The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1897-06-12

crowning it with splendor, Torque-
mazda was covering it and himself
with dishonor. The persecution and
expulsion of the Jews occurred in
1892. Ignatius Loyola, the founder
of the Jesuit society, was born in
1491. 1t may be said then that in
the last quarter of the fifteenth cen
tury the train was laid for the min
gled history of honor and dishonor
which still clings around the name
of Spain and her people.
Another cause for the downfall
may be found in the peculiar charac-
teristics of her form of religion.
There is tradition, not borne out,
however, by the New Testament his
tory of the church, that st. James,
the Elder, after the crucifxion, trav-
cling as missionary, came at last to
Spain. Here he made few converts on
account of the dreadful ignorance
and idolatry of the people. He was
standing one day on the banks of the
Ebro when suddenly, Mary, the
mother of our Lord, appeared and
commanded him to build there
church for her worship. He obeyed
the command, and having estab-
lished the faith returned to Judea.
This is wholly traditional, but the
desire of Paul to visit Spain before
his death, makes it appear that there
were some struggling churches, or
scattered believers there even at that
early date.
st. James is the patron saint of
Spain. Under his Spanish name,
Santiago, his banner foated from the
towers of the Alhambra beside the
standards of CASTLE and Aragon,
when Isabella and Ferdinand entered
the city of Granada after its capitu-
lation. The Goths were Arian Chris
tians, converts of Ulfilas, the Bishop
of the Goths, who died in 1888, A. D.,
and who translated the Bible into the
native language for the use of his
converts, the first instance on record
of such translation, and the only one
up to the time of Luther. The war
which for so many years distracted
this unhappy country was a struggle
between the Arian Goths and the
Catholic Romans. The master word
in Catholicism is authority. The
dream of the middle ssees was the
union of the whole world under one
priest, the Bishop of Rome, and one
King, the Emperor of Germany. The
dominant idea of these ages was au-
thority in politics as in religion, as
exemplifed in the Holy Roman EN-
pire. No people who are slaves in
religion can be freemen in politics.
In Spain under this idea the whole
country has languished. All indi-
vidual enterprise and personal inde-
pendence, all free self f-direction suf-
fered as did painting, carving, by
being held down to an unalterable
form of execution. 1t is not too much
to say that while Spain remains con-
tent under the medieval ideas, in ig-
norance of the personal, independent
freedom of the present age, she must
continue to be only a fourth-rate
power among the nations of the
earth. Catholic clergymen, even so
late as 1922, were found ON the side
of an absolute monarchy. In 1923
they supported the Carlists, body
always in the interests of absolutism
and of the most extreme bigotry,
whose plots have desolated Spain
from that day to this.
But in view of present conditions
and present tendencies, it is not too
much TO hope that, if she must re-
main herself in such old time degen-
eracy, she will not be allowed to hold
any people in subsection, whose
hearts are on Ere with love of free
dom, whose faces are set toward the
coming light. This is one solid foot
ing for our hope for Cuba; for our
faith that some day, sooner or later,
some way will be opened to the tor
tured and distracted Cubans to COM
plete emancipation from Spanish
rule. Spain is but repeating in
Cuba, so far as the genius of the age
will tolerate, the same policy she has
carried out elsewhere. Mexico, Peru,
Florida, California, the islands of the
Atlantic all gone, we have little
ground for doubt that the beautiful
gem of the sea will have humanity on
her side and so will conquer in the
struggle.
OSHKOSH, Wis.