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Untitled Article
connect them tvith the common -weal for ever broken ; the ties of family and friend dissolved \ their authority founded on the barbarism and degradation of the people , they are interested in stemming the torrent of improvement in knowledge and liberty , which must in the end inevitably
sweep away these " cnmberers of the sorh" No society in which the sound principles of policy are at all understood , would consent to maintain a numerous body of idle , unproductive , useless members in opulence and luxury , ( at the expense of the active and the laborious *) merely because they had chosen to decorate themselves
with peculiar insignia—to let their beards grow , or to shave their heads ; and though the progress of civilization in Spain has been greatly retarded , or rather it has been compelled to retrograde under the present system of despotism , yet , that great advances have been made since the
beginning of the late Revolution , is happily too obvious to be denied . * That Revolution , in fact , has produced , and will continue to produce , a very favourable influence on the ecclesiastical government of Spain . Leaving out of consideration the immense number of priests and friars
• who perished during the atrocious invasion of their country , the destruction of convents , the alienation of church property , and the not unfrequent abandonment of the religious vow , unnoticed amidst the confusion and calamities of active war , more silent , but more extensive changes have been going on . The Cortes ,
While , hark ! a voice at intervals , The pious grace devoutly bawls Gratias tibi , Domine 1 While up and down their arms are moving * Like engines in a factoxy : Thus most indisputably proving " How calm and meek and patiently These pious souls submit to all
The sorrow ^ suffering and privation Which may an earthly saint befal : O unexampled resignation ! ! Principe Perseguido . * Much was apprehended from the re
called Jesuits : they came—not the learned , the illustrious fathers of former days , but a handful of ignorant , helpless old men , incapable of good , and , I trust , incapable of evil . Father Juan Aiidrcs died in Rome in 1817 .
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when they decreed that no Noviciates should be allowed to enrol themselves , * gave a death-blow to the monastic influence , and since the reestablishment of the ancient despotism , the chasm left by this want of supply has not been filled up , nor is
likely to be ; for , the greater part of the convents ( except those very richly endowed ) complain that few candidates propose themselves , except from the lower classes of society , who are not likely to maintain the credit or add to the influence of the order
Examples are now extremely rare of men of family and fortune presenting themselves to be received within the cloisters , and offering all their wealth and power as the price of their admission . Another circumstance , the consequence of the Revolution , has
tended greatly to lessen the influence of the irregular clergy , where it is most desirable it should be lessened , among the lower classes . Driven from their cells by the bayonets of enemiesf or obliged to desert them that
their convents might become hospitals for their sick and wounded friend they were compelled to mingle with the mass of the people . To know them better was to esteem them less , and the mist of veneration with which
popular prejudice had so long surrounded them , was dispersed , when they became divested of every outward distraction , and exhibited the same follies and frailties as their
fellow-men , f He who , in the imposing procession , or at the illumined altar , appeared a saint or a prophet , was little , was nothing , when mingling in the common relations of life he stood
unveiled before his undazzled observers . For the first time it was discovered that the monks were not absolutely necessary for the preservation even of religion . Masses were
? They enacted tliis under the pretence that all young" men were wanted for the defence of the country . Even the friars were obliged to be silent against such a plea . of
+ Nor are tliere wanting * instances friars atoning on the scaffold for crimes ot tlie deepest dye ; and I could mention examples of fraud , violence and murder comid it ted since the king 9 return by ind > - rhials among * them , whose monstrous atrocity ft would be difficult to parallel .
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590 State of Religion in Spain .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1819, page 590, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1777/page/2/
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