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Untitled Article
from the force of inclination—not from his conviction of their necessity to prepare him for another world—but from the fear and trembling with which the * holy men , ' who watch so strictly over his salvation , have inspired him . Since the action and re-action in the Peninsula , produced by the French invasion in 1808 , and the war of independence , the restoration of Ferdinand , and the fall of the constitution in 1814 , the
re-establishment of a constitutional government in 1820 , and its second overthrow in 1823 , and the ultimate fits of persecution and lenity which marked the subsequent course of the late reign , a feeling of suspicion , of jealousy , and mutual hatred , has become rooted between a large proportion of the Spanish laity and their ghostly instructors : the latter are fully aware of the frail and insecure tenure by which their immense worldly possessions are held , in the event of a firm establishment of a
liberal government . From the bottom of their hearts they detest all whose opinions have a leaning that way , and regard their faith and morals as equally suspicious . The layman , on the other hand , hates the priesthood , both generally and particularly . He knows them to be , in far too large a proportion , men of gross and pampered and sensual habits and propensities—profound hypocrites and dissemblers , having nothing of
religion about them but the habit . But they are his incubi , his fate , whom he knows he cannot shake off , and is therefore compelled , externally , to treat with deference and respect , while , internally , he vows that , if ever the day shall arrive , he will exact ample interest for all old scores /'—Vol . ii . p . 189 .
Here are causes enough of enmity , but the greatest grievance , of all the host inflicted by the church , remains behind . It seems to us that nothing can exceed the intolerable oppression which forces the dying-, whatever be their faith , or their want of faith , to listen in their last moments to the exhortations of an order they perhaps despise , and to become the subjects of ceremonies they perhaps ridicule . The author has given an illustration of this most hateful tyranny in the story of JL ) on Augustin *** , an
old friend of his own . It js told with affecting" truth and power , and is enough to make the heart sick that such thing's should be done and suffered . Don Augustin had been pursued by that vindictive hatred with which the priests visited all who had bought any of the forfeited church lands : he had held situations of trust under the constitutional government , and his career had been long and honourable in both military and civil appointments ; but he was hunted from province to province , irnpurificadoed , frequently in a state of starvation , and obliged to conceal himself from the researches of the secret police ot the clergy . He had a proud and independent spirit , and the impression this treatment
made on him was deep . " ' There are some men in this world / ( he would say , naming- them ) * and the clergy in general , on whose account I would renounce my hope of Paradise for ever , rather than run the risk of meeting them there . Not only myself , but my forefathers have been their victims . They have
Untitled Article
Madrid in 18 S 5 . 529
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1836, page 529, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2661/page/5/
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