The Express.
London, England, 1851-04-24 00:00:00

eery nearly as ripe for the reformation as England,
an' that nothing but the combination of political
and ecclesiastical absolutism, wielded by a master of
machiavelism like Philip 11., could have put down
protestantism in that country, is sufficiently proved
by the records in the volume before us. gor ought
' this to surprise us. There is much in the gravity
and self-respect of the Spanish character to which
protestantism would naturally be more congenial
than catholicism. And it is absurd to argue, from
their present attachment to the latter, or from their
apparent superstitiousness. For these result more'
from their want of cultivation than from their na-
tural character ; and were as rife in England at the
time of the reformation as they wcte in Spain. If
the reader doubts this, let him read the lively sketches
which Erasmus has left of English superstitions. We
would except, of course, the Andalusians, who arc in
many respects the Irish of the Peninsula. But, we re-
peat, that the natural bias of the cultivated Spaniard of
I the middle or northern provinces is or would be, if
the consequence of three centuries of political stag-
nancy and isolation could bo removed, towards some
purified and simplified form of the Christian faith.
Nor may. the day he far distant when this tendency
will begin to manifest itself as remarkably as it is
doing in central and northern Italy. Naples and
Andalusia will probably always be catholic; but it
seems quite upon the cards that the rest of the two
Peninsulas may become protestant. It is now uni-
versally understood in Italy how inseparably political
progress is connected with protestantism. And the
day may come when the papacy may find itself in as
antagonistic a position to the political aims of the
Spanish people as it is at present to those of the
Italians.
Meantime it becomes both Spaniards and English-
men to better their knowledge of one of the least
known and most instructive portions of what may be
called to a certain extent their common history ;
seeing that they were at this time temporarily
swayed by the same sanguinary pair, from whom
respectively the darkest stains in the history
of each country have flowed. The scope and
tendency, the chances and capabilities, the future
not less than the past of protestantism are imper-
fectly comprehended, so long as we remain ignorant
of the part it has played, or begun to play, in any of
the great spheres of European existence. It is too
much the fashion, at the present day, even among
sincere protestants, to talk as if there were some-
thing harsh and uncongenial in the pure religion of
the gospel, to which the warm passions and wild
imagination of southern races could not be reconciled;
as if those regions had not been the cradle and
home of the Christian religion in its purer days ; or
as if protestantism had not strength to combat those
idolatrous tendencies, on unrelenting hostility to
which, Ilahonietanism based the whole fabric of its
religious and political existence. If the educated
classes of Spain and Italy were once ripe for Fives-
tantism, and only prevented from adopting that faith,
owing to an examen of the same discouragements
which greatly perilled the progress of the reforma-
tion in Germany and England; if Bohemia and
Poland were once for the most part protestant, and
only surrendered their convictions after a long and
sanguinary struggle, there is the greater hope that
when the people of those countries are treed from the
domination which crushes them, and left to follow
the bent of their natural tendencies, they will revert
to that purer faith, which nothing but the combined ,
influence of Austrian tyranny and Jesuit subtlety
(then, as now, leagued against the welfare of the
worldly could have made them abandon. Already,
Hussite opinions are said to be reviving in Bohemia;
and were catholicism not endeared to the Poles by
Russian persecution, that least superstitious of all
races would probably evince little attachment to a
faith which is, if we may credit history, anything
but naturally congenial to them.
To the
.prevulence, at one period, of protestant
opinions in Spain, Senor de Castro adduces the ful.
lowing testimonies; one of an orthodox, the other of
a heretic writer.
" In past yearn, Lutheran heretics in greater or less num-
bers, were wont to be taken and burnt in Spain; but all
those that were so punished were foreigners—viz., Germans,
Flemings, or Englishmen. At other times people poor and
of menu birth, used to he sent to the scaffold, and to have
San lknitus in the churches ; but in these later years, we
have seen the prisons, the scaffolds, and even the burning
pile crowded with illustrious people, and (what is even more
to he deplored) persons who in the opinion of the world
were greatly superior to others in letters and in virtue
. . . .I withhold their names in order not to tarnish
with their injured reputation, the fair tame of their de-
scendants, or even of some illustrious houses to whom this
poison attaches. They were such and so many that it was
believed if two or three months more hail been suffered to
elapse before applying a remedy to this mischief, the con-
flagration would has', spread itself all over Spain, and
brought upon her the most dire misfortunes she has ever
seen."
While one catholic author wrote in this way touching the
Protestants, another, persecuted by the "tribunal of the
faith," wrote freely from Amsterdam, his opinion in the
following words:—
" In Spain, many very li arnesl, many very noble, and
many of the most distinguished of the gentry have for this
cause been led forth to the scaffold. 'there is sot a city,
and done may so speak, there is not a village, nor a ham-
let, nor a noble house in Spain that has not had, and still
has, one or more that God, of his infinite mercy, has en-
lightened with the light of his gospel. It is a common pro-
verb iu Spain in the present day, when speaking of a
learned man, to say, ' he is so learned that he is in danger
of being a Lutheran.' Our adversaries have done what
they could to put out this light of the gospel, and thus they
have visited with loss of property, of life, and of honour,
very many in Spain. And it is worthy of note, the more
they threaten, scourge, eotaanilmstitem, throw into the gal-
leys, or perpetual imprisonment, or burn, the more they
multiply."
The greater part of this volume is composed of
brief biographical sketches of the most distinguished
of the individuals thus persecuted. Some of them
are calculated to excite the greatest sympathy and
indignation, and the effect is not lessenid by the tone
of rigid impartiality which the author's position has
led hue to assume. Whatever may be the real bias
of his opinions. he writes as an orthodox catholic,
and a man of the world, taking a purely secular and
historical view of the matter. His narra'ive thus
assumes the character of a plea, not for protestantism,
but against intolerance. The following passage will
serve as a specimen of his manner. The reflections
they contain are creditable to his sagacity, and
would do honour to an historian of a school and
country greatly more advanced than his.
In rooting up in the church of God the seeds of reform
which had been thrown upon the face of the earth by the
leaders of protestantism, there can be no doubt it was in-
tended to avert those desolations which invariably accom-
pany civil discords. I hold it to be indisputable, that the
religious wars which afflicted Europe with bloodshed,
tumults, and rapine, were owing as much to the dexterous
policy of princes and magnates, desirous of increasing their
power, as to the love of protestantism. Nations at that time
did not easily rebel against their sovereigns for exemptions I
and liberties, and when they dared to do so, they were at
once destroyed. Hence, I infer, that Maurice, Duke of
Saxony, and the Landgrave of Hesse, assisted the
tans, and made themselves its champions against JR.=
V., more with the inteution of destroying its forcer, 11111111
erutaiHng the dominion of the emperor, than to sustain the
defence of the Lutherans ; that the Prince of Orange ha&
with his people in the low countries, morewith a view of
tasking himself lord of those lands than for that liberty of
lowswienee so mach desired by. the Flemings ; that the Ids
of the Bad of Xurrayin Seedesi esiteised the=
Isliesi arms thin tether with a view hp mom thele
a HIS than from my. great demdes he sodsdeetrisee es
Male mr which the mewebeats were thedeeMending ; eml
as tells Hwimeerha Presee, did My sot lett reil.
ries seminally, Mat is reality for end those maw
his bessers, against the Deka of Guise /
The civil wars, fosomModin so masprettm=m, were not,
I apprehtend,people, ea merely assists Crowds of
• to whose beams Me Vim of the sew
ddetrlesa led peastrebd. sem mole be ambitious ww
te believe that them deaths' scald only be wpwtM by
fonse of ems. And thee, by the istelersies er kleps ed
the ono bond. sad waiesMenie wed timer politkime OR the
other, paiathalthvtitlalraaveislMtoast feightittleatessi
to those- iseleti le the eatheile tblth, the steadied slew
hellion wee sefedeli, wed by greet sabtilty and mmesemest
served to brims sheet a fortunate result to the peMedess
*Odle pielsetwals.
The pepeleoe always the Wei hastrosest ef whited
men, leatliself 'readily not peresivbs the diode, the Aland
with its arms sad its blood the amilties of these who well
knew how IM direst the admit of the law awl leserent. The
prehesers ef the sew nisi= strove as'p Uy to pre-
sort, *sip ideptailisadati ilie ignorant eel the sewed-
libee emi IMO Pilot. is Seib who eepleed to the it
M.