have aheady said, was the first to "pronounce." 
 Signs of the new Hfe broke out in the towns on the 
 bay — inhabited mostly by merchants, and the 
 workmen in the government arsenals — Puerto Real, 
 Puerto de Santa Maria, San Fernando, San Lucar, 
 and onward to Huelva. Not a few copies of the 
 Scriptures had previously been distributed in these 
 cities, despite the vigilance of the authorities, who 
 watched with the utmost jealousy lest Protestantism 
 should enter the navy. Inland, along the course 
 of the Guadalquivir, the movement extended to 
 Jerez, to Cordova, and onward, along the line of 
 the Sierra Morena. It stirred the trading towns on 
 the seaboard of the Mediterranean — Malaga, Va- 
 lentia, Barcelona — to which some seeds of Chris- 
 tianity had previously been wafted on the wings of 
 commerce. Granada, amid its great mountains. 
 Rondo and Antequera, and Toledo, on the banks of 
 the Tagus, felt the universal quickening. The 
 capital especially showed signs of life. On the 
 23rd of November, 1868, a deputation, consisting 
 of various nationalities, waited on the Govern- 
 ment with a petition, signed by 13,000 citizens 
 of Madrid, craving " liberty of public worship." 
 The petition was granted. It was at this time 
 that the congregation was founded in the capital 
 
The New Reformation. 285 
 
 which has since so greatly flourished. To only a 
 few of the above-named places could evangelists be 
 sent ; to the others were dispatched colporteurs and 
 Bibles — in every case the most efficient pioneers of 
 the pastor. 
 
 We return to Seville, where the first Protestant 
 church in all Spain was opened in the Calle de las 
 Virgenes. Let us state first of all, in a short sen- 
 tence, what we found in that city on our arrival 
 there in October of last year. We found an or- 
 ganised congregation of converted Spaniards ; we 
 found a school of evangelical theology ; we found 
 the seat of the synod of the Andalusian Protestant 
 Church ; we found a Creed, or Confession of Faith, 
 provisionally approved of by the synod in 1869, in 
 course of being printed ; and we found an appeal 
 being drafted to be sent to the other Protestant 
 Churches of Christendom, greeting them as elder 
 Churches in Christ, and craving in return their re- 
 cognition of the " Reformed Church of Spain " now 
 constituted. A few facts under each of these heads 
 will go a good way to give the reader a tolerably 
 clear idea of the actual position, genius, and pros- 
 pects of the new Reformation in Spain. 
 
 Let us speak first of the congregation in Las 
 Virgenes — the eldest daughter of the new Re- 
 formation — the '' mother of the Spanish churches." 
 
286 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 We worshipped there on the third Sabbath of 
 October, and found an audience of about 400 ; 
 not more — for this simple reason, that the building 
 could not contain more. It was filled to the 
 door, and a little crowd covered the steps on 
 the outside, although the chances that evening 
 were against a large attendance; for a few poor 
 republicans were to be executed next morning, 
 and an insurrectionary outbreak being seriously 
 apprehended over night, it was somewhat danger- 
 ous to be abroad. Sefior Fernandez, the young 
 minister who was accustomed to preach the Lent 
 sermons before fashionable audiences in San Isidoro, 
 occupied the pulpit in the forenoon. His sermon 
 was a plain and impressive exposition of Divine 
 truth. In the evening we had the pleasure to hear 
 Sefior Cabrera. He was grave, weighty, eloquent. 
 The truths of the Gospel he presented in a rich set- 
 ting of original illustration and metaphor. We could 
 not help fancying that his treatment of his subject 
 strongly partook of the massy thinking — a grand 
 blending of theology, logic, and poetry — which 
 characterised the English divines of the seventeenth 
 century. The audience hung upon his lips from 
 beginning to end. The Ultramontane organ adver- 
 tised the Protestant Church to the Seville commu- 
 nity in its own happy way. A tavern, it said, 
 
The New Reformation. 287 
 
 had been opened in the Calle de las Virgenes, and 
 it hinted that all who chose to go there might 
 have plenty to eat and drink at exceedingly mode- 
 rate charges. The celebration of the Lord's Supper 
 by the Protestant congregation — about 200 sat 
 down — presented to this journal an opportunity too 
 tempting to be let pass of being witty. It announced 
 that it understood that next Lord's-Day all would 
 be supplied with bread and brandy ad libitum, and 
 that Luther's coat would be exhibited for worship. 
 A great crowd went thither on the day in question ; 
 and when they witnessed the simple, solemn service, 
 and saw how they had been befooled by the priests, 
 they went away in no little indignation, and the 
 matter all but exploded in a riot. The writers of 
 these smart paragraphs must be excused, however. 
 They felt, doubtless, sore and mortified, for their 
 grand procession of Holy Week had that year been 
 celebrated with diminished splendour. The idols 
 were paraded in great force, and the bells were 
 vehemently tolled, but there was little enthusiasm 
 in the crowd — and it did not escape observation, 
 that for every priest in the procession there were 
 three soldiers armed to the teeth. 
 
 Nor, when one considers the deep and bitter 
 mortification of the priests at this sudden collapse 
 of their power, need one wonder that their fana- 
 
288 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 ticism overflows, not only in the columns of their 
 own prints, but even on the walls of the houses. 
 We saw nearly every street scribbled over, in 
 black letters, with the words " MuERA Cabrera. 
 
 MUERTE A LOS PrOTESTANTES Y VIVA LA RE- 
 LIGION ROMANA." (Death to Cabrera. Death to 
 the Protestants, and viva the Roman religion). 
 Occasionally we read viva Cabrera. The hostile 
 inscriptions, which were the most numerous, were 
 supposed to be the work of some very zealous 
 members of an old Popish corporation. They 
 show, at least, that the evangelical work is not 
 being done in a corner, and that there are yet fana- 
 tics enough in Seville to do not a little mischief, 
 could they only prevail on some one of the old 
 Inquisitors to rise from his grave and head them. 
 
 The Quemadero is shut up, the stake is a for- 
 bidden weapon, otherwise there can be no manner 
 of doubt that Cabrera and a few besides would have 
 made the acquaintance of those time-honoured and 
 orthodox modes of extirpating heresy and heretics. 
 The press, however, is free, and the Ultramontanes 
 are heartily welcome to use it. And they are using 
 it ; and they have fallen on a most ingenious de- 
 vice for extending its popularity. Our readers 
 will hardly guess what it is. They have financed 
 it with absolutions ! The bishops of the province 
 
The New Reformation, 289 
 
 of Seville met in the beginning of this year, and 
 published an indulgence "of 180 days to all those 
 who should read and subscribe to their journal — 
 the Propagador. The stake is a game at which 
 only one party can play : the press can be 
 wielded by both sides. Already the New Reforma- 
 tion has called into existence several organs for 
 diffusing the light. It has two in Seville, El 
 Christianismo, and El Eco del Evangelio. In 
 Barcelona it has El Eco Protestante \ in Cordova 
 La Reforma was started last January. El 
 Christianismo is edited by Senor Cabrera. A copy 
 of it is sent to all the archbishops and bishops of 
 Spain, and to the leading members of the Cortes, 
 It discusses with great breadth all questions apper- 
 taining to the social and religious regeneration of 
 Spain. Its articles are not unfrequently quoted 
 into the 'political papers, and thus its sentiments 
 find access into quarters where El Christiajtismo 
 itself does not come. 
 
 We come next to the college, or theological 
 training-school, at Seville. The Gospel must be 
 preached to Spaniards by Spaniards. From every 
 city comes a cry, "Send us a preacher." A nursery 
 of young ministers is one of the first necessities 
 of the work. The formation of such a seminary 
 was in a sort forced upon the directors of the 
 
 T 
 
290 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 evangelisation of Seville. In the first days of 
 the movement the Bible entered the University ; it 
 was read by numbers of the students, and of these 
 a few had their eyes opened, and of that number 
 was the nephew of the rector of the University. 
 These youths — some of whom are connected with 
 the first families in Seville — were cast off by their 
 relations ; and now here they are, all living together, 
 and studying together in the seminary in Calle 
 Lista. We had the pleasure to breakfast with them 
 one morning. The table was spread in the patio, 
 or quadrangular court, open to the sky. We found 
 some dozen of young men present, their ages 
 ranging from twelve to twenty years, with remark- 
 ably open faces, and some of them giving promise 
 of high intellectual power. At the head and foot of 
 the table sat the gentlemen who superintend their 
 studies — Sefiors Cabrera and Clough. First came 
 family worship, then breakfast, then the recitation 
 of passages of Scripture, from memory, bearing on 
 the idolatry of the Roman Church. We were 
 amazed not less at the accuracy than at the extent 
 with which the Bible had been committed to heart. 
 There are hours for rising and retiring, for meals, 
 for classes, for private studies; morning and evening 
 worship is conducted by the students in turn. Their 
 text-book is Hodge's " Outlines of Theology," 
 
The New Reformation. 291 
 
 edited by the Rev. Dr. Goold, of Edinburgh. 
 They read, moreover, the Bible in the original 
 tongues; and when we chanced to visit the semi- 
 nary they were reading the Apocalypse. We were 
 told that they would often pause and exclaim 
 aloud, ** How like ! Yes ; it is Rome, and none 
 other ! " as the portrait of the Roman Church 
 came out, trait after trait, in their daily readings 
 in the Apocalypse. 
 
 Not one of these young men but has a history. 
 Each has lived in two worlds. Take an instance or 
 two. An English Christian gentleman, Mr. C. 
 Gladstone, was one day making researches in the 
 archives of the Escorial ; he there met a student of 
 the Romish Church, for a school of monks is now 
 held in the palace of Philip II. He spoke a few 
 serious words to the young Spaniard on the love of 
 Christ. What was Mr. Gladstone's surprise two 
 years after, on visiting the Protestant seminary in 
 Calle Lista, Seville, to find among its youths Senor 
 Pizarro, the young student with whom he had held 
 the short conversation in the Escorial! "Is not this 
 a brand plucked from the burning V 
 
 Take another. Senor Fernandez used to say 
 mass to the workmen in the Cartuja, or China 
 manufactory, at Seville. His popular gifts were 
 such that he was appointed "Lent preacher" in 
 
 T 2 
 
292 Da ybreak in Spain. 
 
 the San Isidoro — the church in which the martyrs of 
 the Reformation, attired in their sanbenito, were 
 compelled to witness mass, before being led to the 
 Quemadero and burned. "He belonged to the 
 Order of the Jesuits," said Mr. Clough, speaking 
 of him to us ; "a bold step it was, no doubt, to 
 receive him ; but he had previously given good 
 evidence of having transferred his allegiance from 
 the Society of Jesus to Jesus himself" It was 
 this young pastor to whose earnest evangelical 
 discourse we had listened the Sabbath previous. 
 
 Another of these young students had been accus- 
 tomed to dance before the Virgin in the Cathedral 
 of Seville. These dances, every one knows, were 
 practised at the Pagan shrines of Greece ; and here 
 are they still in use in the cathedral of Seville. 
 And this youth, with twelve others, dressed in 
 the Venetian costume — slippers and silken hose, 
 breeches tucked up at mid-thigh, embroidered vest, 
 slashed jacket thrown over one shoulder, cap and 
 feather — was wont to dance with castanets on 
 certain festivals before the image of the Virgin. 
 He chanced one evening to enter the Protestant 
 Church, and hear Senor Cabrera preach, and has 
 never since danced in the Cathedral, or indeed 
 gone thither at all. 
 
 A fourth — Senor Sanchez y Meneses. " His 
 
The New Reformation. 293 
 
 education," says the Times of Refreshing, October, 
 1869, "commenced in the college of San Felipe 
 Neri, of Seville. It would take a small volume to 
 write the history of this young man. The struggles 
 of his conscience, the weariness of his heart, amid 
 the rigid routine of his studies, and the services 
 he had to undergo and perform, bowed his soul 
 within him. Fasting brought no peace, penance no 
 satisfaction, and the repetition of Ave Marias and 
 Credos nothing but barrenness. When the revolu- 
 tion broke out, the monastery was abandoned ; and 
 he, being freed by the law of his country from the 
 shackles which had bound him, though scarcely 
 able to believe it, for a time was as one stunned. 
 He wandered about the streets, spending his slender 
 stock of resources, wondering what was to become 
 of him. He had heard distorted statements of 
 Protestantism ; but, after receiving a Gospel-portion, 
 and some other publications of the Spanish Evan- 
 gelisation Society, he determined to learn for 
 himself whether these things were so. The irre- 
 sistible truths placed before him in the Protestant 
 Church led him to openly abandon Rome. A 
 severe trial still awaited him. His brothers and 
 sisters and other relatives besought him with 
 entreaties and tears to return to the Church of 
 Rome. He endured days of agony ; but these 
 
294 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 words came to his aid, * Whoso loveth father or 
 mother more than me, is not worthy of me.' His 
 decision was finally taken, and he now found peace." 
 This is the place for a few biographical lines 
 touching one to whom we have had so frequent 
 occasion to refer — Sefior Cabrera. Born at Benisa, 
 in the province of Alicante, in 1837, he was educated 
 at the college of the Escolapios, in the city of 
 Valentia. The Escolapios are an order of monks 
 who have laboured with great earnestness in the 
 work of instruction, and most of the distinguished 
 men who have of late years appeared in Spain 
 have come from their colleges. As the Escolapios 
 are the real, and not merely the professed, friends 
 of education, they have incurred the bitter hatred 
 and persecution of the Jesuits. However, they 
 have had their reward; for, while all the other 
 orders were suppressed, the Escolapios were 
 spared. Sefior Cabrera taught with eclat as a 
 professor in one of their colleges ; he carried with 
 him to the study of theology the habits of free 
 inquiry which he had acquired in the schools of 
 the Escolapios; and so, when he encountered the 
 dogmas of Rome, he asked on what foundations of 
 reason and truth do these dogmas rest } He ob- 
 tained a copy of the Scriptures ; but the more he 
 read the more he doubted. The conflict in his 
 
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The New Reformation. 295 
 
 soul grew greater every day. Of his state at 
 that time he has given us the following picture : 
 "I began to read diligently pious books, and morti- 
 fied myself frequently with the ^cilicio' (an elastic 
 waist-band, covered with sharp points, which all 
 had to wear every Friday ; upon drawing a long 
 breath the band tightened, and the points penetrated 
 into the flesh right round the body), and with the 
 imagined consolations of the confession. But all 
 in vain ; my heart was dry, my soul in darkness, my 
 eyes continually filled with tears of sorrow and 
 desperation, bitterness and sadness being my lot." 
 A ray of light shot into the darkness ; it was the 
 words, " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are 
 heavy laden, and I will give you rest." His trouble 
 was somewhat assuaged ; the time was approaching 
 when he must receive ordination as a Presbyter. 
 He felt that his vow obliged him to go forward, and 
 he received orders from the hands of the Arch- 
 bishop of Valentia in 1862. It was about this time 
 that the imprisonment of Matamoras and his 
 companions took place. The eyes of Cabrera, in 
 common with those of his countrymen, were fixed 
 on the spectacle of men suffering bonds and im- 
 prisonment for the Gospel. How it affected him he 
 tells us : " This event deeply impressed me, show- 
 ing in lively colours the cruelty of the Church on 
 
296 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 the one hand, which persecuted in the name of the 
 Gospel; and on the other the faith and valour of a 
 few men who did not fear persecution in the defence 
 and confession of the Gospel they had embraced. 
 And these were Protestants." This completed the 
 great change ; his eyes were fully opened, and he 
 now clearly saw the vanity of the faith in which he 
 had been born, and that the really Apostolic 
 Church was the Protestant one. At this time, too, 
 a Protestant catechism happened to fall in his way, 
 which gave him, what he had not till then seen, a 
 concise and fair representation of the doctrines of 
 the Protestant Church. His decision was now 
 finally taken, although not without a struggle ; for 
 country, relations, monastic vows, all rose up like 
 "menacing giants" in his path. He obtained from 
 his superior a license to travel in the provinces ; he 
 fled to the Rock of Gibraltar, and there became the 
 leader of that little band of exiles and disciples 
 whom the persecution of Rome was chasing thither, 
 there to await the hour of their country's deliver- 
 ance. 
 
 We return once more to the nursery of Spanish 
 pastors in Seville. When we visited them they 
 were but twelve in number ; and it may be asked, 
 " What are these to so many cities and towns, all 
 ready at this hour to receive a pastor, and many of 
 
The New Reformation. 297 
 
 them earnestly entreating that one may be sent to 
 them ?" But we recall to mind that at a former 
 epoch twelve was the number of preachers sent 
 forth, not into a nation only, but into a world, to 
 begin the work of its conversion. If the hour of 
 Spain's conversion be come, these men will not 
 remain alone ; other preachers of talent, zeal, and 
 single-mindedness will be forthcoming. But we 
 must use the means ; and what other means can 
 we use but just the multiplication of such semi- 
 naries as the one in Calle Lista, at Seville, that 
 Spanish evangelists may go forth, not merely by 
 dozens, but by hundreds — nay, by thousands ? If 
 the waters, at present so deeply moved, shall be- 
 come frozen over by indifference or atheism, nothing 
 but some great European convulsion will be able to 
 stir them a second time ; and others, besides Spain, 
 may have reason to regret that the opportunity was 
 lost. 
 
 Since the period of our visit (October, 1869) the 
 numbers in the college of the Reformed Church of 
 Spain have been increased ; and the Rev. John S. 
 Black, of the Free Church of Scotland, a young 
 minister of great talents and accomplishments, has 
 gone out, to be associated with those who are 
 engaged in the great work of training the first 
 apostles of the New Reformation in Spain. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 GENERAL ASSEMBLY, AND CONFESSION OF FAITH. 
 
 Necessity of Order — Ends of a Creed — Meeting of Pastors at 
 Seville in July, 1869— First General Assembly in Spain — Con- 
 stitution of the Assembly — Its Work — Compilation of a Creed* 
 or Confession of Faith — Titles of its Chapters— In Harmony 
 with the Confessions of the Reformed Churches — Closing Ad- 
 dress of Senor Cabrera — This "Confession" a Testimony to 
 the Sufficiency of Scripture — To the Presence of the Holy 
 Spirit — To the real Unity of Protestantism— Form of Worship 
 in the Andalusian Church— Worship, as a Spiritual Act, being 
 restored in Spain— Draft Address of Andalusian Church to 
 other Churches. 
 
 The greatest enterprises have often the smallest 
 beginnings — at all events, beginnings they must 
 have. The rivulet must be before the river ; the 
 handful of settlers, such as the Pilgrim Fathers, 
 before the empire or commonwealth ; the corner- 
 stone, unseen in the depths of the earth, before 
 the top stone that crowns the edifice. We see the 
 corner-stone being laid of the future Church of 
 Spain ; its foundations are the twelve apostles of 
 the Lamb, and the edifice to be reared upon them 
 will, we trust, form no insignificant part of that 
 glorious spiritual Temple which will yet embrace 
 the world. 
 
General Assembly. 299 
 
 The root of the New Spanish Reformation, 
 unless we greatly mistake, is at Seville. There the 
 Church apostolic is springing up, confessing the 
 same truths — only these systematically arranged 
 and scripturally expressed, and wearing the same 
 simple form — simple, yet organised, in order to 
 preserve order, and guard liberty — with the Church 
 in primitive days. 
 
 There can be no tree without a root; and just 
 as little can there be a Church without a Creed 
 — something believed by its members in common. 
 That creed may have f^wer or more articles ; 
 it may be more or less systematic ; but something 
 known to all its members — whether printed in 
 a book, or on a single leaf, or not printed at all, 
 but expressed in some brief formula — there must 
 be, if there is to be a Church. And we should 
 say, and it appears to be but plain sense, that the 
 more clear, well-arranged, scripturally-founded, and 
 comprehensive that creed is, the better will that 
 creed gain its end ; which is, not to fetter either the 
 understanding or the liberties of the Church's 
 members, but to minister to their instruction, and 
 to guard their spiritual and ecclesiastical liberty. 
 And we must say farther, that the more complete 
 and perfect the creed which any Church is able to ^ 
 receive, the more it is manifest that Church has 
 
300 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 progressed towards a manly maturity and a rational 
 unity. 
 
 Let us now fix our eye upon the form which 
 the Church is assuming at Seville. The men who 
 there direct the work early saw the indispensable 
 necessity of organisation. In a country like Spain 
 union is a first necessity ; for a congregation to 
 stand apart is to invite attack. It places itself 
 between two fires — that of political parties, and 
 that of the priests. If the ground already won is 
 to be held, and especially if it is to be enlarged, 
 the congregations must stand shoulder to shoulder, 
 and prosecute the work with the wisdom that lies 
 in united counsels, and the strength that is imparted 
 by mutual assistance. In the July of last summer 
 (1869) all the pastors and evangelists labouring 
 in Andalusia, with lay delegates from all the 
 congregations, met in Seville. A consistory, or 
 small committee, which had been formed on the 
 Rock of Gibraltar the 25 th of April, 1868 — for at 
 that time it was not possible to hold any such 
 meeting on the soil of Spain — issued its summons 
 to the Andalusian pastors to meet and deliberate 
 on what it was best to do in the novel circumstances 
 in which they and their country were placed. They 
 obeyed the call ; and in that land, where ecclesias- 
 tical synod or assembly had never met before, and 
 
General Assembly. 301 
 
 in that town, even in Seville — which was the first in 
 Spain to respond to the call for reform given by 
 Germany three hundred years before — did this 
 assembly convene. They appear to have come to- 
 gether openly, to adopt whatever order or organisa- 
 tion the Word of God and the Holy Spirit might 
 lead them to deem the best for advancing their 
 great cause. They only felt that by the establish- 
 ment of religious liberty as a fundamental article 
 in the code of the Spanish nation, they had the 
 call of God "to travail," to use their own words, 
 "for the propagation of the pure Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ in their country ; and, in order that their 
 efforts in that holy cause might produce the largest 
 amount of fruit, they must march in one body, 
 and work together in a common obedience." The 
 representatives of the Andalusian Churches being 
 met, the consistory of pastors deposited in their 
 hands the powers they had been invested with, and 
 in virtue of which they had summoned this meeting. 
 A new consistory was appointed, and that body 
 proceeded to draft a programme of the more im- 
 portant questions to be discussed by the assembly. 
 These questions were the preparation of a more 
 correct translation of the Holy Scriptures into the 
 Spanish tongue, the compilation of a Confession 
 of Faith, and the enactment of a Directory for 
 
302 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 Public Worship. Thus did the assembled pastors 
 endeavour — to use their own words — "to con- 
 solidate the unity of their faith and their action, 
 and to place their great work on an immovable 
 foundation." 
 
 On the 5th of July, 1869, did this synod con- 
 vene in Seville. Presbyter Juan B. Cabrera, as 
 president of the central consistory, in a short 
 speech, solemnly opened the session. He recounted 
 the reasons which had induced the consistory to 
 summon this meeting of pastors, dwelling especially 
 upon the manifest interposition of God in behalf of 
 their country, in the establishment of liberty of 
 worship, which they were bound to construe as the 
 arrival of the fitting moment for forming themselves 
 into a corporate body, and presenting themselves as 
 an organised Church to the nation, to the Govern- 
 ment, to the Cortes, and to all the evangelical 
 Churches of the world. 
 
 The assembly being thus constituted, it entered 
 on the consideration of the first point — the prepara- 
 tion, to wit, of a new and purer translation of the 
 Bible. After a long discussion in that and the 
 following session, the assembly unanimously agreed 
 that the version of Cipriano de Valera, a new 
 edition of which had this year been printed at 
 Madrid, should be adopted meanwhile, and that 
 
Confession of Faith. 303 
 
 time be given for a careful revisal of this version, 
 in order to the issuing of a new translation of the 
 original Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. 
 
 There came next the very important matter of 
 a confession of faith — a body of truth, founded on 
 the Word of God, to be held aloft by this young 
 Church in the midst of the Spanish darkness. A 
 commission, consisting of five members, was named 
 by the assembly, to prepare, and lay on the table, 
 "the project of a Confession of Faith," in order 
 to its being discussed in future sittings of the 
 assembly. This matter occupied much time, as it 
 deserved ; the discussions upon it lasted from an 
 early stage of the meetings onward to the 5th of 
 August. It was felt to be of the last import- 
 ance that no statement or dogma should find a 
 place in that document which was not manifestly 
 drawn from the Word of God, and which could not 
 be clearly proved from the Holy Scriptures. It 
 was judged also of almost equal importance, that 
 every member of the assembly should, by discus- 
 sion and study, make himself perfectly acquainted 
 with every statement in this confession, and give 
 his assent to it with the full conviction of his 
 understanding and the full approval of his con- 
 science. 
 
 The programme of " Confession " drawn up 
 
304 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 and discussed consisted of thirty-five chapters, the 
 titles of which are as follows : 
 
 Confession of Faith of the Reformed 
 Church of Spain. 
 
 Chap. I. Of Divine Revelation. 
 
 2. Of the Holy Scriptures and of Tradition. 
 
 3. Of Symbolic Books. 
 
 4. Of the Trinity and Unity of God. 
 
 5. Of Creation. 
 
 6. Of Providence. 
 
 7. Of Predestination. 
 
 8. Of Original Sin. 
 
 9. Of the Covenant of God with Man. 
 
 10. Of Jesus Christ, the one Mediator. 
 
 11. Of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 12. Of Free Will. 
 
 13. Of Grace. 
 
 14. Of Justification and Sanctification."^' 
 
 * The reader will observe that "Justification " and ** Sanctifica- 
 tion " are included in one and the same question. It was one of 
 the leading errors of the Roman Church to confound the two, and 
 thereon to build her doctrine of Justification by Works. The Refonn- 
 ation drew clearly the line between justification and sanctification ; 
 and as regards the individual pastors of the Spanish Church, we 
 can say, from personal knowledge, that on this, as on other 
 points, their opinions are in perfect accordance with the theology of 
 the Reformation ; and farther, we can say with tolerable certainty, 
 that before the " Confession of the Spanish Reformed Church " 
 shall be finally adopted, this blemish will be removed from it. 
 
Confession of Faith. 305 
 
 Chap. 15. Of Faith. 
 
 16. Of Good Works. 
 
 17. Of Repentance unto Life. 
 
 18. Of Perseverance. 
 
 19. Of the Perseverance of the Saints. 
 
 20. Of the Law of God. 
 
 21. Of Christian Liberty and Liberty of 
 
 Conscience. 
 
 22. Of the Civil Authority. 
 
 23. Of the Church. 
 
 24. Of the Christian Ministry. 
 
 25. Of ReHgious Worship and of the Sabbath. 
 
 26. Of Vows and Lawful Oaths. 
 
 27. Of the Sacraments in General. 
 
 28. Of Baptism. 
 
 29. Of the Lord's Supper. 
 
 30. Of Councils. 
 
 31. Of Church Censures. 
 
 32. Of the Communion of the Saints. 
 
 33. Of Marriage. 
 
 34. Of the State of Man after Death, and the 
 
 Resurrection from the Dead. 
 
 35. Of the Last Judgment. 
 
 The headings of these chapters are almost 
 identical with those of the Westminster Confession 
 of Faith : in substance as well as in titles, the two 
 
 U 
 
-3o6 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 documents are similar. From the same fountain 
 of truth have both been drawn — ^the Word of God. 
 And while the pastors of Seville exercised their 
 own independent judgment in framing the mani- 
 festo, they have wisely availed themselves of the 
 labours of the great minds of the sixteenth century. 
 They have gone forth by the footsteps of the flock. 
 Not less is the Seville Confession in beautiful har- 
 mony with the Confessions of the reformed Churches. 
 In all important points the testimony borne by the 
 Churches of Germany in the sixteenth century, and 
 the testimony borne bytheAndalusian Church in this, 
 the nineteenth, is the same testimony. They agree in 
 declaring man to be fallen, and utterly unable to 
 help himself; they agree in declaring salvation to 
 be wholly of grace, to the exclusion of all human 
 merit ; they agree in declaring that there is but one 
 Sacrifice for sin, offered once for all, and that Christ 
 is the one Mediator between God and man ; they 
 agree in declaring that the Word of God is the only 
 rule of faith, that the Holy Spirit is the only 
 Sanctifier, that Christ is alone the Head and King of 
 His Church, and that He has appointed therein a 
 form of government distinct from, and not sub- 
 ordinate to, that of the civil magistrate. In short, 
 we here behold the Reformation rising from the 
 dead ; or, if that be too strong a phrase, awakening 
 
Confession of Faith. 307 
 
 from its slumber; proclaiming the old truths, and 
 displaying the old banner, with the old motto 
 blazoned thereon — "Salvation of Grace." Thus, 
 after a long pause, the trumpet again sounds, 
 and the march is resumed. 
 
 As indicating the spirit by which these Re- 
 formers are pervaded, we quote from the concluding 
 part of the Moderator's address at the closing of 
 the Assembly : — 
 
 "Gentlemen and Brethren, — Last year, when 
 the first Consistory was formed, we only numbered 
 six ; to-day this number is tripled. Who can tell 
 how many may be at the next Assembly } God, 
 who knows His chosen ones, will bring them to 
 the fold of the Good Shepherd ; and, though some 
 who are called brethren may backslide — returning 
 from whence they came — we will not be dis- 
 heartened, in the assurance that those whom the 
 Father has given to the Son shall not be taken out 
 of His hand. Our warfare is spiritual and not 
 carnal. We fight for the cause of God, and must 
 prepare for the battle, and by constant prayer seek 
 strength from its Fountain, even Jesus Christ ; so 
 that our life and conversation may show forth 
 whose we are and whom we serve, and men may 
 take knowledge of us, and desire to follow after the 
 Good Master — thus proving that the calumnies so 
 
 U 2 
 
3:oB Daybi^eak in Spain. 
 
 (diligently propagated against us are without found- 
 ation. I charge you, ministers and evangelists, 
 and all of you, to be humble-minded and filled 
 with love. Be seasoned with grace in your preach- 
 ing and conversation, emulate one another in 
 Christ as becomes his followers, and be wise in 
 winning souls. It is for us to employ the whole of 
 our time, not in a party spirit, but in faith, making 
 known the kingdom of God and His righteousness. 
 The words of our mouth must be those of the 
 Gospel, so that even our enemies may fear them ; 
 and unyieldingly let us preach the kingdom of 
 God, conscious that He is for us ; without pride or 
 high-mindedness, for it becomes us to be very 
 humble ; without affectation of worldly wisdom, 
 our highest aim being to serve the Lord and bring 
 lost sheep to His fold. Set apart a time for private 
 reading, meditation, and prayer. Unless this be 
 done, and there be much of the latter, the soul be- 
 comes parched ; and how can we communicate to 
 the hearts of others a knowledge of the reviving 
 grace of God, if we do not realise it in our own 
 souls } Satan does not cast out Satan. We have 
 to preach faith in Christ and not fanaticism ; love 
 and not prejudice ; and work that the old Adam 
 Inay die, and there be a rising in the Anointed. 
 Although the harvest is plenteous, and the labourers 
 
Confession of Faith. 309, 
 
 be few, yet God, who is able to raise up from 
 stones, were it necessary, children to Abraham, will 
 provide workers for His vineyard. You all know 
 the truth and importance of the observations I 
 have made, of the great responsibility resting upon 
 us, and of our duty to preach to all men the Word 
 of life. Go then and preach the Gospel of Christ, and 
 may God help you with His Holy Spirit, that you 
 may faithfully discharge your ministry ; and when 
 we meet (God willing) next year, the Lord grant 
 that we may be able to speak of His marvellous 
 works and praise His holy Name, through Christ 
 Jesus our Saviour, who gave His life to deliver us 
 from this world, and who now sits on the right hand 
 of the Father, ever making intercession for us." 
 
 We hail, with no ordinary measure of joy, this 
 noble confession on the part of a Church just risen 
 from the ashes of the Spanish autos-de-fe. We hail 
 it on many grounds. It is a testimony to the ful- 
 ness and sufficiency of the Scriptures. To the 
 Bible the Church went in the first age, and there 
 she found that truth which is her substance and 
 life. After a long period of decay, she went back 
 to it in the sixteenth century, and found in it more 
 than the vitality and energy of her youth. In 
 Spain, stricken down by the blows of Rome, she 
 lay stunned and senseless for three centuries ; but 
 
3IO Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 once more she returns to the old Book, and finds in 
 it the breath of life. What a wonderful Book is 
 this ! What a fountain of the water of life — des- 
 tined to yield its living streams to every age and 
 to every land ! 
 
 What a testimony, too, to the presence of the 
 Holy Spirit ! " Without my infallible guidance," 
 says Rome, " you will inevitably err. The Bible 
 you cannot understand till I interpret it to you." 
 Have Christians misunderstood it ? In the first 
 century, in the sixteenth century, and again in the 
 nineteenth century, they have gone to the Bible, 
 and on all three occasions they have found in it 
 the same way of salvation, the same system of 
 truth — salvation by grace. The guidance of Rome 
 they did not enjoy: they sought only that of the 
 Holy Spirit, and the promise was fulfilled to 
 them — "The Spirit, whom I will send unto you, 
 He shall abide with you for ever. He shall lead 
 you into all truth." 
 
 What a testimony, too, is this to the real unity 
 of Protestantism ! It shows that the Protestant 
 Confessions, in the various countries and the various 
 lands, are, in fact, but one Confession. They all 
 agree, whether in the sixteenth century or in the 
 nineteenth, with the Scriptures and with one 
 another. It is the same truths which form the 
 
Confession of Faith. . 311 
 
 Confession of the Church in Spain as in Germany 
 — the same in the valleys of Andalusia as amid the 
 mountains of Switzerland. This is the best answer 
 to the accusations advanced against us by Rome. 
 We can triumphantly point to great facts, and say, 
 ** We are not divided — we are one. Whether 
 it be the sixteenth century or the nineteenth; 
 whether it be France, or Scotland, or Spain, we 
 read God's Book alike. Ours is a unity that is 
 celestial, and which embraces in one body Chris- 
 tians of all ages and of all nations. This sheds 
 hope on the future, for it gives us a glimpse of 
 the way in which our dissensions are to be healed, 
 and the names of our several sects and denomina- 
 tions to be merged in some comprehensive name, 
 descriptive of the whole Catholic Church." 
 
 In fine, this " Seville Confession " is a new 
 monument of the truth of the Reformation. These 
 Reformers in Spain have had time, surely, to get 
 out of the old rut ; they are fettered by neither old 
 associations nor by new ties ; they appear, as it 
 were, upon a new earth, unpledged either to party 
 or to prejudice ; they go as freely to the Word of 
 God as if no one had ever gone to it before them ; 
 and here is what they find in it — just the same body 
 of truth the Reformers of the sixteenth century 
 found in it. A second time has the Reformation 
 
312 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 been justified, and a second time has the Roman 
 Church been condemned. 
 
 We ought to state that this "Confession of 
 Faith," which is in course of being printed, was 
 approved only provisionally by the Synod of 1 869 : 
 it awaits its final revision and enactment by the 
 Synod of 1870. We trust that, by the good hand 
 of God upon the Spanish pastors, they will be 
 permitted to hold their projected General Assem- 
 bly of 1870, and to complete the good work they 
 began in their Assembly of 1869, so far as con- 
 cerns the framework of their young Church. 
 
 Farther, the Seville Assembly of 1869 framed 
 a directory for the orderly conduct of public wor- 
 ship ; that, too, in the main, is the same with the 
 directory in use in most of the Churches of 
 the Reformation. Their worship, as we saw it, is 
 characterised by great simplicity, yet perfect order 
 and reverence. The simplicity of the French and 
 Scottish Churches seems to have been taken by the 
 Andalusian pastors as their model next after the 
 Divine model, enunciated eighteen centuries ago 
 by the Great Founder of the Christian Church : 
 "God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him 
 must worship Him in spirit and in truth." In 
 Spain, as in all Popish countries, worship is a 
 thing which is performed by the hands, not by 
 
Confession of Faith. 313 
 
 the heart. To count with the fingers so many- 
 beads before an image is worship ; to press the 
 stone floor with one's knees, or lick it with one's 
 tongue, is worship ; to dip the finger in the font of 
 holy water, and sprinkle one's self therewith, is 
 worship ; to recite with the lips (as really a corporeal 
 act as counting beads with the fingers) a score or 
 so of Ave Marias is worship. Not only is spiritual 
 worship extinct in the Popish world, but the idea 
 of worship, as a spiritual act, is lost. The young 
 Protestant Church of Spain is restoring it. 
 
 A Church is not to be measured in square miles, 
 or counted by hundreds and thousands of members ; 
 it is to be looked at and judged by the truths on 
 which it is founded. If these are the truths which 
 God has revealed, then it has in it a principle of 
 vitality which is inextinguishable, and it must grow. 
 And, though meanwhile it may not cover more of the 
 earth's surface than a single acre, or number more 
 of the earth's inhabitants than "two or three," it 
 has the Spirit dwelling in it ; it is linked to God's 
 promise and providence, and is part of that spiritual 
 empire which shall yet cover all realms with its 
 shadow. We look at the Church in Seville with 
 the eye of faith ; we see it founding itself on 
 eternal truth ; we see it framing an organisation for 
 the diffusion of that truth ; and we feel assured 
 
314 Daybreak in Spain, 
 
 that it shall one day — it may be soon, or it may 
 not be till fiercer tempests pass over the nation 
 than any that have yet visited it — be in fact 
 what, as yet, it is only in name, THE REFORMED 
 Church of Spain. 
 
 As a sample of the spirit that animates this 
 young Church, we conclude by quoting the address 
 it has just drafted, with the view of transmitting it 
 to the older Churches of the Reformation. 
 
 " Dearly Beloved Brethren, — We, the members 
 of the Central Consistory of the Reformed Church 
 of Spain, united with you in the profession of the 
 Gospel, and the prosecution of the same great 
 work of spreading it over the earth, approach you, 
 to lay before you our position and prospects, and 
 to ask your sympathy, prayers, and assistance in 
 the peculiar and most solemn circumstances in 
 which we find ourselves placed. 
 
 " When God, by the establishment of religious 
 liberty by the Cortes, a few months ago, opened 
 the gates of our country for the return of the 
 Gospel, we made haste to obey the call, and em- 
 brace the opportunity thus given us. We returned 
 from the various places to which persecution had 
 driven us ; we resumed our posts in our native 
 country; we gathered congregations around us in 
 the various cities in which we laboured; and, God 
 
Confession of Faith. 315 
 
 prospering us, we felt how much it would conduce 
 to the stability of our work, to its progress, and 
 to the ultimate triumph of the Gospel in Spain, 
 to give such organisation to our infant Church as 
 should be according to the Word of God and after 
 the example of the Reformed Church of other 
 lands. 
 
 "Accordingly, in last July, we convened a 
 synod, or general assembly, consisting of the pas- 
 tors, evangelists, and lay delegates from most of 
 our congregations, with the view of solemn prayer 
 touching this most important matter, and taking 
 such action in it as we might deem most for the 
 glory of God, and the good of his Church in Spain. 
 
 " The first fruit of our deliberations and labours 
 was a statement of doctrine, or " Confession of 
 Faith," in thirty-five chapters, founded upon Holy 
 Scripture, and in harmony with the early Con- 
 fessions of the Reformed Churches of Christendom. 
 A copy of the " Confession " of our faith we here- 
 with transmit, and beg to lay it before you. 
 
 " We also drew up a code of government and 
 discipline for the Reformed Church of Spain, which 
 we believe to be agreeable to Holy Scripture, and 
 in conformity with the order generally adopted by 
 the Reformed Churches of the sixteenth century. 
 These documents are, meanwhile, only provisonal, 
 
3i6 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 and await the final revision and adoption of a 
 future Assembly of our Church. 
 
 " Beloved brethren : It gives us unspeakable 
 joy to say that there is at this hour a great willing- 
 ness on the part of the people of Spain to listen to 
 the preaching of the Gospel, and to receive and 
 read the Word of God. And it is also with deep 
 thankfulness that we are able to add that wherever 
 we are able to send ministers there we readily find 
 congregations to listen to them. This is the day of 
 Spain's visitation. Such a day it has not had for 
 ages — if, indeed, it ever had such — and if allowed 
 to pass unimproved, it may not return for ages to 
 come. We are desirous of doing our utmost to take 
 advantage of this marvellous and blessed opening, 
 and we pray you to aid us, as you may be able, to 
 acquit ourselves of this most solemn responsibility. 
 
 " We recall the days of old. We think of the 
 confessors and martyrs whom God raised up in 
 Spain in the sixteenth century — of the noble tes- 
 timony they bore to the Gospel, and which they 
 were honoured to seal with their blood. We can- 
 not think that these sufferings have been endured 
 in vain ; on the contrary, we assuredly hope that 
 a plenteous harvest will yet spring from the seed 
 they sowed. 
 
 " It appears to us that the conversion of Spain 
 
Confession of Faith. 317 
 
 to the faith of the Gospel would tend, above most 
 events, to the overthrow of the great Antichristian 
 Apostacy, to the revival of the cause of truth and 
 vital religion in all the Churches of Christendom, 
 and would hasten the coming of the blessed era 
 when liberty and truth shall universally prevail, and 
 the knowledge of the Lord cover the earth as the 
 waters cover the channels of the great deep. 
 
 " These are the motives which have moved us, 
 dearly beloved brethren, to make this appeal to 
 you and to the other Churches of Reformed 
 Christendom. Your recognition of us as brethren 
 in the Lord Jesus we earnestly beg ; and we cast 
 ourselves with confidence upon your prayers and 
 your assistance in the great work which God at 
 this crisis of our country and the world hath laid 
 to our hands, and which, in humble dependence 
 upon Him, we have undertaken." 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 MONUMENTS OF SEVILLE. 
 
 The Giralda— The Cathedral— Change of Gods— The Alcazar- 
 Its Airy Beauty — San Telmo and the Duke de Montpensier — 
 The Throne of Spain — House of Cardinal Wiseman — Murillo 
 and the Monks — Dismantled Convents — Their Size and Interior 
 Arrangements — Strength of Catholicism in Spain — A Great 
 Redemption. 
 
 Before leaving so famed a city as Seville our 
 readers may look perhaps for a few words supple- 
 mentary of our brief notice in an earlier chapter 
 of the beauties, real or supposed, of a place which 
 every visitor accounts it his duty to admire or at 
 least to laud. It is with the utmost difficulty that 
 the traveller from Britain can reconcile himself to 
 the labyrinth of dead walls and narrow lanes, wind- 
 ing and windowless, which constitute the exterior 
 of the Andalusian cities ; but the delicious climate 
 and the Moorish monuments no one can help ad- 
 miring. It is on the latter that we mean to say a 
 few words. We write under correction, for our 
 taste has not been disciplined by the study of 
 architecture. We speak of alcazars and cathedrals 
 simply as they impressed us, and as that may not 
 
Monuments of Seville. 319 
 
 have been the right impression — we mean the im- 
 pression they would have made, had we been 
 educated up to the right point — the opinions we 
 express may, at times, be exceedingly heterodox. 
 In one point, however, we cannot be far wrong — 
 Seville was admirably adapted to the age in which 
 it was built. But if the new Reformation shall 
 make way, it will give us, among other things, a 
 Seville much superior to the present — a Seville, 
 in which the splendour of the palace will not need 
 to hide itself behind the grated doors and dead 
 walls of a prison. 
 
 We give the clergy the precedence, and begin 
 our tour at the cathedral. Its tower, the Giralda 
 — so prominent an object from whatever point the 
 city is viewed — has been much praised. It would 
 be worthy of all the praise it has received, were it 
 as its original builders left it. The Moors put 
 their hand to nothing on which they did not leave 
 the imperishable traces of their taste ; but, un- 
 happily for the Giralda, the monks took it into 
 their heads that they could improve what the 
 Moors had perfected, and so they placed upon its 
 top an ingenious model of a bride's cake, sur- 
 mounted by a colossal figure emblematic of the 
 Faith. The Faith ought surely to point steadily 
 in one direction, byt the "Faith" that tops the 
 
320 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 cathedral tower of Seville veers about with every 
 wind that blows over the Guadalquivri. It points 
 northward to Rome to-day; it turns eastward to 
 Mecca to-morrow, as if it felt a hankering after the 
 creed of its original founders. But passing this, 
 for we feel that some little margin ought to be 
 allowed in these times, the Giralda, up to a certain 
 .stage, is faultless as regards its proportions and 
 symmetry, and yields only pleasure to the spec- 
 tator ; but beyond that stage it suddenly effloresces 
 into grotesqueness, reminding one of some staid 
 and orderly personage, who all at once loses the 
 balance of his deportment, and bursts into an 
 exuberance of gesture and a vivacity of talk, for 
 which we were not prepared. 
 
 Next comes the cathedral. It is stable, vast, 
 grand. It is one of the largest cathedrals in all 
 Spain, and that is saying a great deal in a land 
 where the whole wealth and talent of the people 
 were at one time concentrated on the erection of 
 structures of colossal size. The ground on which 
 it stands, and which extends to many acres, has 
 witnessed quite a succession of fanes and worships. 
 There rose here, first of all, a Pagan temple, of 
 which the Phoenicians were the builders, and As- 
 tarte the goddess. When the Roman came, he 
 found both a shrine and deity r^ady to his hand. 
 
CHURCH OF ST. MARIA DEL PI, BARCELONA. 
 
Monuments of Seville. 321 
 
 and without more ado set up his worship, simply 
 changing the Assyrian Astarte into the Itahan 
 Venus. But in process of time appeared the Moor, 
 and he was not quite so accommodating. He de- 
 moHshed the structure, which had already served 
 for two worships ; he cleansed the site from the 
 defilement of graven images ; and erected thereon 
 a mosque, using for its foundations and walls the 
 carved gods to which his predecessors had bowed 
 down ; and now, from the top of the Giralda tower — 
 of which the monk had not yet transformed the 
 grace into grotesqueness — was heard, sounding duly 
 at morn and noon and eventide, the muezzin calling 
 the faithful to prayer. 
 
 The changes destined to pass over this building 
 were not yet ended. The Romanist came in his 
 turn, the mosque was converted into a cathedral, 
 and had to receive back again the gods it had cast 
 out. Astarte, Venus, Mary, constitute the trinity 
 of deities which has been worshipped on this most 
 ancient and venerable of European pagan sites. 
 Mighty pillars uphold the lofty roof It is re- 
 plenished with all the chefs-d'oeuvre of the pencil 
 and the chisel, with pictures, with statuary, with 
 curious carved work, with precious stones, with 
 silver and gold. This, however, is a grandeur of 
 another sort from that of the chapel in the Calle 
 
 V 
 
322 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 de la Madera in Madrid, or the " Las Virgenes " in 
 Seville. No ray of truth shines in this gorgeous 
 temple. Here broods the darkness of the pagan 
 night. 
 
 Scattered round its precincts are the graves of 
 statesmen and abbots famous in their day, and 
 some of whom have left their names not only on 
 the marble of their tombs but on the page of 
 history. Outside is the court of oranges, the all 
 but invariable concomitant of the mosque. The 
 Moors loved to assemble round their houses of 
 prayer not the tombs of the dead with their gloz- 
 ing epitaphs and their rotting bones, but the 
 fragrance of aromatic trees and the blossoms of 
 flowering shrubs. In the orange court is the 
 marble fountain whereat the Moslem was wont to 
 wash. It is now, we fear, disused by the Catholic, 
 who contents himself with dipping his finger in the 
 oily fluid which stagnates in the stone basin at 
 the portal as he enters to pay his devotions. 
 
 The exterior of the cathedral is more like a 
 fortress than a sanctuary. Its walls, buttressed and 
 battlemented, are suggestive rather of siege and 
 battle than shrine to which peaceful worshippers 
 may resort. It is not improbable that its builders 
 thought it not unwise so to construct it, that, as 
 occasion required, it might serve both purposes. 
 
Monuments in Seville. 323 
 
 In that age the priest passed easily into the warrior, 
 and the falchion was ever within reach of the hand 
 that held the crosier. 
 
 To the east of the cathedral, at no great dis- 
 tance, stands the Alcazar, or " castle " of Caesar. 
 It was first raised in the tenth century on what had 
 been the residence of the Roman praetor, by a 
 Toledan architect, for Prince Abdu-r-rahman. Sub- 
 sequently Ferdinand and Isabella, and the kings 
 of their line, made it their abode. It is especially 
 associated with the memories of Don Pedro the 
 Cruel, and the gentle and beautiful Maria de Padilla, 
 his good angel. Here are still shown the apart- 
 ments of Charles V. and his bride,. Mary of 
 Portugal, and those of his imbecile descendant, 
 Philip v., who lived here in seclusion, beguiling his. 
 retirement with fishing in the pond, which is still 
 pointed out to the visitor. 
 
 The Alcazar has a beauty all its own. Its style 
 is wholly unlike that of the cathedral ; and, in 
 passing from the one to the other one feels as if 
 he had passed into another hemisphere, or been 
 suddenly carried to the Orient. The cathedral is 
 grand and solemn, the Alcazar is airy and graceful, 
 The tall, slender pillars ; the ceiling, here painted 
 to resemble the starry vault, there all agleam, like 
 roof of cave, with crystals and stalactites ; the walls 
 
 V 2 
 
324 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 in rich arabesque, or lined with glistening azuelas ; 
 the abundance of light — all combine to make us feel 
 as if we were treading a palace of enchantment. 
 The dreams of our early days about genii and 
 their wonderful creations come up from the past. 
 The effect produced by the Alcazar is reached, not 
 by the embodiment of a great conception, but by 
 unwearied touches of exquisite beauty, repeated 
 and repeated without end. 
 
 Near by the Alcazar is the Palace de San 
 Telmo, the residence of the Duke de Montpensier. 
 The duel in which he struck down Henry of 
 Bourbon and his own candidature had not taken 
 place at the time of our visit, and he was prose- 
 cuting to the utmost his claims to the throne. His 
 duchess, who was quite as much set upon the 
 project as her lord, repaired daily to the cathedral, 
 with a long string of beads and a purse full of 
 reals. The former she devoutly counted before an 
 image of the Virgin, and the latter she charitably 
 scattered among the beggars — a feeble attempt 
 to buy a crown with prayers and alms. We may 
 here state, what we believe to be the fact, with- 
 out giving an opinion one way or other, that the 
 growing feeling in the Spanish nation is in favour 
 of Republicanism. The people are tired of kings ; 
 and one cannot greatly wonder at it, considering the 
 
Monuments in Seville. 325 
 
 experience they have had of royalty these three 
 hundred years past. We do not lay much stress 
 upon the political settlement of Spain, one way or 
 other, for we are perfectly convinced that till the 
 nation be evangelised true liberty is impossible, be 
 the form of government what it may. The direc- 
 tion of affairs meanwhile is in the hands of those 
 who are determined to maintain the religious 
 liberties; and the balance — or strife as some may 
 deem it — which reigns among political parties, is, 
 in our opinion, a shield above the evangelisation. 
 To raise up the throne of Spain will be no easy 
 matter. It lies pressed down by a great weight — 
 the blood of hundreds of thousands of martyrs. 
 
 Cardinal Wiseman was a native of Seville; and 
 the municipality, who thought this "a feather in 
 their cap," have, since the decease of the prelate, 
 placed a tablet notifying the fact in the front wall 
 of the house in which he first saw the light. We 
 may be permitted to doubt whether the municipality 
 of Seville a hundred years hence will be equally 
 proud of the fact, and equally forward to proclaim 
 it. We have heard Hugh Miller remark that the 
 book that continues to be read in its hundredth 
 year is fairly entitled to be ranked as a standard 
 work : it is the hundredth year that tests men as 
 well as books. Spain gave this man a cradle, and 
 
326 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 England a tomb ; but it will not go well with the 
 liberties of either country if 1970 shall find this 
 man's memory still green and his tablet flourishing 
 in Seville. 
 
 Of another, also a native of Seville, we must 
 say a word. He has borne the test of the hun- 
 dredth year, and his works still delight us. Murillo 
 was born in Seville, as was also Velasquez, of 
 whom we have already spoken. The museum at 
 Seville is small, nevertheless it well merits a visit, 
 being chiefly filled with the masterpieces of Murillo. 
 What a magic in his pencil ! He touches the 
 canvas, and it lives. His figures are not likenesses, 
 they are the men themselves; and the spectator 
 expects almost to see them step down and join 
 him on the floor. The house is still existing in the 
 Juderia, near the city wall, where, in 1682, he died. 
 The monks of a certain convent were ambitious of 
 having their likenesses drawn by the great painter. 
 Murillo, however, had no heart for the work; but in 
 those days it was not easy resisting the importuni- 
 ties of the good Fathers, when even kings had to 
 come, cap in hand, craving their pardon when they 
 chanced to have given offence to the Order. The 
 monks shut up the painter, it is said, in their 
 convent till he had done their bidding, and 
 so here they are, immortalised in the canvas 
 
Monuments in Seville. 327 
 
 of Murillo, and hung up on the walls of the 
 museum. But the painter has had his revenge, 
 although it is of so quiet a kind that we dare 
 say the good Fathers did not perceive it. Murillo 
 has painted them exactly as they looked ; and 
 if one wishes to see the veritable monks of the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries — a fair specimen 
 of the men who never failed to turn out in crowds 
 to the aiito-da-f^y ready to furnish cords, or to 
 bring faggots, or otherwise make themselves useful 
 in the despatch of the heretic — he has only to look 
 at the faces on the canvas of Murillo. One sees 
 at a glance the sort of men with whom the Spanish 
 martyrs of the sixteenth century had to contend; 
 it was the conflict of all that was refined and noble 
 with all that was coarse, brutal, and bigoted. 
 
 And when we speak of convents, it is in- 
 credible how rich the Seville of other days was 
 in these institutions, and how colossal their scale. 
 We were threading a narrow lane one day with a 
 friend, when a sudden turn of the street brought us 
 full in view of a hideous gap in the middle of the 
 city ; the space laid waste might be some three or 
 four English acres. This field of ruins was curiously 
 picturesque : houses without roofs, fragments of 
 walls, gables tall and gaunt, stood up in naked 
 desolation ; the whole forming such a group as one 
 
328 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 might expect to meet on the banks of the Euphrates 
 orthe Tigris, where the ruined palaces of Babylon and 
 Nineveh strike the traveller with wonder and terror. 
 As if to complete the resemblance, there yawned 
 abysses and pits amid the heaps of rubbish strewn 
 over the ground. These buildings, it was evident, 
 though within Seville, were not of it. They had 
 formed a distinct community, being, in fact, a city 
 within a city ; the wall that once enclosed it, and 
 which shut it in from the rest of the community, 
 could still be traced ; the ponderous gate, wrenched 
 from its iron hinge and set up on edge, blocked up 
 the entrance, lest any one should stray in the dark- 
 ness, and fall headlong into the caverns with which 
 the place abounded. 
 
 "What has happened.?" we asked. "Has a 
 besieging army been here ; or has some frightful 
 convulsion laid half the city in ruins .^^ or what V 
 " Simply a convent in the act of being dismantled," 
 we were told. And now, better than if it had been 
 entire, with roof and gateway untouched, we could 
 gauge its size, and survey the whole arrangements 
 of its interior. It had its walls and gates, its 
 streets, its prisons, its law, its sovereign — the lady 
 abbess, or the lord abbot — whose will was as 
 omnipotent over all in it as that of the King of 
 Spain over his subjects, and perhaps a little more 
 
Monuments in Seville. 329 
 
 so. How near the outer world, and yet what a 
 gulf between ! He who crossed that gulf could 
 never return to tell what he had seen or suffered in 
 the unknown region beyond ; he had passed out of 
 the sphere of human help as well as of human 
 sight. Whatever the horrors amid which he now 
 found himself, escape there was none. He was 
 under an inexorable power, which never opened 
 the doors of its prison-house. 
 
 Beyond Italy even, Spain is the land which one 
 ought to visit if he wishes to see what Popery is 
 when full grown. Let one go thither and survey 
 the monuments it has there left of its power — the 
 size and splendour of the structures it reared for its 
 worship ; the wealth and genius it expended in their 
 creation ; the idols of gold, and silver, and brass, 
 the marbles, the precious stones, and the pictures 
 with which it filled them ; the armies of priests by 
 which they were served ; the numerous confraterni- 
 ties which covered the land, the friars of all colours, 
 the legions of monks and nuns ; the lands, heritages, 
 and tithings appropriated to their maintenance ; 
 and he will begin to have some idea of the pro- 
 digious strength of Spanish Catholicism when in 
 its prime. Let him think, too, of the ruined trade, 
 the decayed towns, the beggared population, and 
 the desolated land, in the midst of which sat the 
 
330 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 gorged Church, mocking by her splendour the 
 misery on which she looked down. Let him reflect 
 that the condition of Spain was, to nearly the same 
 extent, the condition of every country in Christen- 
 dom, and he will feel that verily the greatest 
 miracle of all time was the redemption of mankind 
 from this awful tyranny. 
 
 That redemption has been going on for three 
 centuries. Down to the Reformation the power of 
 the Church^ of Rome is seen steadily advancing. 
 Not an oppenent rises to oppose her whom she 
 does not crush. At last she stands with her foot 
 upon all the powers of society. The conscience and 
 the intellect, the prince and the people, all have 
 been vanquished. An eternal servitude seems to 
 await the race. And so it would, had not a Divine 
 principle come from the skies to quicken the human 
 soul. The literary, political, scientific, and me- 
 chanical forces rallied, no doubt, to the help of 
 that principle ; but the interposition that saved 
 the world came from without — was from God. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 FROM SEVILLE TO JEREZ. 
 
 Adieu to Seville — Beauty of Morning — Railway — Cabins of Culti- 
 vators — Market-gardens of Seville — Enormous Cabbages, &c. 
 — Want of Fruits in Spain — Rearing-ground of Bulls — The 
 Bull Fight — Steam Ploughs — Gipsy Encampments — Faded 
 Towns — Desolation — ^Jerez de la Frontera — Fertility of Neigh- 
 bourhood — Evening. 
 
 Never shall we forget the sweetness of that morn- 
 ing on which we bade adieu to Seville. It was 
 just daybreak. The hour of dawn has a charm in 
 all regions ; but in Spain, where the purity of the 
 air gives a rare brilliance to the light, it is specially 
 sweet. The porter undid the bolt and threw open 
 the gates of the Hotel de Madrid, and as we 
 stepped over the threshold, it was with the feelings 
 of one who parts from old friends. Under that 
 huge banana tree in the centre of the marble-paved 
 patio, the plash of the fountain in our ear, we had 
 sipped our morning cup of coffee. Its broad pennon- 
 like leaves had covered us at noon ; and when 
 evening came, and the moon was in the sky, with 
 her attendant train of golden stars, there had we 
 sat till almost midnight, noting down the thick- 
 coming fancies. Now, alas ! all this was at an end. 
 
332 
 
 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 This dreamy, half-Oriental sort of life we must 
 exchange for rough journeyings by rail and 
 steamer, and the likelihood was small that ever 
 again we should rest at noon or eve under the 
 shade of that goodly banana. Nevertheless, fare 
 thee well, thou glorious tree ! Other travellers will 
 come and dream beneath thy boughs, and, after a 
 while, they too, like us, will rise up and go on their 
 way. It is under a fairer Tree than thou, and in a 
 yet lovelier clime, that we must seek our endless 
 rest. 
 
 We stepped out and were in the street. It was 
 quiet and cool, and full of that chequered bril- 
 liancy — pencils of gold and specks of shadow — 
 which morning brings with it in cities. There were 
 few people abroad except the chance traveller, on 
 his way, like ourselves, to the railway station, fol- 
 lowed by a porter carrying his luggage. We 
 traversed the spacious Plaza de la Constitucion, 
 once the site of the Franciscan convent ; but now 
 monk and nun have been cleared out, cloister and 
 cell have been demolished, and the place converted 
 into a public promenade. Its four sides are lined 
 with double rows of orange trees, whose golden 
 fruit peeped out from amidst the fresh foliage of 
 the boughs, on which, although thousands congre- 
 gate round them daily, the fruit is suffered to hang 
 
From Seville to Jerez. 333 
 
 untouched till it is fully ripened. We passed along 
 in front of the cathedral. Its portals were not yet 
 opened. The hour was too early for priest, and too 
 early even for beggar, who comes as duly, all dirt 
 and rags, to ply his vocation amid these glorious 
 aisles, as the other, in golden chasuble and purple 
 stole, to ply his. Passing the cathedral, we held 
 on our way by the Alcazar, under whose gorgeous 
 roof no emperor sleeps now, and in whose gardens 
 no fair beauty now walks. Soon we were outside 
 the walls which the Moors reared around the 
 "Queen of Andalusia," and which still remain in 
 a state of tolerable preservation. 
 
 It was here, disentangled from the buildings 
 and narrow lanes of the city, that we met the 
 morning face to face. It was coming onwards, 
 along the valley of the Guadalquivir, from the 
 open portals of the East, bidding mountain and 
 plain and city hail ! Even the dull river seemed 
 quickened into animation. The plain, too, was 
 transformed into something like beauty by the 
 magic influence of the light, and one forgot, with 
 the flush of morning upon it, that its surface was 
 bare and flowerless. The palms borrowed a new 
 glory. High in air, mounted upon their tall 
 slender stems, rose their feathery tops, fringed with 
 the morning's gold. And then behind us was 
 
334 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 Seville, its old walls and grand monuments looking 
 fresh and young in the morning beam. We forgot 
 for once the wearisome delays at the railway office. 
 These afforded us full time to enjoy the loveli- 
 ness of the morning, and to note the fine points 
 of the landscape ; and never had we felt more fully 
 the beauty of Seville and the softness of its skies 
 than now, when in the act of bidding it farewell. 
 
 At length the billets were all handed out, the 
 steam was slowly got up, the officials, gathered in a 
 knot on the platform, had consumed a reasonable 
 number of cigarettes, and exchanged a very great 
 amount of small talk, and all farther excuse for 
 waiting being impossible^ the train was put in 
 motion. The course of the railway to Cadiz lies 
 along the valley of the Guadalquivir. The general 
 character of that valley is bareness — a bare soil 
 beneath the most delicious of skies — yet here and 
 there are patches of intense beauty and of tropical 
 fertility. These are unspeakably welcome to the 
 tourist, gladdening his eye, freshening his heart, 
 and bringing with them memories of the paradise 
 that Andalusia once was, and pledges of the 
 paradise it will yet become, when the lamp of 
 Christianity shall be rekindled in it. 
 
 We soon crossed the Guadira, and came to a 
 little clump of cabins, and in five minutes after to 
 
From Seville to Jerez. 335 
 
 another and similar clump. These cabins reminded 
 us of what one sees in the worst parts of Ireland ; 
 they appeared to be constructed of the same 
 humble materials, timber and clay ; there was the 
 same air of squalor about them ; only here the soft 
 and balmy air rendered their discomforts matters 
 of much less consequence. One need scarce care 
 how open one's dwelling is where there are no 
 damps, no chilly winds, where winter's icy breath is 
 never felt, and where — if the land is without tree 
 or blossom — the skies are always in smiles. 
 
 These cabins give shelter to the cultivators of 
 the neighbouring fields, and this part of the valley 
 offers a specimen of what, for Spain, is a very 
 careful and skilful state of husbandry. The plough 
 had been here, and the rich furrows which it had 
 left in the dry powdery shining sail, seemed to 
 laugh as they opened to the sun. The sower, too, 
 had been here, and all kinds of garden vegetables 
 were growing profusely. But these were such 
 gardens as one might look for in the valley of 
 Egypt, where the onion, the garlic, and other 
 plants, drinking at the streams of Father Nile, rush 
 up with a rapidity like that of the prophet's gourd, 
 and a stature almost as lofty. Such were the 
 onions and cabbages that were growing in these 
 fields. They made one ashamed of the puny pro- 
 
336 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 ducts of one's garden at home. To see these goodly- 
 products — onions, which looked as if some dozen 
 or score of ours had been rolled into one ; carrots, 
 whose girth was like that of a young ash-tree ; and 
 cabbages, which rose on their stem and opened out 
 into an amplitude of leaf almost equal to that of a 
 banana — ^was to see a goodly sight, and to learn, in 
 a way one perhaps had not had opportunity of learn- 
 ing before, what marvels sun and soil can do. But 
 these exceptional tokens of Spain's fertility only 
 deepen one's regret that so little labour should be 
 bestowed where a reward so abundant waits upon 
 it. Cannot the peasant see what riches are laid up 
 beneath his feet ? Hungry and in rags, he treads a 
 soil whose bosom is a very storehouse of boundless 
 wealth. He has only to stir the earth with spade or 
 plough, and it will pour him out corn and oil and 
 wine till his barns burst and his cup runs over. It 
 is painful to think that thousands and thousands 
 are starving in this land, and yet exhaustless maga- 
 zines of food are within their reach. 
 
 The high cultivation of this particular spot 
 is quite out of the ordinary course, and is ac- 
 counted for by the fact that the fields we were 
 now passing are the gardens of Seville, and 
 that the vegetables grown upon them supply the 
 markets of the city. While touching on the subject 
 
From Seville to Jerez. 337 
 
 of gardening we may be allowed to say that Spain 
 ought to possess a better supply of delicious fruit 
 than any other country in Europe. It has all the 
 conditions necessary for its production. It has hill 
 and valley ; it has rock and meadow ; it has every 
 variety of climate, from the arctic to the tropic, for 
 even when the dog star burns snow crowns the 
 summit of the Sierra Nevada ; and when the winter 
 solstice holds the North in chains the flowers of 
 spring and summer clothe the plains of Valentia 
 and Granada. And yet there is scarcely any really 
 good or eatable fruit in Spain. The natives gather 
 and carry it to market before it is ripe. The grape 
 alone almost is permitted to come to its maturity. 
 The other kinds — the apple, the pear, the peach, 
 the pomegranate — are placed on the table in a 
 state in which they can scarcely be eaten unless 
 previously cooked. Italy and Piedmont, although 
 from five hundred to a thousand miles more to the 
 north, have a store of all that the tree and the field 
 produce, and in excellent condition. But in Spain 
 all this is lacking, and one wanders through a land 
 which poets have painted as " the gardens of Hes- 
 perus," to find in that garden no fruit, or fruit 
 which, like the apples of Sodom, turns to ashes in 
 the mouth. It is true all the while that some of 
 the choicest fruits which are to be seen on the 
 
 W 
 
338 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 tables of England are imported from Spain ; but 
 these are grown chiefly by English cultivators, who 
 bring the necessary skill and pains to the task of 
 rearing them, and are willing to give the delicate 
 manipulation which they require when ripened if 
 their flavour is to be preserved. These good things 
 the natives themselves do not taste. They are 
 reared for the foreigner, and one cannot but pity 
 the poor Spaniard, forbidden to enjoy what his own 
 sun and soil have produced ; but that pity is apt to 
 be blended by a sterner feeling when one reflects 
 that it is his own indolence and unskilfulness 
 mainly that shut him out from the blessings that 
 grow so plenteously around him, or would, were 
 he wiUing to cultivate his fields. 
 
 It must also be pleasing to the reader to learn, 
 as it was to the writer to see, that in this part of 
 the country English farming is beginning to make 
 its appearance. Ransome's steam ploughs, and 
 the accompanying agricultural machinery may here 
 be seen at work. " Most marvellous !" exclaims the 
 reader ; "how has this come about .?" This bold in- 
 novation — and only he who has seen Spain can 
 fully comprehend the amount of courage, as well 
 as of benevolence, which it required to adventure 
 on such a step, an innovation enough to make 
 the Cid himself rise from the dead — was made by a 
 
From Seville to Jerez. 339 
 
 former alcalde of the little town of Utrera, which 
 stands hard by. The name of this enterprising 
 gentleman is Senor D. Clemente Caudra y Gibaja. 
 He and his son have here quite a model farm, and 
 the Spaniards may come and see for themselves 
 what is in their soil, and what a little labour may 
 bring out of it. We trust they will learn how 
 much better it is to wield the spade than the sword, 
 to cultivate the earth than to shed the blood of 
 man, and how much more likely they are to enrich 
 themselves by new modes of farming than by 
 spending their days in inventing new constitutions. 
 These, to us, seem self-evident truths ; one is 
 almost ashamed to put them on paper ; but, look- 
 ing at the course which the nations of Europe have 
 pursued for centuries, and looking at the millions 
 of men at this hour enrolled in the armies of the 
 Continent, and looking, too, at the honours and 
 other more substantial rewards which are allotted 
 to the heroes of the sword, one is forced to the 
 conclusion that these are yet undiscovered truths 
 to the bulk of mankind, and that the nations 
 generally hold it as an axiom that the earth is 
 more fertile when watered by blood than when 
 watered by the dews, and that the harvest of glory 
 is a more enriching one than the harvest of grain. 
 A great moral revolution is needed before Italy 
 
 w 2 
 
340 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 and Spain can become again cultivated countries. 
 In short, the Gospel must open the way for the 
 plough. This is the order of the world's restora- 
 tion as set forth in the old Psalm — " God be mer- 
 ciful unto us, and bless us, and cause His face to 
 shine upon us. That Thy way may be known 
 upon earth. Thy saving health among all nations." 
 And when the night shall pass away from the 
 soul of man, the earth shall cast off the curse 
 of barrenness — " Then shall the earth yield her in- 
 crease : and God, even our own God, shall bless 
 us." 
 
 This valley seems made for peace. All things 
 speak of it, and seem to woo it, from the serene 
 sky overhead to the palm and the budding flower 
 below. Yet there is a secret fire in the blood 
 of its people which teaches them to find delight 
 in cruel and bloody sports. Seville is the birth- 
 place of the bull -fight. In this valley, and 
 near by the place where we now are, are reared 
 those fierce bulls which have been so renowned in 
 the ring, and which, if the dread of the piccador, 
 are the favourites of the spectators. Bashan was 
 of old famous for its kine. The bulls fed in its 
 rich pastures were noted for strength and ferocity. 
 Scarcely inferior to them are the bulls bred on the 
 banks of the Guadalquivir — a proof, among others. 
 
From Seville to Jerez. 341 
 
 of the richness of its pastures. It is, too, worthy 
 of note, how much hero-worship in Spain runs in 
 the direction of the bull-ring. The successful pic- 
 cador is a great public character, and divides the 
 admiration of the populace with the priest and the 
 statesman, and, as happens to other persons of 
 eminence, his photograph is displayed in all public 
 places. And to do him justice, his profession de- 
 mands some valuable qualities. Without calmness, 
 self-possession, and dexterity, he would make but 
 a poor figure in the arena, and might come off 
 only second best in its combats. The sport is 
 brutal and brutalising ; but till some great moral 
 change pass over Spain, men will be found ready 
 to engage these fierce bulls, and crowds will throng 
 to the sport, and reward with their plaudits the 
 last dexterous thrust, the lightning-like touch on 
 the spinal cord, which lays the animal bellowing, 
 plunging, foaming — an embodied tempest, in short 
 — at the feet of the matador, still for ever. 
 
 But we go on our way. The country does not 
 improve as we advance. We leave behind us the 
 garden-grounds of the city, with their gigantic 
 onions and cabbages, one of which were dinner 
 enough for a Goliath of Gath. We leave behind 
 us, too, that sweet little oasis where the steam 
 plough is beginning to bring back the lost paradise 
 
342 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 of Andalusia, and make the beauty of Hesperla no 
 longer a memory only, and we come out again 
 upon the bare valley, with its covering of white 
 earth. There is nothing to cheer us but the sky, 
 but it is bright as ever. Occasionally along the 
 course of the railway come bits of hedge formed 
 of the cactus, with its club-like leaves and its 
 strong barbs. And, perched behind these bits of 
 hedge, is seen at times a gipsy encampment. 
 Around it is a littering of straw, rags, and chips 
 of willow, with half-naked children playing about ; 
 and, as the train passes, one may see a soft face 
 with dark Oriental eyes peering out between the 
 folds of the canvas. Alas, that from eyes which 
 bespeak a soul capable of being awakened to 
 pure and lofty emotion, should be hid the light 
 of truth ! Poor wanderers, for whom no man 
 cares — outcasts, even in Spain — it is yours to 
 dwell in every land, but to find a home in none ! 
 The Bible will yet enter your tent ; those bright 
 eyes will kindle into yet greater brightness ; and a 
 morning, clearer even than that of your own East, 
 will break upon you. Then your weary feet shall 
 find rest. Then the Western nations will learn to 
 prize and to profit by those treasures of intellectual 
 beauty and Oriental ideality which you have carried 
 with you, unheeded and despised, round the world. 
 
From Seville to Jerez. 343 
 
 The gipsies in Spain are supposed to amount 
 to 40,000. They make their HveHhood by sell- 
 ing sand, manufacturing baskets, and clipping 
 and doctoring mules. To these arts they add 
 the less reputable ones of begging, thieving, and 
 fortune-telling. Any one who will cross their palm 
 with even the smallest coin will forthwith learn 
 what great things await him in the future. This 
 skill in palmistry is taken advantage of by many 
 who nevertheless affect to disbelieve it. The 
 gitanos get drunk and quarrel ; they hatch rob- 
 beries and spill blood ; and generally are at war 
 with a world which is at war with them. 
 
 Their women, if not beautiful, are pretty. Their 
 faces, though dark, are pleasing ; their figures are 
 handsome, their hands small, and their eyes burn 
 with the fire of the East. In dress they show a 
 preference for gaudy colours. They wear a red 
 silk handkerchief on their head, tied under the 
 chin ; their waist is enveloped in a yellow boddice, 
 slashed with velvet, and sleeves which leave their 
 arms bare to the elbow. A red flannel petticoat, 
 descending but to mid-calf, and bare feet, complete 
 their tout ensemble. The men have something of 
 a scowl upon their faces ; but the looks of the 
 women are more kindly. 
 
 Of the ride to Jerez not much can be said. It 
 
344 -^^ YBREAK IN SpAIN. 
 
 presents a monotony of bareness. Thickly strewn 
 throughout the entire region are the monuments of 
 a bygone age, which strive to maintain a feeble 
 record of the glory of the past amid the ever 
 accumulating wrecks of the present. We halt occa- 
 sionally in the neighbourhood of a faded town. 
 These places look so forlorn that one wonders 
 whether they contain any inhabitants ; yet, on con- 
 sulting the guide-book, the traveller learns that 
 they have had a past of opulence and distinction. 
 Some of them have given martyrs to the stake, 
 emperors to the state, and grammarians, poets, and 
 historians to literature. In the town just passed, 
 Utrera, there is a tomb to Ponce de Leon. Not 
 far from hence is the birthplace of three emperors, 
 Trajan, Adrian, and Theodosius ; and the faded 
 burg, on the height above us, Lebrija, was the na- 
 tive place of one of the restorers of letters in Spain, 
 Parana del Ojo, or Nebritsensis. Thriving and gay 
 were those cities then, and learned geographers were 
 careful to note their place on their maps. What 
 are they now } Places one is glad to hurry past. 
 The very sight of them oppresses one. Sounds of 
 life from within there are none. All is silent, as if 
 the inhabitants were dead or asleep. The passer- 
 by sees simply a collection of brown roofs, clus- 
 tering round an edifice taller and bulkier than 
 
From Seville to Jerez. 345 
 
 the others — the cathedral, to wit ; for even in the 
 mud-built village the portly cathedral is never 
 wanting. Up to their very gates comes the desert 
 — not tree or shrub beautifies their environs. 
 Perchance a herd of swine is scouring the common 
 around them in the desperate hope of finding some- 
 thing to fill their lank forms, and impart to them 
 a little more rotundity of figure. A few loiterers 
 may be seen at their gates. Muffled up to the 
 eyes in black cloaks, they look as much the 
 things of a bygone age as their buildings. These 
 men are not doing anything, nor are they going 
 anywhere. Having nothing to detain them in- 
 doors, they have come out to sun themselves in 
 the air and look up into the sky. 
 
 Soon we reach Jerez de la Frontera. The en- 
 virons of this renowned wine-producing town are 
 as tame as need be — they are simply an extensive 
 flat, dotted over with white one-storey houses, and 
 planted out with vines, which, being cut down and 
 kept low, have but little appearance ; and the ab- 
 sence of enclosures adds still farther to the un- 
 cared-for look of the region. Jerez itself, situated 
 on an eminence, with its Moorish walls, its alcazar, 
 and cathedral, and convent-towers, is not unpic- 
 turesque. Its streets are clean and spacious, and 
 its general air is that of a half-Spanish, half- 
 
34^ Da ybreak in Spain. 
 
 English town. This it owes to the foreign element 
 in its population — its large and wealthy wine- 
 growers being mostly Scotch or French. Its 
 central square, or Plaza de la Reyna, has a 
 thoroughly Oriental look. It is a spacious quad- 
 rangle of tall white houses, with a row of stately 
 palms on each of its four sides. It appeared to 
 be market-day when we visited it, and a great 
 concourse was gathered in the Plaza, gossiping 
 and trafficking beneath the palm-trees. We had 
 nowhere seen finer or portlier figures, and all attired 
 in the ancient costume of Spain. Exceedingly 
 picturesque is that costume ; and with what a grace 
 is it worn ! Even the beggar wears his rags " as 
 Caesar wore his gown," much more the Spanish 
 gentleman his capa ; and his bearing is all the 
 more dignified that it is not his dress, but himself, 
 of which he is proud. 
 
 We rode a few miles into the country, and 
 visited one of the merchant-princes of Jerez — Mr. 
 Gordon, the representative of an Aberdeenshire 
 family which settled here a century ago. It was 
 vintage time, and his people were busy in the vine- 
 yards. At intervals, along the fields, were laid 
 down large white cloths, and on these were piled 
 in heaps the luscious amber-coloured grapes as 
 they were gathered — a sight for a painter. The 
 
LA CARTUJA DE JEREZ. 
 
From Seville to Jerez. 347 
 
 quality of the wine is improved by the grape being 
 allowed to lie in the sun a couple of days or so 
 before being put into the wine-press. All around 
 the land bore signs of most exuberant fertility. 
 Every garden-plant was enormous, every fruit-tree 
 was laden, and the hedges of cactus or prickly 
 pear that lined the road showed stems like those of 
 forest-trees, and attained a stature nearly as lofty. 
 In the far-off East stood up the great mountains 
 of Ronda, with snow upon their crests. By-and-by 
 evening came, and then the glow of the sky and 
 the tints of the landscape were those of Syria. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 CADIZ AND ITS PROTESTANT CHURCH. 
 
 The Ancient Tarshish — Where Situated — Indications of the Bible — 
 Tarshish lay Westward of Palestine — A Mediterranean Country 
 — Tarshish a Generic Name for the South of Spain — Proof 
 from Classic Writers— Cadiz — Its Site — Its Beauty — Its Anti- 
 quity — Its Early Commercial Eminence — Its Vicissitudes — The 
 Gospel — Cathedrals and Priests — Its Protestant Chapel — Pro- 
 grass of Evangelisation. 
 
 There is a mysterious region which is ever and 
 anon cropping up in Old Testament story. The 
 glimpses we obtain of it are dim and unsatisfac- 
 tory; but, at the same time, such as to make us 
 wish to know more of it. The region in question 
 passes under the name of Tarshish. Where did it 
 lie, and what was its character .? There is no one 
 passage in the Old Testament which, by itself, 
 enables us to answer these questions ; we must put 
 together all the notices of it extant, and compare 
 their meaning, before we can speak with certainty 
 regarding it. Two things lie on the surface ; it is 
 a distant country as respects Palestine, and it is a 
 rich country. We see vessels departing to it, but 
 it is not till many months, and sometimes years, 
 that they return. Moreover, the vessels that trade 
 
Cadiz and its Protestant Church, 349 
 
 with this region are noted for their size and 
 strength. Destined for a long voyage, and built 
 to encounter heavy seas, they are known as the 
 "ships of Tarshish," just as at this day we speak of 
 an "East Indiaman," or a " trans- Atlantic steamer." 
 The products with which they return freighted 
 sufficiently attest the wealth of the country from 
 which they come. Gold and silver are among 
 the articles which they bring back, and in such 
 abundance that the vessel, as it struggles up to 
 the port of Joppa, is seen to be laden down to 
 the water's edge. 
 
 Let us hastily put together the principal notices 
 of this country in the pages of the Bible, in order 
 to see whither and to what region their combined 
 light may conduct us. In Genesis x. the sons of 
 Japheth are seen going forth to people the "isles of 
 the Gentiles." This term always signifies in Scrip- 
 tural geography the countries lying on the coast of 
 the Mediterranean. But Tarshish, in the passage 
 before us, is comprehended in the "isles of the 
 Gentiles," and, along with Greece and Italy, is 
 spoken of as having been peopled by the sons of 
 Japheth. This so far determines its position ; it 
 undoubtedly lay westward of Palestine, and on the 
 coast of the Mediterranean. With this, the earliest 
 indication of its position, all subsequent notices of 
 
350 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 it in the inspired pages are in perfect agreement. 
 In the Psalms it is classed with the "isles," that 
 is, the Mediterranean or Occidental countries. Its 
 great commercial ally was Tyre, whose trade lay in 
 the Mediterranean. The sailors who manned the 
 ships of Tarshish were Phoenicians, as were also 
 the merchants who owned the trade carried on with 
 it. The port of departure was Joppa, which we 
 cannot by any effort reconcile with the idea that 
 Tarshish was situated in the East ; for, in that case, 
 a ship setting sail from Joppa would have to cir- 
 cumnavigate Africa before reaching its destination. 
 Ezion-geber in the Red Sea would, undoubtedly, 
 have been selected as the port of departure, had 
 Tarshish lain in the East. When Jonah was bidden 
 go eastward to Nineveh, he went down to Joppa, 
 with intent to flee, of course, in the opposite direc- 
 tion, westward, to Tarshish. The " ships of Tar- 
 shish" were liable to be "broken" by the East 
 wind. This wind, now termed a "Levanter," is still 
 formidable to the navigator in the western regions 
 of the Mediterranean. The seventy-second Psalm 
 pictures a glorious procession of converted nations, 
 one from the West, the other from the East, meet- 
 ing before the throne of the Messiah. In that pro- 
 phecy "Tarshish and the isles" are put for the 
 West, as " Sheba and Seba" are for the East. In 
 
Cadiz and its Protestant Church. 351 
 
 short — for it were tedious here to go more minutely 
 into the question — all the notices of Tarshish, 
 whether in sacred or profane history, point with one 
 consent to the extreme west of the Mediterranean — 
 in other words, to Spain — as the country intended. 
 There is but one passage (2 Chronicles xx. 36) 
 which occasions the least difficulty, and that is a 
 difficulty noways insurmountable. 
 
 When Tarshish is spoken of as a country, 
 Andalusia, or the south of Spain, undoubtedly is 
 meant. When it is spoken of as a city or port, the 
 reference is to Carteia on the bay of Gibraltar, or 
 Cadiz on the Atlantic coast, one or both. The 
 Phoenicians had a colony in the western part of 
 the Mediterranean. Their chief city was Tartessus, 
 and their power extended probably over all those 
 parts, on both the European and African shores. 
 The freights which the ships of Tarshish brought 
 back strongly corroborate this. Beyond all other 
 countries known to the ancients, Spain abounded in 
 the precious metals, and these were the chief attrac- 
 tions to the Oriental merchants. " Spain," says 
 Heeren, "was once the richest land in the world for 
 silver ; gold was found there in great abundance, 
 also the baser metals. The silver mines were in 
 those parts which the Phoenicians comprised under 
 the general name of Tartessus or Tarshish. The 
 
352 Da ybreak in Spain, 
 
 immeasurable affluence of the precious metals, 
 which on their first arrival they found here, so 
 astounded them, and the sight thereof so wrought 
 on the imagination of the people, that fact called 
 fable to its aid, and the story gained currency that 
 the earliest Phoenician colonists not only filled their 
 ships with gold, but made of the satne metal their 
 various implements, anchors not excepted." These 
 are the precise articles which form the list given 
 us by Ezekiel ( chap, xxvii. 12) of the products of 
 Tarshish, " all riches, silver, iron, tin, and lead." 
 
 It is interesting to notice that both Pliny and 
 Strabo place these mines of silver and gold in that 
 very region of Spain which is still famed for its 
 mineral riches. The oldest mines, according to these 
 authorities, were in a mountain where the Baetis 
 (the Guadalquivir) rises, and which, from the exu- 
 berance of its yield, was called the " silver moun- 
 tain." The richest mining district in all Spain at 
 this day lies on the Guadalquivir, and not far from 
 one of the sources of that river. The chief town, 
 Linares, contains a population of 18,000, mostly 
 miners; and just two months ago a "jewel," of 
 greater price than all the mines of Spain could 
 buy, was for the first time offered to its inhabitants. 
 Mr. Benoliel, of the United Presbyterian Church, 
 Scotland, visited the town, and preached in the 
 
Cadiz and its Protestant Church. 353 
 
 theatre to an audience of 600 Spaniards who 
 "heard him gladly." "In the wilderness shall 
 waters break out, and streams in the desert ; and 
 the parched ground shall become a pool, and the 
 thirsty land springs of water ; in the habitation of 
 dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds 
 and rushes." 
 
 This puts the country we are traversing in a 
 new and very interesting light. A ray falls upon 
 it from the past, connecting it with that more than 
 classic shore where the world's true civilisation had 
 its birth. And there comes, too, a light from the 
 future, which promises to Spain a more glorious 
 day than any it has yet seen. Inspired bards have 
 mentioned its name in connection with the coming 
 scenes of the world's redemption ; and in the grand 
 procession of nations who are seen, as we have said, 
 in the latter day, bringing their gifts and proffering 
 their homage to the " King of Sion," the " kings of 
 Tarshish " are beheld marching in the van. Keep- 
 ing this in view, let us lead the reader in fancy, as 
 ourselves in fact, round the shore of this interesting 
 land — interesting for what it was, yet more interest- 
 ing for what it is to be. 
 
 We start from Cadiz, which competes with Carteia 
 for the honour of being the representative of the 
 ancient Tarshish, when that term is restricted to a 
 
 X 
 
354 Daybreak IN Spain. 
 
 single city. At the mouth of the Guadalete, on 
 the western shore, looking out on the great billows 
 of the Atlantic, stands Cadiz. Its site is not un- 
 like that of Venice. A curved neck of sand, laid 
 down on rock, runs out into the ocean, and broad- 
 ening, ham like, at the extremity, gives standing 
 room to this ancient Phoenician-built town. The 
 houses cover the entire site, leaving only a narrow 
 margin, which runs all round ; and being strongly 
 fenced by stone bulwarks against the billows, 
 and planted with palm-trees, and adorned with 
 fountains, forms a delightful and fashionable pro- 
 menade. When the sea-breeze cools the air, and 
 the moon's silver falls upon palm-tree and city-roof, 
 and ocean's murmur is low and soft, crowds of 
 gaditanas in their black lace mantillas, and cabal- 
 leros in their graceful capas, throng the alameda. 
 During the heat of day the inhabitants mostly 
 remain within doors. 
 
 Cadiz is perhaps the oldest city in Europe. It 
 was founded by Hercules, tradition says, eleven 
 hundred years before the Christian era. "Then," 
 says the reader, " it looks grey and faded 1 — it has 
 fallen into its * sear and yellow leaf.?'" Quite the 
 reverse. Cadiz carries its age exceedingly well ; in 
 fact, it is the youngest-looking city in all Europe. 
 Wherein lies the secret of its perpetual youth } 
 
Cadiz and its Protestant Church. 355 
 
 It is soon told. Every house in Cadiz is white- 
 washed every year. The means are simple, but 
 the result is striking. It looks a mount of snow 
 rising out of the blue sea. In fact, we never saw 
 anything so gay and pretty. Scenery it has none ; 
 architectural grandeur it has none ; it has only 
 the beauty of extreme whiteness, set off by green 
 window-shutters and a fringe of palm-trees. The 
 azure main which surrounds it forms the vast, 
 limitless canvas on which this dazzling speck of 
 picture is put down. It is bright and shining as 
 a silver dish — to use the happy phrase of the 
 natives, who call it a " taza de plata." 
 
 Nor is its cleanliness all on the outside. The 
 streets are well paved and carefully swept. In these 
 respects Cadiz may compare with, if it does not 
 excel, most of our English towns. The excellent 
 sewerage of the circumambient sea may perhaps 
 have something to do with this (for Spain) unusual 
 amenity and cleanliness. 
 
 After Tyre, Cadiz was the great entrepot of 
 the ancient world. It was specially the link be- 
 twixt Phoenicia and Britain. Had we stood on 
 these ramparts three thousand years ago, with look 
 directed seaward, we should have seen many a 
 prow pointed in the direction of Cadiz. Ascending 
 from the south, and gleaming in the bright sun, 
 
 X 2 
 
356 Da ybreak in Spain. 
 
 would have been the silken sails of Tyre ; while 
 rounding Cape St. Vincent, on the north, would 
 have appeared the adventurous craft which came 
 laden with the tin of Cornwall and the amber of 
 the Baltic. Here at this port were their cargoes 
 discharged, and, being transferred to Tyrian bot- 
 toms, were borne off through the pillars of Her- 
 cules to the markets of the East. When Tyre fell 
 Cadiz felt the blow. With the rise of Rome its 
 prosperity returned. A second time it declined, 
 when Constantinople was built and the ships of 
 the East crowded to the Bosphorus. The dis- 
 covery of America brought back more than the 
 early prosperity of Cadiz. Again the white sails 
 enlivened its seas, and the riches of Peru filled its 
 warehouses ; but with the loss of the trans- Atlantic 
 colonies of Spain, Cadiz sank a third time, and now 
 its population of seventy thousand is barely half 
 of what it was in the days of its opulence. 
 
 Cadiz begins to be enriched by better wares 
 than any that were carried thither in the olden 
 time from the mines of Cornwall or the shores of 
 the Baltic. It was one of the main entrance-gates, 
 in the evil days preceding the Revolution, of the 
 Bible into Spain ; and the blessing it was instru- 
 mental in conveying to others has come back upon 
 itself. There are now two Protestant congregations 
 
Cadiz AND ITS Protestant Church. 357- 
 
 in it — a Spanish and an English one ; the first under 
 the care of a native convert, the second served by 
 a minister from Scotland. If report speaks true, 
 there is need of some counteracting element in this 
 community. It is made up of divers nationalities, 
 and has but one thing in common — intense devotion 
 to mammon and pleasure. Yet is Cadiz open to 
 better influences : there is a salt of liberty, if not 
 of Christianity, in it. It was the first town to 
 "pronounce" in the Revolution of 1868; and we 
 feel certain that it will rally strongly, in due time, 
 to the flag of a truer liberty, without which that 
 which went before will but little avail. The popu- 
 lation has slipped from the authority of the priests, 
 and the priests know it. We gave a passing look 
 into several of the cathedrals while morning service 
 was going on ; and, judging from what we saw, we 
 should say that the Cadiz priests are striving, 
 by showily-painted churches, lively music, and 
 bizarre dresses, to lure back the runaways into their 
 fold. Nowhere have we seen such furious devotion. 
 The drowsiness that afflicts the bishops-celebrant 
 at Rome is unknown in Cadiz. The congregations 
 did not average over a dozen each, and yet the 
 priests were going through their attitudinisings as if 
 they were performing before as many thousands. 
 They would cross themselves and bow, they would 
 
358 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 fall on their knees, and again start to their feet, 
 with a spasmodic celerity which made us tremble 
 for the health of the good men. They flung 
 their censers to the roof with so wild a jerk, 
 that we thought the chains would have snapped ; 
 and through the cloud of smoke, in which they 
 enveloped themselves and the altar, they sent at 
 times such a startling burst of music, that not only 
 did it waken the sleeping echoes of the empty 
 building, but, escaping at the door, it struck sharply 
 on the ears of the passers-by in the street. To 
 nothing could we compare the scene — the com- 
 parison is most irreverent, doubtless, and ought not 
 to have occurred to us — but to what we have seen 
 at a fair, where a dozen -showmen were striving, 
 by dint of drum, and trumpet, and fiddle, each 
 to drown the other, and draw the crowd all his 
 own way. 
 
 Will the reader accompany us to a different 
 scene 1 It is the Spanish Protestant Chapel, which 
 — although a week-day evening — is filled with a 
 most attentive congregation, mostly men. The 
 preacher is an erect, spare man, of about thirty, with 
 an air of intellect and energy, and without symbol 
 in his church, or sacerdotal vestment on his person. 
 We give his antecedents in a few words. One day, in 
 the year 1854, a young Spaniard happened to pass 
 
Cadiz and its Protestant Church. 359 
 
 the church-door of the Rev. D. Sutherland, the 
 Scotch minister of Gibraltar. The bell was ringing 
 for worship, and the Spaniard inquired what it 
 meant. He was told that it was the Protestant 
 service, and his curiosity made him desirous of 
 witnessing the religious rites of a class of persons 
 who, he had been told, if they worshipped anything, 
 worshipped the devil. He entered, and, to his 
 surprise and partial disappointment, he could see 
 neither sign, nor ceremony, nor object of worship, 
 save a grave gentleman, earnestly addressing those 
 assembled, with a book open before him. The 
 discourse was in English, and the young Spaniard, 
 to whom the language was unknown, could make 
 nothing of it; but the. sight of the open book 
 struck him much. He inquired what book it was, 
 and was told that it was the Bible. He had heard 
 of the Bible before, but till this moment he had never 
 seen it. He could not rest till he had obtained a 
 copy ; he took it home with him, read it, and em- 
 braced the truth. He showed it to his father and 
 family, and the result was the conversion of the 
 whole household. The young man, up till this 
 time, had been studying for the Spanish bar ; but, 
 to use his own words when narrating the circum- 
 stance to ourselves, he now renounced the study of 
 the law of Spain for the study of the law of heaven. 
 
360 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 He was taken under careful instruction by the Rev. 
 Mr. Sutherland, and in due time was qualified for 
 doing what he greatly longed to do — proclaim the 
 truth to others. This was the young man whom 
 we found that evening occupying the pulpit of the 
 Protestant Church at Cadiz. 
 
 This congregation was no exception to the 
 intense earnestness which pervades all the young 
 Spanish congregations we have seen. From 
 beginning to end they hung on the lips of Senor 
 Hernandez. Traders and artisans composed the 
 bulk of the audience. On the Sabbath previous, 
 three cur^s of the Romish Church were among 
 the hearers of Senor Hernandez, as was also the 
 Countess Rio de Molino. At the close of the 
 service the countess came up to the preacher, and 
 begged to be permitted to buy a Bible. Senor 
 Hernandez had not a copy beside him, but promised 
 to procure one, which her ladyship said she would 
 receive from him next Sabbath. 
 
 Senor Hernandez brought out his congrega- 
 tional roll-book, and showed it to us. The reader 
 is curious to know how many names it contained. 
 He began his ministry in Cadiz in the middle of 
 July, 1869, that is, just three months before our 
 visit, and his roll-book showed a list of 100 names. 
 But no name had he inscribed on that roll till first 
 
Cadiz and its Protestant Church. 361 
 
 he had examined the person who bore it, and 
 arrived at the conclusion that, in the judgment of 
 charity, he or she had undergone a saving change 
 of character. Three times the number had soHcited 
 enrolment, but he had accepted of those only, 
 who, he had ground to believe, would abide stead- 
 fastly in the profession of the faith. On the 
 evening of our attendance at the chapel, the wife 
 of the secretary of the prefect, and the chief 
 magistrate of Cadiz, the alcalde, were in the con- 
 gregation. The presence of the latter struck us 
 the more, from our recollecting a fact told us on 
 the eve of our departure for Spain. A friend 
 of the writer's, the Rev. William Tasker, of 
 Edinburgh, having, some dozen years ago been 
 stationed for a few months on the Rock of Gib- 
 raltar, paid a visit to Cadiz. On the day of his 
 arrival he gave away one or two copies of the 
 Bible. He was roused from sleep at midnight by 
 the alcalde and police thundering at his bedroom 
 door. When they had got admittance, they clamor- 
 ously accused him of violating the laws of Spain, 
 and demanded that he should quit the city that 
 very night. He sailed in the steamer that left for 
 the Rock at six o'clock in the morning. It did 
 strike us, as a sign of the times, that, not indeed 
 the same man, but the same functionary, who had 
 
362 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 driven out our friend in such hot haste, was pre- 
 sent that evening in the Protestant congregation, 
 and hstening to the preaching of the Word of 
 God. 
 
 A hundred converted men in a city Hke Cadiz ! 
 What a power ! And these but the first fruits — 
 the creation of three short months. "Who are these 
 that fly as a cloud, and as doves to their windows ?" 
 Already do we begin to see the head of the 
 advancing processions, which, coming from diffe- 
 rent quarters, are to lay their offerings at the feet 
 of that Great King, whose sceptre both hemi- 
 spheres shall obey. "The kings of Tarshish, and 
 of the isles, shall bring presents : the kings of 
 Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings 
 shall fall down before Him : all nations shall serve 
 Him." 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 FROM CADIZ TO GIBRALTAR. 
 
 Embarcation — Cadiz from the Bay — Coast of Spain Southward — 
 Cape Trafalgar— The Battle— Africa— Tarifa— The Straits— A 
 Levanter — Algeciras — Scenery of the Bay — Walk round the 
 Bay — The Palmones and Guadaranque — Ruins of Tartessus or 
 Carteia — Spanish Lines — British Lines — The Rock — A War- 
 rior in Steel — Moral Uses of the Rock as a British Possession. 
 
 The steamer in which we left Cadiz lay an- 
 chored in the middle of the bay. When we got on 
 board — which we did with some difficulty, for our 
 skiff had to tack against a head wind, and as mis- 
 fortunes never come single, we ran foul of other 
 craft, and were a whole hour on the voyage — we saw 
 this, the oldest of European cities, to more advan- 
 tage than when on shore. It was white and glis- 
 tening, like a celestial city. It had, too, innumer- 
 able turrets atop, for every house has its observa- 
 tory ; and to this array of pinnacles the cathedrals 
 and churches added their yet more imposing 
 towers, giving a grand appearance indeed to the 
 little town. We steamed slowly out of the bay, 
 which is more like a vast lake than a harbour, being 
 about twenty miles in circumference ; we rounded 
 
364 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 the tall snow-white lighthouse, which stands on the 
 extremity of a reef of rocks, which runs out some 
 way into the ocean, and once saved Cadiz from 
 destruction. The great earthquake which swallowed 
 up nearly the whole of Lisbon in 1755 sent a huge 
 wave along the coast, which would without remedy 
 have engulfed Cadiz, and left its site, like that of 
 her renowned sister Tyre, a place for fishermen to 
 spread their nets upon, had not this reef broken 
 the force, and changed the direction of the mighty 
 billow. Rolling away into, the Atlantic, and 
 spending its force there, it left the little Cadiz 
 undisturbed on the site on which Hercules — i.e. 
 the Phoenicians, the real Hercules — had placed it 
 twenty-eight centuries before. 
 
 All sail set, we bore away to the south. The 
 snow-white Cadiz sunk into the blue wave. The 
 coast of Spain kept in sight on the larboard, but 
 fell back, and swept on in a great crescent, which 
 at its southern extremity displayed a lofty-peaked 
 mountain, which stood up like a great horn. It 
 was bare, scalpy-looking, noways picturesque, but 
 prominent, and grew bigger and bluffer as we 
 neared it — and now we could see that it bore a 
 tower atop. We inquired its name. The answer 
 made our pulse beat quicker, as what British pulse 
 would it not } TRAFALGAR ! So, then, we were 
 
From Cadiz to Gibraltar. 365 
 
 gazing on the scene of Nelson's crowning victory. 
 There has been no naval engagement since the 
 destruction of the Armada which has so greatly 
 influenced the destinies of Europe, and, by conse- 
 quence, of the world, as the battle fought at the 
 foot of this bluff headland. Had Napoleon won, 
 despotism would have got a half century's lease of 
 power; for the way would have been opened for the 
 realisation of those projects of universal empire 
 which he was then meditating. The issue, how- 
 ever, made Britain mistress of the seas, and de- 
 termined that, probably before the century in which 
 "Trafalgar" was fought shall have run out, freedom 
 of conscience will be the law of the world. Great 
 Britain is quite as much mistress of the seas to-day 
 as she was on the morrow after " Trafalgar ;" nor 
 are there any symptoms at this hour of her losing 
 her naval supremacy. Britain, being mistress of 
 the seas, is mistress of two-thirds of the globe 
 we live on. And when we throw in the noways 
 contemptible space of dry land of which she is 
 also mistress, we find that the portion of the world 
 covered by her flag is by much the larger half of 
 the whole. And let us think what that flag is be- 
 coming in the eyes of all the nations of the earth. 
 It is the symbol of a power which appears to them 
 marvellous, united to a justice and an honour 
 
366 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 which appear even more marvellous. Not a tribe 
 is there on the earth that would not mourn were 
 Britain to fall, feeling that the shield of a mighty 
 protectress had been withdrawn. As we sailed 
 over the spot where the men who fought on the 
 2 1 St of October, 1805, shed their blood, we felt that 
 this great victory had not been over-estimated ; 
 that it was one of the turning points of history, 
 and a stride towards that grand emancipation for 
 which the world groans. 
 
 A breeze sprang up off Cape Trafalgar. The 
 waves danced and played around the foot of the 
 headland where the great battle had been fought. 
 The gale kept freshening, and now the main was 
 freckled all over to the horizon with white crests. 
 We reefed all sail. By-and-by a grand sight 
 showed itself Old Africa rose above the waters. 
 Its dark mountains came in a crowd, tumultuous 
 and grand, but a dimness shaded its shore. As we 
 ploughed our way to the south, along the stony 
 flanks of Trafalgar, we could, by-and-by, distinctly 
 make out, glimmering on its coast, the white dwel- 
 lings of Tangiers. Many memories did the sight 
 of that land call up ; the "wonders" done of old 
 ** in the field of Zoan," the Pharaohs that once ruled 
 in " Ham's land," the destinies that still await it, 
 and the fate of that intrepid traveller — pioneer of 
 
From Cadiz to Gibraltar. 367 
 
 its liberation from the worst of all tyrants, sheer 
 brutish ignorance — who five years ago passed 
 within its mysterious confines, and has not re- 
 turned since. Sleeps he in the grave ? or lives 
 he still, heroically going on his way, in hunger 
 and in thirst, under burning suns and freezing 
 cold, amid savage beasts, and yet more savage 
 men ? 
 
 We were now near Tarifa, which nestles quite 
 at the mouth of the Straits, amid the spurs of the 
 great mountains which form the south-western 
 extremity of Europe. This little town is equally 
 famous in the history of Roman conquest and of 
 Moorish adventure ; for sitting, as it does, at one of 
 the main entrances of Spain — the Calais of the 
 Iberian peninsula — its possession has been the 
 object of many a bloody contest. It is still 
 renowned for the bravery of its men and the 
 delicious quality of its oranges ; though where 
 there is soil to produce the latter we could not 
 imagine, for nothing met the eye around it save 
 great rocks, which ran out in a bristling reef into 
 the sea, with the billows breaking over them in 
 cataracts of foam, and giving augury of what we 
 might look for when we should open the Straits of 
 Gibraltar, and face the Levanter, which was now 
 blowing. 
 
368 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 In a few minutes we bore into the Straits, and 
 were fairly under weigh on the 
 
 " Blue sea's waves, 
 Where Calpe looks on Afric." 
 
 Now the scene opened in all its grandeur. On the 
 right rose the giant forms of " Mauritania's moun- 
 tains," their tops buried in the haze which the 
 Levanter brought with it. On the left, running on 
 in a lofty wall of alternate headland and ravine, 
 embosoming plantations of the cork tree, was Eu- 
 rope. The space between the two continents was 
 filled with the great seas which the Levanter, as it 
 met the current, which always sets in here from the 
 Atlantic, heaped up and rolled before it. We 
 breasted the billows, we rolled down into the 
 trough ; but no harm befell us. Only we had a 
 taste of that " east wind " which the " ships of 
 Tarshish " sometimes encountered on their return 
 voyage, and from which they did not always 
 escape so scathless as we now did. We passed 
 numerous craft — for we were now on that great 
 highway along which is borne the world's com- 
 merce — all bearing westward under bare poles. 
 When we were about half way up the Straits, a 
 great mountain, one of the giants of the earth, 
 stood forward into the ocean from the European 
 shore. We could not possibly mistake it; we 
 
From Cadiz to Gibraltar. 369 
 
 knew that the flag of England floated on its lofty 
 summit — the symbol of a greater power than the 
 fabled Hercules, with whose exploits tradition had 
 filled this region, and in whose honour it had 
 appropriated this very " Rock," for we were now 
 gazing on one of the pillars of Hercules. After 
 another hour and a halfs steaming we hove 
 round, and entering the quiet bay at the foot of 
 the great mountain, we cast anchor off the little 
 town of Algeciras. 
 
 The anchor was hardly down when there 
 gathered round the steamer quite a shoal of small 
 craft, rowed by savage-looking men, gesticulating 
 and shouting wildly for " fares." We should have 
 run some risk of being torn in pieces, or tumbled 
 into the surf, which broke in huge ground-swells on 
 the shore, had not accident given the Spanish cap- 
 tain an interest in our safe landing. This man had 
 been entrusted at Cadiz with despatches *' On Her 
 Majesty's Service," addressed to the admiral com- 
 manding on the station of Gibraltar ; but, as he 
 was to sail next morning for Algeria without 
 touching at the "Rock," he begged us, the only 
 Englishmen on board, to do him the favour of 
 conveying the despatches to Gibraltar. This, of 
 course, we willingly undertook to do, and accord- 
 ingly he took care to commit us to the least savage 
 
 Y 
 
370 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 of the crowd and the most seaworthy of the boats 
 which pressed round the steamer, and soon there- 
 after we were safely deposited on the heap of 
 stones which serves for a pier. 
 
 Poor, barbarous, beggared Algeciras ! It, too, 
 has lived through many eras, and seen mighty- 
 empires pass away. It sat here, on this same shore, 
 when the Persian was reigning ; hither has come 
 Phoenician, and Roman, and Moor, and Goth. 
 Christian crusader and Saracenic knight have met 
 before it. Under its walls mighty hosts have con- 
 tended. It is now a miserable place, and one can 
 scarce realise or credit its past grandeur. Its position 
 is fine ; it reminded us of that of Burntisland as 
 respects Edinburgh. Looking across the bay is 
 seen the giant form of the "Rock," just as looking 
 across the Frith of Forth is seen Arthur's Seat; 
 and to perfect the resemblance, "Old Gib," as the 
 Levanter was blowing, wore a " nightcap " of mist. 
 The moon was now out, and the scene was still and 
 lovely ; and felt to be so all the more after a day's 
 tossing. There was the quiet bay ; the magnificent 
 mountain, which, though five miles away, seemed 
 to rise right above one, the lights of Gibraltar 
 gleaming at its feet, and the dark shadows of the 
 vessels which lay motionless on the tide. By the 
 gate of Algeciras did the Moor enter Spain ; by 
 
From Cadiz to Gibraltar. 371 
 
 the same gate did Prim and Serrano enter it in 
 1868; and by this gate did a greater power than 
 either enter it, for here were spoken the memorable 
 words of Prim to Cabrera, " You may enter Spain 
 with the Bible under your arm." These words 
 mark another of history's grand landmarks. They 
 fell quietly, but they had in them more real power 
 than the thunder of a hundred battle-fields. It 
 was Canning who boasted that he had called a 
 new world into existence. Prim might have 
 repeated the boast, had he understood the full 
 import of the edict that had passed his lips. A 
 new world he could not create, but he had un- 
 chained forces that could. 
 
 Next morning, instead of being ferried across 
 the bay, we resolved to walk round it, and enter 
 Gibraltar on foot. The journey is a dozen miles. 
 Road there can scarce be said to be ; and the 
 population, demoralised by smuggling, is the most 
 lawless and daring in the Peninsula. This latter 
 fact, however, we did not know at the time. 
 Toil we felt none, and if danger we incurred, we 
 were amply recompensed by the magnificent views 
 which every step presented, and the historic, and 
 once populous and luxurious, sites, now grass- 
 grown, over which our walk led us. The most 
 prominent object in the scene was, of course, the 
 
 Y 2 
 
3/2 Daybreak in Spain, 
 
 "Rock;" every few paces showed it under a 
 different aspect, and in each aspect it was ma- 
 jestic. In some it strikingly reminded us of 
 Arthur's Seat ; it had the same lion-like form, the 
 same couchant attitude, only it was six times 
 bigger. Through the opening of the bay on the 
 right were seen the mountains of Africa ; and 
 behind the towering summits of the front range 
 stood up the yet mightier summits of Mount Atlas, 
 that great giant on whose shoulder the ancients 
 placed the burden of the globe. The only burden 
 he bore when we beheld him was the snow of im- 
 memorial winters. On our left, in the eastern 
 horizon, were the mountains of Ronda and the 
 snowy crests of the Sierra Nevada. 
 
 Our path was now the sandy beach, now the 
 trackless plain, with an occasional half-mile of 
 ancient road ; but we could not stray ; we had 
 simply to steer upon the " Rock," and that was a 
 beacon which we could not miss. The half-naked 
 population through which we passed bore about 
 them an air which made us sorely mistrust them ; 
 but every mile or so brought us to the Spanish 
 patrol. We had to halt on the banks of the 
 Palmones, and next on those of the Guadaranque, 
 till a chance passenger should turn up, and then we 
 were ferried across in very primitive fashion. On 
 
From Cadiz to Gibraltar. 373 
 
 the sloping ground beyond the latter river we saw 
 on the left the poor farm-house which marks the 
 spot where stood the Tartessus of the Phoenicians 
 and the Carteia of the Greeks. Ferns and stubble- 
 land, from amid which looked out fragments of city- 
 walls and the dim traces of an amphitheatre, 
 covered the spot where the merchants of the East 
 were wont to meet those of the West, and chaffer 
 over their bargains. Here Scipio Africanus fought, 
 while the galleys of Rome crowded that bay ; and 
 hither fled the younger Pompey after his defeat. 
 Fighters and traffickers are alike departed, and the 
 shore is abandoned to silence. When we passed it 
 by, a solitary Spaniard, wrapped in a brown cloak, 
 and attended by two dogs, was coming along the 
 rough road that leads down from the old site, 
 driving before him a little herd of cows. 
 
 Here we fell in with what might have been an 
 adventure. At a turning of the road, where a 
 thicket of trees shaded the path, we saw a fellow 
 in rags waiting for us. He was about twenty- two, 
 tall, and muscular. We shrewdly guessed that 
 his object was to beg or rob. We had no weapon 
 of defence save our umbrella, but we settled it with 
 ourselves that the civilised man ought to be more 
 than a match for the barbarian, unless, indeed, it 
 comes to a physical struggle. We walked on with- 
 
374 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 out slackening our pace, or showing the least signs 
 of fear, which indeed we did not feel ; and when 
 we came up with him, we took care that our eyes 
 should meet his. He appeared to give way a 
 little, but growled out "/ want mooney!' We 
 made as if we might not decline his suit, but 
 looked him always broadly in the face. Our 
 object was to lead him on till we should reach 
 the beach, where we knew we would be under the 
 protection of the Spanish patrol. He kept growl- 
 ing out his demands and threats, wheeling round 
 us with the agility of a tiger, but not an instant 
 did we let his eye escape from ours. In this 
 fashion we led him on a quarter of a mile or so, 
 when, happily, a turning of the road brought us 
 out upon the shore of the bay. There, quite at 
 hand, was the Spanish guard. When he saw how 
 he had been served, he stopped and took leave of 
 us with an oath which made our flesh creep. It 
 was on the same ground, some months after, that 
 the two English travellers were, unhappily, kid- 
 napped by brigands. 
 
 By-and-by we reached the low sandy isthmus 
 which joins Gibraltar to the mainland of the 
 Peninsula. We seemed here to stand under the 
 precipices of the mountain, so much did the Rock 
 appear to overhang the road. We approached the 
 
From Cadiz to Gibraltar. 375 
 
 Spanish lines — a row of white sentry boxes which 
 ran right across the narrow strip of land. The 
 sentinels were taking it easy, lounging and chat- 
 tering ; and perhaps they were wise, for Spain's 
 danger is within, not from without. A few yards 
 farther, over the neutral ground, and we stood 
 before another row of sentry boxes, painted blue. 
 The soldiers on duty here were tall, erect fellows, 
 and they strode along with firm, measured step. 
 "A British subject, sir?" demanded one of them. 
 " Yes," we replied, with a feeling of pride, and 
 passed under that sceptre which could as effectually 
 protect us here at the southern extremity of Europe 
 as in the heart of London itself 
 
 The wondrous character of the Rock began 
 now to unfold itself to us. The entrance, which is 
 closely guarded and terrifically armed, leads across 
 drawbridges, through gateways bristling with port- 
 cullis and cannon, along galleries with bombproof 
 roofs, and under bastions defended by other bas- 
 tions ; while overhead tier on tier of cannon 
 look down upon one, and the whole mountain 
 bristles with guns, as hedgehog with prickles, 
 round and round, from base to summit. It is a 
 vast fortress hung in air, ready, on a signal being 
 given, to transform itself into a mountain of fire, 
 and rain death on the invader from a thousand 
 
376 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 port-holes. We could not help picturing it to our- 
 selves as a giant warrior, clothed in armour of proof 
 from head to heel, standing on this great highway 
 of the world, and holding out to him who comes 
 peaceably, or who flees hither from the tyrant and 
 the persecutor, a hand of welcome ; but uplifting 
 against the foe an arm that strikes with speedy 
 and exterminating vengeance. 
 
 How wonderful that Providence which gave 
 this Rock to us ! For great moral and spiritual 
 ends, which only now begin to be realised, was it, 
 without doubt, committed to our keeping. We 
 remember, when standing upon its highest sum- 
 mit, Europe behind us, Africa frowning in front, 
 the Mediterranean on the east, and the Atlantic 
 on the west, having it demonstrated to us 
 that Gibraltar could not defend the Straits, 
 seeing its guns did not reach to the opposite 
 shore, and that an enemy's ship could pass through 
 in despite of us. We laid our hand on the flag-staff, 
 and looked up at the flag floating at its top. " We 
 may not be able," we said, " to shut the Straits, 
 but we can hoist that flag on this staff, and where 
 that flag floats conscience is free." To hoist the 
 symbol of a " free conscience " in the midst of 
 enslaved nations is a mightier service than to stop 
 a hostile ship in these waters. Is not this a grand 
 
From Cadiz to Gibraltar. T^yy 
 
 pulpit from which to preach a sermon on toleration ? 
 Here you have Europe and Africa, Egypt and 
 Palestine for an audience. The guns with which 
 this Rock bristles cannot carry beyond a certain 
 range, and that a narrow one ; but the truth — of 
 which this flag is the symbol— the supremacy of 
 conscience, to wit — will dethrone tyrants everywhere. 
 There are no limits to its range but those of the 
 world. Besides, is not this Rock a practical illus- 
 tration of the doctrine of a free conscience ? 
 Toleration is here seen in operation ; for there, in 
 the town at our feet, Moors, Arabs, Jews, Romanists, 
 Presbyterians, Episcopalians are all living peaceably 
 together, and are all protected, without reference 
 to the truth or falsehood of their opinions, till light 
 come to open their eyes. This is a better way of 
 proving the truth of Christianity than by crucifying 
 a Jew, or burning a Moslem. What is this Rock 
 but a city of refuge in the midst of lands over- 
 spread by bondage and death "^ Hither may flee 
 the persecuted of all creeds. Here they may learn 
 a better way, and from hence they may go forth to 
 spread the light in the dark lands around. More- 
 over, it was the Rock of Gibraltar which furnished a 
 material basis for the evangelisation of Spain. 
 Here the infant Spanish Church was nourished 
 while the Bourbon dynasty and the Spanish priest- 
 
3/8 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 hood were accomplishing their times : and when 
 these were fulfilled, that Church went forth to begin 
 her work in Spain. This is the war in which the 
 Rock of Gibraltar as a British possession was meant 
 to do service. It was not as the " keys of the 
 Straits," but as the " keys of Pagandom " that it 
 was put into our hands ; and we trust Great 
 Britain will never part with it till the evangelisa- 
 tion of all the countries around it, Popish and 
 Moslem, has been fairly initiated, and the Bible 
 and the missionary enjoy the same full protection 
 in them which Romanism and Mohammedanism 
 do among us. 
 
 Our stay on the " Rock," lengthened out for a 
 week, was made doubly pleasant by the genial and 
 Christian society of the Rev. John Coventry, 
 minister of the Free Church of Scotland, and one 
 of the chaplains to the British forces. Two obser- 
 vations which fell from him we must here note. 
 We were out on the " Rock" on one occasion after 
 dusk. The vault over our heads was crowded with 
 stars, large and lustrous, and their brilliancy made 
 them look so many more. Looking up, Mr. Coventry 
 remarked that it was interesting to reflect that, 
 being in much the same latitude with the Holy 
 Land, we were now gazing on the same stars 
 which met the view of Abraham when God 
 
From Cadiz to Gibraltar, 379 
 
 brought him forth abroad, and said, "Look now 
 toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able 
 to number them : and He said unto him. So 
 shall thy seed be." At another time, referring 
 to the opinion of the ancient nations, and more 
 especially the Hebrews, that the pillars of Her- 
 cules — in other words, the two great mountains, 
 Gibraltar, and Abyla, or Gibel Musa, on the 
 opposite shore — marked the boundaries of the 
 habitable globe towards the west, Mr. Coventry 
 remarked that we were now experiencing the forth- 
 putting of that upholding Power on which the 
 Psalmist cast himself when he so sublimely said, 
 " If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in 
 the uttermost parts of the sea ; even there shall 
 Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold 
 me." 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 FROM GIBRALTAR TO MALAGA. 
 
 Bay of Gibraltar — Its Grand Scenery — The Night Sky — The Stars 
 — "So shall thy seed be" — Covenant of the New Earth — The 
 Moors — A much-needed Shower — The Coast of Malaga — The 
 City — Its Climate — The Andalusian Woman — Protestantism of 
 Malaga — An Edition of the New Testament Printed in a Cellar 
 in Malaga — Popish Riots in Saragossa — In Barcelona. 
 
 Duly, at sunset, a gun is fired on the summit of 
 the rock, and the gates of Gibraltar are closed. 
 All whom the signal finds outside the walls must 
 remain outside for the night. Entering or depart- 
 ing there is none, till the gun is repeated next 
 morning at sunrise. Knowing the law, and how 
 inexorably it is enforced, we took care to be be- 
 times on board the steamer in which we were to 
 sail for Malaga. It lay at anchor in the middle of 
 the bay, and certainly no better point could we 
 have selected from which to survey the surrounding 
 region. As we sat on deck, watching the sinking 
 of the sun and the fall of the shadows, new lights 
 fell every moment upon the picture. There was, 
 first of all, the lake-like bay — a circuit of not less 
 than fifty miles ; there were the mountains of 
 Spain walling it in in a Hne of stern naked gran- 
 
From Gibraltar to Malaga. 381 
 
 deur ; for no tree or green thing was to be seen 
 upon them ; there was the opening from the bay 
 into the Straits, guiding the eye to the distant hills 
 of Africa ; there was the giant Rock towering 
 sublimely in front, with the flag of England on 
 its summit gleaming in the gold of the sinking sun, 
 and conferring an equal protection upon the native 
 of Britain, the child of Spain, the son of Africa, 
 and the poor, despised, wandering descendant of 
 Abraham. Stern and still rose that mountain, a 
 warrior in steel. What an assemblage of great 
 objects ! and all linked with grand historic asso- 
 ciations, beginning with the early times of the 
 Phoenicians, and coming down to the triumphs of 
 the British power. Every moment there was a 
 new panorama around us. The sun, as he hastened 
 to his setting, struck now on this mountain, now 
 on that ; casting this into shadow, gilding that 
 with glory. There, right across the bay, was the 
 little Algeciras, covered by the great hills at the 
 foot of which it nestles ; and yonder, in the north- 
 east, perched upon its volcanic mount, was the 
 picturesque San Roque, with its colony of abo- 
 rigines, who, expelled from Gibraltar when the 
 British took it, built here a new city, and, by 
 their lawless, thievish, and idle habits, vindicate 
 the genuineness of their descent from the band of 
 
382 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 marauders and fighters which formerly held pos- 
 session of the Rock. 
 
 At length the anchor was lifted, and the ves- 
 sel, getting under weigh and skirting the great 
 shadowy silent mountain, steamed out of the bay. 
 We rounded Europa point, and the lighthouse, 
 on its lofty terminal rock, threw its ray, like a fare- 
 well greeting, down upon us as we passed. Again 
 we were in the Straits, and bearing eastward into 
 the Mediterranean. The Levanter had gone down, 
 and the ocean was like a lake in calmness. On 
 our larboard was Europe, its mountains looming 
 grandly through the obscurity of the moonless 
 night. Africa was on our right, but it had retreated 
 into the darkness ; not a glimpse did even Mount 
 Atlas permit of his snows, by day so brilliant and 
 so far seen. But it was in this as in matters more 
 important. If earth was veiled, heaven but shone 
 the clearer. Overhead in the sky what an array of 
 stars ! — the old, glorious stars on which the Phoeni- 
 cians had gazed. From where the morning breaks 
 to farthest west, the whole firmament was ablaze 
 with lights. On the north, almost touching the rim 
 of the dark earth, was the " Plough ;" while constel- 
 lations, which never appear in the skies of Britain, 
 lent a glory to the southern hemisphere. In splen- 
 dour how bright ! in number how countless ! Lit 
 
From Gibraltar to Malaga. 383 
 
 in the far-off dawn of Creation — and how far off 
 who can tell ? — their fires glowed as brightly this 
 night as when they were first kindled. Eternal 
 lamps ! — lights of all ages ! — by you did the early 
 navigator steer his bark over these same waters, 
 boldly voyaging to the earth's utmost "bounds," 
 and only turning back when, catching sight of the 
 lofty summit we were leaving behind us, he learned 
 that he was entering unknown seas, which fable 
 had peopled with hydras, tempests, and shapes of 
 unimaginable terrors. 
 
 More venerable eyes than those even of the 
 Phoenician mariner had been lifted reverently to 
 that firmament, and had there beheld the same 
 constellations on which we were now gazing. As 
 the Patriarch surveyed the glittering throng, and 
 felt how vain the attempt to count them, he heard 
 the Voice, saying, " So shall thy seed be." These 
 words were the echo of that eternal oath which 
 was sworn to a greater, and which was floated 
 down to the ears of the man who was constituted 
 the type of Him who was "before Abraham." 
 So does the prophet Isaiah teach us to interpret 
 them ; for the prophet traces the words spoken to 
 the " Father of the Faithful " to the earlier promise 
 given to the " Son, when, in his sublime prophecy 
 of the Messiah, he says, " He shall see His seed." 
 
384 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 The announcement, traversing the mighty gulf 
 which divides the world above from the world below 
 the stars, came down to earth, and has descended 
 to our day. If the rainbow is the covenant of 
 the old earth, the starry vault is the covenant of 
 the new. From being monuments of creative 
 power, as at the beginning, the lights of heaven 
 have now been made attesting witnesses of redeem- 
 ing grace. Each star, as it rises in the sky, repeats, 
 night by night, the words, " So shall thy seed be," 
 lasting as the firmament, numerous as its stars. 
 
 We had a party of Moors on board. The 
 Moors are a noble race of men, finely formed, tall, 
 manly, with an air which bespeaks the freedom of 
 the desert around them. Their faces are open, 
 intelligent, and kindly. They plant their feet as if 
 they were lords of the soil, and stride along with the 
 lofty bearing of men who never bowed their neck 
 to the yoke of tyrant, nor bent their knee to graven 
 image. Their dress well becomes their erect, 
 portly figure. They wear the fez ; their outer robe 
 is a flowing gown of white or blue linen, richly em- 
 broidered ; a vest, yet more richly ornamented ; 
 a red sash bound round the waist, white cotton 
 or linen breeches reaching to the knee, bare legs, 
 and feet thrust into red slippers. Till we saw 
 these men in the south of Spain, our imagination 
 
From Gibraltar to Malaga. 385 
 
 had painted them as a puny race, their bodies 
 dwarfed and shrivelled up by the meagre fare on 
 which they live and the hot suns which shine above 
 the lands of their birth. But how utterly mistaken 
 we were regarding them we soon came to know. 
 One sees at a glance that the Moors are a race 
 capable of those feats of arms which history records 
 them to have performed, and of those marvels of 
 architectural art which still remain in Spain to 
 testify to their genius. What a blunder the 
 Spaniards committed when they drove so fine a 
 people beyond their borders ! Spain could not 
 have become the wilderness it now is, had the 
 Moors been suffered to live in it. 
 
 Two things above all others the Spaniard 
 wished to secure from contamination and taint — 
 his blood and his soil. As regards his blood, we 
 will not say with certainty how the case stands. 
 The Old Castilian has, we fear, a little alloy in 
 it ; but as regards his soil, its catholicity is indis- 
 putable, that is, if barrenness be catholicity. 
 When the Moors lived in Andalusia they ploughed, 
 sowed, and watered it, and the consequence was 
 that it flourished like a garden. But this did not 
 please the Spaniards : a cultivation that smelled 
 so rankly of infidel and heretical pravity offended 
 their delicate tastes, and they thought that better 
 
 Z 
 
^86 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 their land should be a wilderness than that it 
 should be ploughed by infidels. It was, accord- 
 ingly, very thoroughly purged ; no taint of Moorish 
 husbandry defiles it now, and this holy soil is as 
 bare as the most advanced Catholic could wish. 
 If famine is the lot of the Spaniard, it is a famine 
 heroically devout. If he goes without his dinner, 
 he has his mass ; if the pangs of hunger sorely 
 press him at times, he tightens his belt ; and when 
 he dresses himself in his rags, he has the satis- 
 faction of thinking that they are thoroughly and 
 most unexceptionably orthodox. 
 
 The Moors on board carried the whole of their 
 household stuff with them. It was not much — a 
 few cooking utensils and a little bedding stowed 
 away in a basket. Stools and tables are super- 
 fluities not needed in the desert, and, on a journey, 
 great encumbrances. When it pleased them they 
 ate ; and when night came they slept. They 
 spread their mat on the open deck, and, drawing 
 over them an ample coverlet, and burying their 
 heads in its folds, they lay there till morning. 
 When the East began to brighten they got up, 
 and, folding up their quilt, they squatted cross- 
 legged on the mat which had served them for a 
 bed, and duly said their prayers, their faces turned 
 in the direction of Mecca. 
 
From Gibraltar to Malaga. 387 
 
 One of them — an old man with fine flowing 
 beard and most benevolent aspect — came up to us 
 in the course of the morning, and making his 
 salaam, began a speech in Arabic. He went on 
 in his discourse for some time, his earnestness 
 rather increasing than abating, when he found that 
 our response was not forthcoming. Alas ! we did 
 not know a word he said. And most sincerely did 
 we regret our inability to converse with him. Not 
 a word had he or any of his party exchanged with 
 the Spaniards during the voyage. The old hatred 
 still divides the two races. Rarely does Moor 
 consort with Spaniard, or Spaniard with Moor. 
 They pass each other with sidelong glances, and 
 sometimes with scornful words. The compliment 
 this venerable and sheik-like man paid ourselves, 
 or, rather, our country, therefore touched us all 
 the more; and much we should have liked to have 
 shown him that the Christianity of England comes 
 not a whit behind the faith of the Prophet, in its 
 power to awaken kindly feelings and to teach 
 courteous words to all men, be their country, their 
 colour, or their tongue, what it may. 
 
 The night was gone, but with it had gone the 
 almost continuously brilliant weather we had en- 
 joyed ever since we entered Spain. The morning 
 broke amid lowering clouds. The face of ocean 
 
 z 2 
 
3^88 Daybreak IN Spain. 
 
 was black, and its calm beginning to be broken by 
 low heavings. Away in the south, brooding over 
 Algeria, was a cloud of inky hue, from which, ever 
 and anon, flashed forth great gleams of lightning; 
 and then, along the face of the deep, travelling 
 more slowly, came the bellowing voice of the 
 thunder, with that hollow muffled sound which the 
 thunder has at sea. This change of weather may 
 seem a small affair, scarce worthy of a place in 
 even these jottings of travel, and yet to thousands 
 and thousands what a blessing was this cloud 
 and the drops that fell from its bosom ! The 
 south of Spain was then suffering dreadfully from 
 drought. Not a drop of rain had fallen from the 
 sky for eight long months. The herbs were dead ; 
 the torrents were long since dried up ; the water 
 tanks in Gibraltar were all empty ; and the cattle 
 in Tangiers were dying from want of fodder. But 
 now it had pleased Him who is the " Father of 
 the rain," and who "watereth the hills from His 
 chambers" to hear the cry of His suffering creatures, 
 and to send them relief. And as we saw the cloud 
 bearing westwards with its watery stores, we thought 
 how the weary land would bless it, and what a wel- 
 come it would meet from the dwellers scattered 
 along both shores of the Straits. Did He who 
 made man wish to destroy him, how easy were it 
 
From Gibraltar to Malaga. 389 
 
 for Him to do so! He need not awaken the volcano 
 beneath man's feet, or shoot his Hghtnings from 
 above : He has only to command the clouds that 
 they rain no rain upon him, and man and all that 
 live would as surely perish as if the earth were 
 overflown with a flood or wrapt in a shower of fire. 
 We now began to bear down upon the coast of 
 Malaga. How grand it looked ! Ridge rose 
 behind ridge, till the whole horizon was crowded 
 with great mountains, naked and bare, but now 
 empurpled with the shadow of the rain-cloud. We 
 did not wonder that the early mariner took these 
 great hills for the bounding walls of the earth, and 
 trembled to pass into the unknown region beyond. 
 The mountains came close up to the shore, and we 
 could not imagine how standing-room could be 
 found for city or village between them and the sea. 
 By-and-by a little speck of white shone out from 
 amid their stony arms ; it grew bigger as we 
 approached ; and now we were off Malaga. The 
 site of that city, which at a distance appeared a 
 mere foot-breadth amid the brown mountains, now 
 enlarged till it grew into a plain of some dozen or 
 score of miles, which extended along the shore. 
 But that plain, how luxuriant I and that shore, how 
 balmy 1 Whether there be climate more deli- 
 cious on earth we know not. Open to the south, 
 
390 Daybreak IN Spain. 
 
 the sea-breezes cool it in the heats of summer ; 
 and the lofty wall of rock, which encloses it on the 
 other sides, defends it from the biting- winds of the 
 North. How various the products which diversify 
 its surface! The palm, the aloe, the cactus have 
 wandered hither from their native East; and so fair 
 and stately are they, that they seem quite uncon- 
 scious that they have changed their clime, and are 
 not flourishing still beneath the skies of Syria. On 
 this happy shore, too, where winter is unknown, 
 are to be found the trellised vine, the orange, the 
 cotton-plant, the sugar-cane. But one thing it lacks 
 to perfect its beauty — the light of Christianity. 
 
 The town offers nothing remarkable. As one 
 approaches it from the sea it spreads out to the 
 eye an expanse of rusty-brown roofs embosomed 
 amid the great treeless hills. On the west of it are 
 to be seen a few factories, showing that the modern 
 industries have begun to make acquaintance with 
 this ancient shore; while on the east of the city 
 rises the Gibelfaro, or " hill of Pharos," with the 
 ruins of a Moorish castle upon it — the representa- 
 tive of the olden times, with their tragedies of war 
 and blood. Nearly in the centre of the town, on 
 a small eminence, stands the cathedral, much more 
 remarkable for its bulk than for its elegance. 
 
 Malaga is very old — no one knows how old it 
 
From Gibraltar to Malaga. 391 
 
 is. In point of interior arrangements it is pre- 
 cisely such another^ town as Pompeii — -the same 
 narrow winding lanes, the same rutted pavement, 
 the same quadrangular dwellings, the same shops, 
 all window and door. Take off the upper storey 
 from the Malaga houses, and you have a model 
 of Pompeii. The two are manifestly towns of 
 the same era, a thousand years or so before the 
 epoch of Christianity. There is this difference, 
 however, that while Pompeii has been seventeen 
 centuries and more below the ground, Malaga 
 has been all the while above it, and has grafted 
 upon its Phoenician trunk a i^^ French modern- 
 isings. Its alameda is good, and is worth visiting, 
 if but to see how the Andalusian woman can walk. 
 Her step she would seem to have borrowed from 
 the Arab. It is slow and stately, but with an ease 
 which makes it the perfection of grace. Her face 
 has an air of pensive softness, which might be 
 styled beauty, would she but pay a little attention 
 to her toilet. It is not so bad in youth ; but the 
 combined influence of dirt, passion, and years, 
 begins very soon to wrinkle that countenance into 
 grimness and ugliness. 
 
 When one wearies of the sea and the moun- 
 tains, he has only, if he wishes to vary his enjoy- 
 ment, to turn to the city — the labyrinth of alleys 
 
392 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 and courts which goes by the name of Malaga. 
 What a curious old town ! more so, even, than 
 Cordova. We make a dive into it, and forget the 
 modern times. We are in a very old world ; all 
 around reminds us of a state of things which may 
 have existed before the Christian era ; and most 
 probably there has been little change in the gene- 
 ral aspect of Malaga since the time when the 
 Phoenician ships were wont to cast anchor in its 
 bay, and crowds of Phoenician sailors and traffickers 
 to choke up its narrow streets. These streets are 
 deep and tunnel-like. Indeed, passing from the 
 bright warm shore into these alleys, one can scarce 
 get quit of the feeling that he has left the surface 
 of the earth, and is threading the mazes of a 
 subterranean city. A cloud of Phoenician memo- 
 ries gather round one ; and one can wander about 
 — he cannot wander wrong — in this fashion all 
 day, pausing now in front of this bazaar, with its 
 primitive merchandise and its apathetic owner, and 
 now turning into this court, with its trickling foun- 
 tain and palm or banana tree, and now stepping 
 aside to avoid the laden mule which is coming 
 along the narrow street, gaily decorated with 
 tassels, and driven, or it may be, bestrode, by its 
 Andalusian owner. Let us observe the rider. His 
 form is a perfect model of manly grace ; his eye 
 
From Gibraltar to Malaga. ' 393 
 
 is dark ; his complexion is a clear olive ; and his 
 black bushy locks show themselves from under his 
 sombrero. He wears a short jacket, closely fit- 
 ting the shape, decorated with a little needlework 
 and rows of buttons ; a cigarette in the mouth, a 
 red sash round the waist, and tight-fitting breeches, 
 relieved by rows of buttons. Bottinas of russet 
 leather encase the legs, and are left open at the 
 calf to show the white stocking. 
 
 There is one thing touching this town of 
 Malaga which we must not pass without notice, 
 and which gives it a special interest to the heart 
 of the Christian tourist. From Malaga came the 
 first edition of the New Testament ever printed 
 in Spain in modern times. This was greater 
 boon than ever proceeded from the most renowned 
 of its colleges. There were, in those days, a few 
 small communities of Christians in the Peninsula 
 — the same which have since grown into Churches, 
 and are now giving colporteurs and preachers to 
 the evangelisation — but, deprived of that Word 
 whigh is the " Bread of Life," their souls lan- 
 guished. It was with the utmost difficulty that a 
 single copy of the Bible could be got across the 
 frontier. What was to be done t It was then that 
 Matamoras proposed that the Word of God should 
 be printed in Spain itself; and the work was under- 
 
394 ^^ YBREAK IN SpAIN. 
 
 taken and accomplished by the National Bible 
 Society of Scotland. In a cellar in Malaga an 
 edition of the New Testament, consisting of 3,000 
 copies, was printed, and circulated over Spain 
 before the Revolution of 1868. 
 
 If the man who plants a tree, or who digs a 
 well, or who kindles a light in the darkness by 
 which the mariner may steer, deserves well of man- 
 kind, how much more the man who, at the risk 
 of liberty and life, kindles a beacon which can 
 illumine a whole realm, and chase the night from 
 the soul of a nation ! Such was the feat performed 
 in this city. The story is not without its interest. 
 Some old type was procured, a rickety printing 
 press was purchased, and was set up in a cellar ; 
 and, last of all, a Christian man was found who 
 understood some little of the business of printing, 
 and who could act both as compositor and press- 
 man. With such imperfect machinery, the process 
 was a tedious, a very tedious, one. In this dark 
 cellar, by the light of a lamp, did this man toil, day 
 by day, for eight long months, with no assistance, 
 save that of his son, a mere boy. The damp, un- 
 wholesome air in which he worked brought on 
 paralysis and blood-spitting. His friends entreated 
 him to desist. The cellar was destined, apparently, 
 to be his grave ; but this noble man refused, saying. 
 
From Gibraltar to Malaga. 395 
 
 " If these three thousand Testaments cause my 
 death, I shall die with the joyful consciousness of 
 having provided the ' Bread of Life ' for three 
 thousand souls." Persevere he did, till the work 
 was completed. And now a Christian woman in 
 the town received these three thousand copies, and 
 hid them in her house, whence they were taken, 
 like so much seed-corn, and duly scattered over the 
 fields of Spain. We would rather have been the 
 doer of this deed than the builder of the Alhambra. 
 
 In this city — the first to give the word of God 
 to its sister cities of Spain — there is now a Pro- 
 testant congregation, no longer hiding in darkness, 
 but assembling in open day, and celebrating its 
 worship in public. The attendance ranges from 
 200 to 300, and would be larger, did the 
 building permit. The congregation is ministered 
 to by the venerable Don Pablo Sanchez. 
 
 Malaga, like most sea-ports, the resort of men 
 of diverse nationalities, cannot boast that its moral 
 condition is high ; but its people are characterised 
 by the energy and the public spirit which commerce 
 brings with it ; and we augur well of the evangeli- 
 sation here. Not a few of our countrymen are 
 settled in it as merchants. Affable, hospitable, and 
 wealthy, they are transplanting some of the more 
 characteristic virtues of England to this old Phoe- 
 
39^ Da y break in Spain. 
 
 nician resort. To their fostering care we specially 
 commend the good work of the evangelisation. 
 They cannot but feel that the city of their adop- 
 tion, with its benighted population of upwards 
 of 100,000 souls, has powerful claims upon their 
 sympathy and liberality. In Malaga, the last 
 weapon of the priests — the mob, to wit — has given 
 way. It has failed them too in Saragossa, where, 
 as an inland city, we should have expected the 
 bigotry to be yet strong, and where, at the era of 
 the Reformation, there existed one of the most 
 powerful of the provincial tribunals of the Inquisi- 
 tion. The first Protestant sermon was preached 
 in Saragossa — the scene of numerous autos-da-f^ 
 formerly — last April ; and the priests, hoping to 
 extinguish the evangelisation at its outset by a 
 summary blow, organised a mob, and assailed the 
 building in which the Protestants were assembled ; 
 but the populace, learning the true state of matters, 
 hastened to the aid of the police who were sent 
 to quell the riot; and so the stroke dealt by the 
 priests recoiled upon themselves. 
 
 Similar riots, with a like result, have occurred 
 at other places. In the fair held at Barcelona 
 during Christmas week, the agent of the National 
 Bible Society of Scotland opened a tent for the 
 sale of the Scriptures. This roused the indignation 
 
From Gibraltar to Malaga. 397 
 
 of some Church officials, who did all in their power 
 to excite a riot among the people. The current of 
 public opinion is indicated in the following ex- 
 tracts from La Razon, a small daily paper pub- 
 lished in the town, whose editor says, under date 
 23rd December : — " In the public plaza of the town 
 there has been erected a pretty tent, from which 
 there are sold Bibles and other Protestant books 
 at an excessively low price. Yesterday afternoon, 
 some fanatical sacristans caused a perfect scandal 
 by presuming to interfere with the sale." In the 
 following day's issue the editor continues : — " The 
 ridiculous presumption of the sacristans who pre- 
 sumed to prohibit the sale of Protestant books 
 caused yesterday afternoon a veritable riot, which 
 excited no little alarm among the peaceable passers- 
 by. Some unhappy persons, who think they serve 
 God when robbing their neighbour — and, certainly, 
 to take books which are for sale without wishing 
 to pay for them is, according to us, a robbery — 
 after vainly menacing the sellers, took some of the 
 books and ill-treated the salesman. Some peace- 
 able spectators took part in the affair. The tumult 
 increasing, several agents of police seized on those 
 who were most excited — who, indeed, appeared to 
 be possessed — and conducted them to the Police- 
 office. Among those who are arrested, we are 
 
398 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 assured, were the sacristan of the cathedral and 
 the sacristan of one of the parish churches. The 
 alcalde, Senor Soler y Matas endeavoured to re- 
 strain those who were so excited, but it was impos- 
 sible. He did, however, as much as was in his 
 power. The bystanders behaved nobly." 
 
 The correspondent of the National Bible 
 Society gives the following graphic account of the 
 affair : — ** It seemed, indeed, at one time as though 
 we should have been torn to pieces. They did 
 their best to destroy the tent, threw at us stones, 
 tomatoes, old shoes, and a turnip. One fellow 
 raised a large club and aimed a deadly blow at 
 the guard. Another guard seized him and took 
 him before the mayor. He proved to be the chief 
 sacristan of the cathedral. Next day a man snatched 
 books out of Fernando's hand. The people charged 
 him, and took him, too, before the mayor. Five 
 prisoners in all were arrested. 
 
 *' An old rich priest, one of the leaders in the late 
 Carlist rising, came up to the tent, and in my face 
 cried out * Embustero, embustero ! ' (Liar, liar !) 
 The people cried, ' No, no ! you are the liar ! ' I 
 stood upon a box and begged them to be still. 
 Then, taking off my hat, I said to him, ' Do, sir, 
 come up here and say what you please ; I have no 
 greater pleasure than to meet my opposers face 
 
From Gibraltar to Malaga. 399 
 
 to face.' The people seconded this, and after a 
 while he came up, and cried, ' Tell us, then, when 
 and where your religion was born.' I was going 
 into the matter, when he interrupted. The people 
 cried, * Do not interrupt the stranger ; let him 
 reply ! ' Many ordered him to begone ; and as I 
 went on, he excused himself on the plea that he 
 had to visit a sick person. The people laughed 
 and hissed, and then urged me to continue. I did 
 so for some time, taking for my text the motto 
 above the tent, * God is love,' and pouring out 
 saving truths to the square full of people, they 
 evidently rejoicing in what was said, and applaud- 
 ing at the close. Then we fell to selling Gospels 
 as fast as Fernando, Francisco, my wife, myself, 
 and another could despatch them. In the three 
 days we sold more than 20,000 Gospels. 
 
 "A blind man came to help at the tent. He 
 played on his guitar with one hand and on a sort of 
 flutina with the other, and sang some of the sweet 
 songs of Zion in Spanish verse. 
 
 "This caused a double attraction. This man 
 preaches with much originality, and is a subtle 
 controversialist. I intend to get him a table for 
 the sale of Bibles, &c., with letters in cloth, * Who 
 did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born 
 blind } with the answer, * Neither hath this man 
 
400 Da ybreak in Spain. 
 
 sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God 
 should be made manifest in him.' 
 
 " Our receipts, chiefly in copper, were 2,800 
 reals, or about thirty pounds, and our grief was that 
 we were sold out before eight o'clock at night. As 
 it was Christmas-eve we should have continued till 
 morning, the people turning out at midnight. I 
 cannot tell you the exact number sold. The boxes 
 sent from Madrid were taken at once to the fair. 
 I had no time to count their contents. Our house 
 was ransacked for anything in the form of books 
 or tracts or Gospels. Anything would have sold, 
 and just at the busiest moment we had to stop for 
 want of stock. Counting all, 50,000 must be under 
 the number. Several alcaldes and police inspectors 
 were near us most of the time, and when we had 
 finished, the chief said, ' You have carried the palm 
 in Barcelona ; we see you are fit for your work.' 
 God be praised for his goodness ! I never saw the 
 like, or such testimony received with so much 
 pleasure by the people. But this is only the begin- 
 ning ; we shall do like glorious things in other 
 places of the province." 
 
CHAPTER XXV. ' 
 
 GRANADA AND THE ALHAMBRA. 
 
 Railway through the Mountains — Night-ride to Loja — Daybreak 
 and Antequera — Vega of Granada — Its Amplitude and Fer- 
 tility — Granada — Grandeur of its Position — The Sierra Ne- 
 vada — The Evangelisation — Visit to Alhama in Prison — The 
 Alhambra — Style of its Architecture — Description of its Cham- 
 bers — A Dream of the Orient in Stone — Campo Santo of 
 Granada — ^Journey Homeward — Sandy Gate of Granada — ^Jaen 
 — Beggars— Spain's one Remedy. 
 
 The wave, as it rolled shorewards, brought with 
 it airs so soft, and broke in sounds so musical, that 
 it was sweet to dwell on this Malaga coast. The 
 rains had refreshed the plain, and the aloe and the 
 orange-tree looked greener than ever. Around us 
 was the various fruitage of the warm sunny shore ; 
 and there were, too, the grand mountains, the 
 purple shadows in their clefts, and the sunlight 
 upon their peaks, walling in the city with mag- 
 nificence and strength. " Here you need not fear 
 the breath of the cold North," the hills seemed to 
 say ; ** this shore knows no winter. Here the 
 myrtle's bloom and the citron's fragrance are to 
 be found at all seasons." 
 
 But it is time to bid it adieu, and begin our 
 
 A A 
 
402 Da ybreak in Spain. 
 
 journey across the mountains to Granada, from 
 whose battlements, when it was the capital of the 
 Moors, the crescent proudly floated so long. But 
 how surmount the wall of rock which divides the 
 plain of Malaga from the famous Vega, which 
 formed the kingdom of the Moors ? English skill 
 and gold have cleft a road through these great 
 mountains, now daily traversed by the railway 
 car. We cross the narrow plain ; we enter the 
 gorge of Hoyo, whose funereal gloom justifies its 
 name, " the grave," and come amidst the savage 
 grandeur of the mountains. Onwards through 
 tunnels and viaducts ; onwards through black 
 gorge and across yawning chasm ; onwards round 
 dizzy peak, while far-retreating ravines, unvisited 
 save by the tempest and the bird of prey, open 
 right and left, runs the railway. The wild and 
 desolate scenery fills the traveller's imagination 
 with images of terror ; but it is only the image, 
 not the reality. He crosses this mountain chain 
 about as safely as he would any meadow in all 
 England. Of the journey to Granada there yet 
 remains a part to be gone by diligence, and that is 
 enough to give the tourist a taste of what this 
 journey once was, and of what a tour in all those 
 parts of Spain to which railways have not yet been 
 extended still is. 
 
Granada and the Alhambra. 403 
 
 We made the journey by night. There was no 
 moon ; but there was an abundance of stars, and 
 these of a size and briUiance such as only that cUme 
 can show. They came in such crowds that one 
 feared that room would not be found for them in 
 that vault, wide and lofty as it was. By-and-by we 
 had a proof that we were rapidly gaining on the 
 mountains in the keen air that now met us. How 
 different from the balmy breezes of the shore we 
 had just left ! We ventured a look out at the 
 carriage window. Around us were peaks shooting 
 far up among the stars; abysses running down, 
 and yet deeper down, and losing themselves in 
 the darkness ; and there were savage jagged cliffs 
 frowning terribly at each other across narrow 
 ravines. This array of terrors, magnified and 
 multiplied by the dim light under which, it was 
 beheld, set our imagination working. Terrible 
 fancies came crowding into our mind. What if we 
 should dash against that crag which seemed to 
 stand right in our path } What if our train should 
 take a leap down into this gulf.? Here are we 
 nearing a chasm — is there a bridge across it 1 This 
 thought-taking would not add, we reflected, one 
 atom to our safety, so we drew in our head, and 
 fixed our eyes upon the lamp that was burning 
 at the roof of our carriage with quiet steady flame. 
 
 A A 2 
 
404 Daybreak IN Spain. 
 
 Onward sped our train ; shooting chasm and 
 circumnavigating crag, like some night-dragon, 
 scattering the darkness with the glare of its red 
 eye, and startling the silence by the rush of its iron 
 wings, steering its way in safety through all the 
 perils of that dark land. 
 
 After a four hours' journey of this fashion, we 
 halted at Bobadilla. The mountainous region had 
 been traversed, and now we were to be transferred 
 to the diligence. Now commenced our acquaint- 
 ance with a new set of experiences. On leaving 
 the railway-carriage we found the wind like ice — 
 it cut to the bone. " Mticho frio ! inucho frio /" 
 shouted our conductor, as he hurried us along over 
 a heap of stones which served as a platform, to- 
 wards a bulky object which loomed at a little 
 distance in the darkness, and which turned out to 
 be the diligence which was to convey us to Soja, 
 where the railway to Granada again resumes. 
 '' Mucho frio r reiterated the man, as he urged 
 us to seek shelter in his cavernous-looking vehicle 
 from the cutting blasts which came down upon us 
 from the snow-clad hills to which we were drawing 
 nigh. We made haste to obey our conductor, by 
 tumbling into his conveyance, which stood ready 
 yoked to go on its way through a country which, 
 so far as it could be seen in the darkness, looked 
 
Granada and the Alhambra. 405 
 
 wild enough, and by a road which, if it existed at 
 all, needed something brighter than starlight to 
 make it visible. The rickety diligence was well 
 littered with straw ; it had a musty smell, and, 
 having seen a good deal of service on the road, 
 it gave signs that some day, soon — we hoped it 
 might not be just yet — it would fall in pieces, and 
 deposit its freight in the highway. It was not 
 over-capacious, and some dozen of Spanish men 
 and Spanish women, besides ourselves, were crowded 
 into it. 
 
 The magos were in their brown capas, the 
 magas in their lace mantillas or cotton hand- 
 kerchiefs. We were closely packed, and that was 
 a comfort in a night so bitter ; but Spaniards 
 seldom wash either person or clothes, and so, the 
 hotter the air of the diligence, the more odorous 
 it grew. Before many minutes had passed we 
 had an addition to its fragrance, for now scarce a 
 mouth but held a cigarette. London in a fog will 
 give a lively idea of the interior of our diligence. 
 We almost wished we were back in the cold. Our 
 companions talked, laughed, and jested. They 
 were obliging and kindly, only they followed in all 
 things the manners of their country ; and the man 
 who expects that foreigners are to forego their 
 usages on his account had better stay at home. 
 
4o6 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 We had unmistakable proofs as to the kind 
 of road on which we were travelling. It seemed 
 to belong to that class of roads for which the high- 
 lands of Scotland were famous before the arrival 
 of General Wade, the great road maker. Now 
 we were toiling slowly up the steep ; now we were 
 rattling down the declivity. Every few minutes 
 a fearful jolt would throw the passengers all of a 
 heap, and threaten to lay our vehicle on its side. 
 The plash of the horses' feet, at times, told us that 
 we were taking rivers at the nearest, without going 
 round by the bridge — for this good reason, per- 
 haps, that the bridge was not yet built The 
 rolling of our vehicle had, at length, the same effect 
 upon the passengers which the rolling of a ship at 
 sea has on landsmen — that is, some of them got 
 very sick. It was no place for ceremony. Must 
 we write it } Our sick passengers disburdened their 
 stomachs just as sick men in a ship will, and, 
 happily, there was abundance of straw in the 
 bottom of the diligence. Cosa de Spana ; no more 
 need be said about it. 
 
 If the night was long and weary, it made the 
 dawn all the more welcome. It seemed unwilling 
 to come, but at last the stars gave place, and the 
 light shone out. We found ourselves on the skirts 
 of the Vega, in fact, passing through that gap in 
 
Granada and the Alhambra. 407 
 
 the mountains which, like a gateway, gives entrance 
 to this great and fertile plain. On our right was 
 the old gaunt town of Antequera, just beginning to 
 awake. The great mountain that leaned over it 
 wore the glow of the young day. The face of 
 the mountain yawned in numerous caverns, the 
 entrance, as the natives of these parts believe, to 
 subterranean halls, where genii dwell, where vast 
 hordes of gold and silver are laid up, or where 
 warriors and princes hold wassail. On these 
 grandeurs we cannot with certainty speak, not 
 having seen them ; but of the wealth above ground, 
 or rather of the wealth that might be, we have no 
 difficulty in speaking. It was a feast to our eyes, 
 after the weary night-ride, and our dismal acquaint- 
 ance with the arid plains of Castile and La Mancha, 
 to see the meadows around Antequera, watered by 
 living streams, shaded by goodly cork-trees ; while 
 the vegetable products in the gardens — the onions, 
 cucumbers, and carrots — were of girth so enormous 
 that they were meet for the table at which only 
 Goliaths of Gath should sit and dine, 
 
 A league or two beyond Antequera, that is, 
 at the little town of S^J^., the railway resumes, and IL o 
 the journey thence to Granada is over the famous 
 Vega, the garden of Spain. This magnificent 
 expanse — some thirty miles by twenty — laid down 
 
4o8 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 at an elevation of 2,400 feet above the sea-Ievel, 
 and walled in by mountains which reach the height 
 of the Swiss Alps, has shared the fate of most great 
 plains — it has been a frequent battle-field. At 
 those seasons when the plough had quiet posses- 
 sion of it, it was a paradise, a wide expanse of 
 waving grain, intermingled with orange and citron 
 groves ; when the sword had the dominion, it was 
 a field of blood. Fertile it ought to be, for the 
 contests of Christian and Saracen have left scarce 
 a foot-breadth of it unwatered by that "red rain 
 which makes the harvest grow." By the early 
 days of November — the season when we made 
 our visit — its verdure is somewhat faded ; the 
 crops are reaped, and the plough is again at work. 
 But the fields, we marked, were well dressed, and 
 the means of irrigation were abundant. Numerous 
 canals and streamlets sparkled in the ploughed 
 land, and gleamed out from amidst thickets of 
 orange and citron and rows of mulberry and olive 
 trees. 
 
 We were now near the great snow-clad mountains 
 that wall in the Vega on the east. Suddenly there 
 appeared to rise at their feet, glittering in the sun, 
 a glorious vision of Moorish towers, castles, and 
 edifices. This could be none other than Granada, 
 long the royal city of the Moorish kings. Than 
 
Granada and the Alhambra. 409 
 
 this old capital of the Moors there are few cities 
 on earth more grandly situated. It has the 
 spacious Vega in front ; behind it, at the height 
 of 12,000 feet, are the snowy crests of the Sierra 
 Nevada ; at its feet is an eternal summer : there 
 are waters that never fail, trees whose leaf fades 
 not, and flowers which at all seasons yield their 
 fragrance and display their blossoms ; above it is 
 winter, enthroned upon the Sierra Nevada, his 
 stern presence tempering the voluptuous softness 
 of the scene, and enhancing rather than impairing 
 the beauty over which he hangs his snows. The 
 sky rains upon it a serene crystal light all the year 
 through, unless at those rare times when the tem- 
 pest gathers darkly on the summit of the Alpu- 
 j arras, and the thunder's voice resounds along the 
 plain. 
 
 Of the city of Granada we leave other travellers 
 to speak. It is a Moorish jewel in a setting of 
 mountain grandeur. It has a spacious plaza ; a 
 fine alameda, shaded by trees ; a magnificent 
 cathedral, in which repose the ashes of Ferdinand 
 and Isabella ; and, as for the rest, it is a labyrinth 
 of narrow, winding lanes, climbing up the steep, 
 and crowned by the red walls of the Alhambra, 
 of which we shall speak by-and-by. 
 
 We have only a few words to say of the evan- 
 
4IO Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 gelisation. It was under a cloud when we visited 
 Granada. Some enemy of the cause had contrived 
 to connect the name of Alhama, its evangeh'st, with 
 the insurrection then raging ; and the consequence 
 was, that he and his flock, one night as they were 
 assembhng in their Httle chapel, were swept off to 
 prison. We visited him in prison, in company of his 
 daughter and brother. We entered a huge quad- 
 rangular pile, preceded by the turnkey ; we crossed 
 the courtyard, in which numerous felons were 
 loitering about ; we mounted a wooden stair, and 
 entered a square, unfurnished apartment, with a 
 plain deal table, and matting on its floor. This 
 was Alhama's place of confinement, the same in 
 which he and Matamoras were confined in the days 
 of Isabella. The ordinary prison was the cells 
 below ; and in these were the members of his con- 
 gregation who had been apprehended with him, 
 shut up along with robbers, homicides, and the 
 ordinary malefactors of the country. 
 
 Alhama we found a man turned, we should say, 
 of fifty, but hale and vigorous, with a face betoken- 
 ing openness, courage, and energy. He was cheerful, 
 deeming it no small honour to suffer bonds for the 
 Gospel, and rejoicing to think that his imprisonment 
 would turn out for the furtherance of the evangeli- 
 sation. His incarceration had excited no little 
 
Granada and the Alhambra. 411 
 
 discussion, and awakened inquiry both in Granada 
 and other cities. He dwelt strongly on the ground- 
 lessness of the accusation touching political matters 
 which had been preferred against him, expressing 
 his deep conviction that it became the friends of 
 Spain, in seeking the good of their country, to work 
 only with the higher liberty — the truth that makes 
 free, and from which alone can come the regenera- 
 tion of the Peninsula. The matter was in due 
 course represented to the authorities at Madrid, 
 and the Government, which never had the least 
 desire to restrict the religious liberty, ordered the 
 instant liberation of Alhama and his friends. It 
 was interesting in no ordinary degree to be in this 
 prison. We stood here by the cradle of the evan- 
 gelisation. From this prison came forth the move- 
 ment which is now pervading Spain ; here it dwelt 
 before it showed itself to the world — its nurse a 
 jailor, malefactors its associates, and its swathing- 
 band an iron fetter. 
 
 The anticipation expressed above has already 
 been realised. Since the imprisonment of Alhama 
 the work in Granada has taken a new start ; the 
 place in which they formerly met could no longer 
 contain the numbers which now crowded to the 
 preaching of the Gospel, and the Protestants 
 removed to a new building in the Calle Zacatin, 
 
412 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 which could commodiously hold four hundred. 
 This larger temple is already overcrowded, and 
 they are compelled to think of one still larger ; 
 thus, as they enlarge the capacity of their edifices, 
 so do their congregations grow. 
 
 From the prison let us go to the Alhambra — 
 one of the world's wonders ; yet fated, it may be, 
 in ages to come, to be less an object of reverence 
 than the cell we have just left. The Alhambra 
 overhangs the city, being perched upon the preci- 
 pitous cliff, a spur of the Sierra Nevada, which 
 divides the two rivers, the Darro and the Zenil, 
 which rush down from the mountains to water the 
 plain. The Alhambra has been sacked and devas- 
 tated ; the monks whitewashed its walls, and the 
 French mined and blew up its towers ; its beautiful 
 patios have been made a stable for donkeys, a shed 
 for cattle, a pen for sheep ; it has been converted 
 into a barrack for soldiers, a storehouse for 
 merchants ; and the list of its fatalities has been 
 swelled by earthquake, which has shattered its walls. 
 But its beauty, as if inextinguishable, still survives. 
 
 A few words only may we offer upon the style 
 of the Alhambra. It is truly a thing of the Orient. 
 It differs as much from our western edifices as the 
 palm of the Syrian plain differs from the pine of the 
 Alps, or as the silken tent of the Arabian emir from 
 
Granada and the Alhambra. 413 
 
 the stone-built castle of the German baron. In 
 fact, the palm-tree and the tent have served as the 
 models of the Alhambric architecture, just as the 
 branching elms and rocky caves of the North sug- 
 gested the style of the architecture of Europe. 
 Accordingly, beauty and brightness — a beauty like 
 that of youth, and a brightness Hke that of morning 
 — is the characteristic of the one ; strength, solidity, 
 and grandeur is the characteristic of the other. 
 The Alhambra is a brilliant assemblage of pillared 
 gateways, horse-shoe arches, marble floors, and 
 azulejos pavements, walls ot curious arabesques 
 and brilliant enamels, fountains and alcoves, pillars 
 of white marble, slender and graceful, like rows of 
 palm-trees, and roofs, light as the gossamer, and 
 spangled and shining like the firmament. It is a 
 dream of the Orient in stone. 
 
 Let us ascend to it. We start from the great 
 square of the Vivarambla, where, in the days of the 
 magnificent Moor, gallant knights jousted in tour- 
 naments, but now loiterers in brown cloaks and 
 poor market women have it all to themselves. We 
 traverse the Zacatin, whose narrow pathway and 
 bazaar-like shops remind one of Constantinople. 
 We climb another narrow winding calle, and pass 
 out at the city gate. We are in the domains of the 
 Alhambra. We ascend a steep avenue, shaded by 
 
414 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 elms, and can see on our left, through the over- 
 arching boughs, the towers of the Alhambra on the 
 crown of the steep ; while on the right, occupying 
 the opposing summit, are the Torres Vermejos, or 
 vermilion towers. These are much older than the 
 Alhambra, seeing. they can be traced far back in 
 Arabian story, under the title of the " Red Towers." 
 Some assign their erection to the Romans, others 
 to the earlier Phoenicians. 
 
 We reach the top of the avenue ; we turn 
 sharply to the left, and we stand before a square 
 Moorish tower, or gateway. This is the " Gate of 
 Justice ;" for here, after the manner of the Orientals 
 and the precedent of Scriptural times, sat, some- 
 times the king, sometimes an inferior judge, to 
 hear causes, pronounce sentence, and see the 
 punishment inflicted. This was a despatch which 
 mocks the slow delays of modern times. The arch 
 is in the horse-shoe form ; on the key-stone on 
 the outer side is graven a hand ; on the inner side 
 is graven a key. The hidden meaning of these 
 symbols has much perplexed interpreters. There 
 went abroad a tradition that till the hand should 
 reach down, and, passing under the arch, grasp the 
 key, the Alhambra could not be taken. But the 
 result has not verified the prophecy, and we scarcely 
 think that this was what the wise Moor meant. 
 
Granada and the Alhambra. 415 
 
 We enter at the gate — we pass on through 
 tortuous stone alleys. Spanish soldiers, portly 
 priests, tatterdemalions, an hidalgo, though vn 
 rags, and guides, paced up and down, or slept on 
 stone benches. Threading this passage, we now 
 emerged on the esplanade on which stands the 
 Alhambra. We are impatient to enter and feast 
 our eyes on its unique beauty. But, stay, there is 
 a preliminary which must be gone through. How- 
 ever little the stone key may be understood, all 
 understand the silver one ; and unless the hand of 
 the visitor lay hold on this key, he will linger long 
 on the threshold of the Alhambra. 
 
 We enter, and find ourselves in another clime. 
 The East, with all its radiant beauty, has suddenly 
 opened to us. To go over the whole pile were 
 impossible ; we select as a specimen one or two 
 apartments. We enter first the Court of the 
 Alberca. It is paved with white marble. In the 
 centre is a spacious basin, 130 feet long, and of 
 proportionate width ; it is softened by a hedge 
 of roses, whose foliage and blossoms are scarcely 
 more delicate and lovely than the azulejo walls 
 and the Moorish peristyles which encompass the 
 apartment. 
 
 We proceed next to the Court of Lions. There 
 is no part of the edifice, perhaps, from which a 
 
41 6 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 more correct idea can be got of the original 
 splendour of the place than this. In the centre 
 is still the alabaster basin, supported by its twelve 
 lions, which legendary story has immortalised. We 
 heard its waters trickle even as when Moorish 
 princes or Arabian caliphs walked here. The floor 
 is paved with azulejos, interspersed with flower- 
 beds ; around the four sides run Arabian arcades, 
 the filigree work of which is delicate as gossamer, 
 soft and lovely as hangings of lace ; the arches 
 are supported on rows of white marble pillars, some 
 hundred and thirty in all, tall and palm-like, and 
 so slender that one wonders to see them bear up 
 the arches. A more fairy-like scene it is impossible 
 to imagine. Here, as everywhere in this wonderful 
 pile, grace and loveliness, a beauty most exquisite, 
 is the prevailing characteristic — not grandeur which 
 stimulates, but beauty which soothes the mind, and 
 woos it to voluptuous enjoyment. 
 
 Let us ascend the great tower of the Comanes. 
 It dominates the whole place, and looks down into 
 the deep ravine of the Darro, affording, as we pass 
 up, beautiful glimpses of the distant mountains, and 
 of the river and gardens which it overhangs. We 
 enter a vestibule ; though only an antechamber, 
 we are charmed with its elegance, its alcoves, its 
 slim pillars, and the lace-like tracery of its walls. 
 
COURTYARD OF THE PALACE OF GUADALAJARA. 
 
Granada and the Alhambra. 417 
 
 A Moorish archway admits us into a lofty hall. 
 It is called the " Saloon of the Ambassadors," from 
 its having been, as is supposed, the audience- 
 chamber of the Moorish kings. Traces of its 
 former splendour remain in the rich arabesques of 
 the walls, and especially in the lofty vaulted ceiling 
 of cedar-work, on which the Arabian pencil has 
 lavished all its marvellous powers. Ornaments of 
 gold glitter on a ground of blue and red. Opposite 
 the entrance is the spot where the throne stood ; 
 the place is marked by a suitable inscription on 
 the wall. 
 
 There is the Hall of Justice, there is the 
 Mosque, there are the Baths, there is the Queen's 
 Dressing- Room, and some dozen besides, on which 
 we cannot dwell. They are all alike in their ex- 
 quisite beauty and fairy magnificence, and yet 
 each differs from the other. The Egyptians 
 affected the solemn in architecture ; the Moors 
 strove to excel in the light and graceful. And 
 wonderful, indeed, is the art with which they 
 wrought. Under its plastic power the marble shot 
 up, tall, graceful, and elegant as the palm-tree ; the 
 solid stone grew into a substance as delicate as the 
 fabrics woven on the looms of Ghent, or knitted by 
 the lace-workers of Mechlin. The fret-work of the 
 walls and the tracery of the arcades was like the 
 
 B B 
 
41^ Daybruak in Spain. 
 
 silver-work of the Turin artificers ; the tints of 
 the azulejos, or Moorish tiles, were like light itself; 
 and the paintings which adorned the chambers, 
 though simple — all representations of living forms 
 being excluded, and only geometrical figures ad- 
 mitted — had, from their ingenious combination, a 
 most dazzHng effect. And then the roof! It 
 glowed like a heaven ; it glittered and shot forth 
 rays of light, as if formed of crystal, or gemmed 
 with precious stones. A rare and marvellous art 
 it truly was that could create all this ; it was born 
 with the Moor, and it died with the Moor — it was 
 sunny as the clime from which he came, graceful 
 as the vegetable forms which nature presented to 
 his eye, brilliant as the starry vault hung above 
 his head, and fragile and movable, apparently, as 
 the tent in which his ancestors lived. And yet it 
 is not so. Here has the Alhambra been standing 
 all these six centuries ; the rains and the winds of 
 the mountains have beaten upon it, yet it has not 
 fallen ; earthquake has rocked it, its tall slender 
 pillars are still erect ; armies have assailed it, yet 
 its arches are not bowed, nor its roof crushed ; 
 barbarous occupants have lodged in it, and time 
 has laid his hand upon it, yet its glories, though 
 dimmed, are not extinguished. If such the 
 Alhambra still is in its age, what must it have 
 
Granada and the Alhambra. 419 
 
 been in its youth ? How fresh and fair when newly 
 from the hand of its builder ! 
 
 The Alhambra is another instance of the power- 
 lessness of art to civilise. Beauty the most ex- 
 quisite, even the beauty of the Alhambra, cannot 
 expel passion, or woo the soul to virtue. In these 
 lovely chambers what fearful crimes have been 
 committed ! How often has the blood of the 
 innocent deluged these marble floors, and mingled 
 with the crystal waters of these fountains ! Men 
 have lived here in the midst of all these elegances, 
 and yet the tiger within them has all the while 
 been unsubdued. To tame man's soul and make 
 it gentle, to purify man's heart and make it holy, 
 needs something more than the creations of the 
 chisel and the pencil. And we were unspeakably 
 delighted to read, in a recent communication from 
 Spain, that a young Scotch minister, descending 
 from the Alhambra, saw seated under the trees, 
 in the calm evening air, a party of Spaniards busy 
 reading the Bible. 
 
 At a distance of two miles beyond the Alhambra, 
 and higher on the mountain, is the burial-place or 
 Campo Santo of Granada. It was All Souls' Day, 
 and so we visited this place of tombs. The area 
 enclosed extends to some twelve or twenty acres. 
 The bounding walls are honeycombed with holes 
 
420 Da ybreak in Spain. 
 
 or niches. Into these the coffin is slipped, and 
 then the opening is closed with a slab or board, 
 inscribed with the name of the deceased. The 
 place was like a fair. A profusion of lighted 
 candles, crosses, images, garlands, and flags covered 
 the graves alike in the walls and the ground-area 
 which they enclosed. There were little temples, in 
 which priests were saying mass, while the crowd 
 gossiped or walked amid the tombs. Not a line 
 of Scripture did we see in all that burial-place. 
 It is darkness without a ray to tell of a life 
 beyond. It was truly a valley of the shadow of 
 death. 
 
 From this point we may be said to have begun 
 our homeward journey. A ride of eighty miles by 
 diligence through the mountains brought us to Men- 
 jibar. The diligence was wonderfully appointed 
 for Spain. We had relays of mules by the dozen 
 every eight or ten miles, which trotted our bulky 
 vehicle briskly onwards. The road was excellent ; 
 the mountain views were fine ; and amid the 
 summits that stood up to greet us as we passed 
 there would come at times a white top, which 
 gave grace to the rest. At one or two places on 
 the road the farming was excellent, in fact, like 
 that of England. The land, beautifully dressed, 
 was black and shining, and the olive and fig trees 
 
Granada and the Alhambra, 421 
 
 scattered over the fields looked as if they were 
 no cumberers of the ground. But these fertile 
 spots were the exceptions. Generally, all the way 
 it was a weary land, overspread by silence and 
 nakedness. In vain we looked for pastures and 
 flocks, for woods and homesteads. 
 
 ** There deserts, like no meaning, fill the page." 
 
 At last we arrived at the Puerto de Arenas. 
 This is a wild gorge amid sand hills, which narrows 
 as we advance, till at last the mountains meet, and 
 the road is carried through a tunnel, thirty-five 
 yards long, named the " Sandy Gate of Granada." 
 
 We now emerged on the champaign country, 
 which looked calcined and dusty. Soon we sighted 
 Jaen, picturesquely situated on an eminence, look- 
 ing toward the hills we had just traversed. Here 
 we must take farewell of the reader. The first 
 town we entered in Spain brought us acquainted 
 with sights of misery unimagined by us till then. 
 We end our journey as we began it ; for the last 
 town we visit offers spectacles of wretchedness 
 not less affecting than the first. Jaen was a place 
 of note in the days of the Moors, being one of 
 the chief towns of their kingdom. Then, it was 
 a land of corn and wine. But the mosque was 
 transformed into the cathedral, and from that 
 
422 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 hour a shadow began to creep over the region, 
 which has now settled down into the night of 
 utter stagnation and barbarism. The Plaza Mer- 
 cado, where we stopped to dine, was occupied 
 with knots of loiterers in sombreros and brown 
 capas. They were doing no business; they were 
 simply smoking their cigaritto and looking up 
 into the sky. A few stalls stood there, and 
 these helped us to guess what the people of Jaen 
 were able to get out of the glorious plains around 
 their city. Onions and Indian corn seemed to be 
 the staple of their produce; and no wonder the 
 harvest was so scanty, seeing those who ought to 
 have been guiding the plough were idling or beg- 
 ging. As for the mendicants, alas ! the rattle of 
 our wheels entering the silent town brought them 
 out in troops. Before the mules could be unyoked, 
 a ring of spectres stood round our vehicle. Men 
 and women, old and young, all in the same dire 
 misery ; all so worn and woe-begone that they 
 looked like ghosts rather than human beings. How 
 importunately and piteously they whined ! And 
 yet, alas ! there was no need by voice or sign to 
 make known their suit. Their miserable rags, 
 their emaciated forms, and their eyes wolfish with 
 hunger, told their tale but too eloquently. May 
 the maledictions of mankind rest eternally on that 
 
Granada and the Alhambra. 423 
 
 system which has plunged this once noble race into 
 a misery so awful ! and may the prayers and offer- 
 ings of all Christian men speed onward that Power 
 which is now advancing to pluck them out of the 
 abyss — the only Power that can by any possibility 
 do so — the blessed Gospel ! 
 
 *'The ships of Tarshish first" — so does the 
 prophet marshal the procession when he shows 
 us the nations returning at the latter day unto 
 Zion. He places Spain in the van. We cannot 
 close without expressing our hope that in the 
 remarkable movement in that nation we see the 
 begun fulfilment of the prophecy. Let us think 
 what the conversion of Spain would bring after it. 
 When we reflect on its central position, and the 
 native enthusiasm of its people, we cannot but feel 
 that its accession to the evangelical faith would 
 be the kindling of a glorious beacon upon the 
 mountain tops. Its light would flash across the 
 Straits, and the snows of Mount Atlas would begin 
 to burn. It would gild the sands of Egypt, and 
 the old Coptic Churches would look up from their 
 grave. It would shine along the shores of Pales- 
 tine and of Asia Minor, and the Seven Churches 
 would awake from their sleep and begin to trim 
 their lamps. The peaks of Mount Ararat would 
 catch the glory, and would convey it onward to 
 
424 Daybreak in Spain. 
 
 Persia, and the tribes of the East would arise and 
 come to the brightness of Zion's rising. North- 
 ward, over Italy, over France, over Germany, 
 would its light travel, bringing with it a second 
 morning to the Churches of the Reformation, and 
 saying, as it journeyed onwards, " Now is come 
 salvation, and the kingdom of our Lord and of 
 His Christ." 
 
 THE END. 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY