choly history of the period which followed the close of the Peninsular war. The era of recent regeneration dates from the year 1830, in which constitutional government was fairly inaugurated. In 1836 a veto was given to the Crown, together with a power to convoke and dissolve the Cortes. The active part taken by the monks in the Carlist war extinguished all scruples on the part of the Constitutionalists in dealing decisively with the enormous masses of land that had been locked up for centuries in mortmain. In 1836, accordingly, a royal decree appeared by which all colleges, convents, and communities of monks were suppressed, and a prohibition of religious vows for the future insured the gradual extinction of the monastic orders. That the public mind was thoroughly ripe for this reform admits of no doubt. The bitter hatred,' says a traveller who visited Spain in 1850, rather prepossessed in favour of monasticism, of monks and friars is quite astonishing, and I have no doubt that if one now made his appearance in his monastic dress he would be torn to pieces.' The number of convents of both sexes in Spain in 1834, was 3027. The number of monks receiving support from the state was, in 1837, 23,935, and in 1858, 6822. The suppression of monastic institutions has doubtless been attended with some individual suffering, but the monks had completely lost the public respect and with it their usefulness. The moral and economical results of the measure are now fully appreciated. It has liberated vast masses of land from the fetters of mortmain, and greatly increased the number of landed proprietors. 'The distribution of the monastic property,' says Mr. Wallis, which has destroyed the beauty of the convent lands, has no doubt doubled the productiveness of their soil. The alms which supported the monastery, and kept its architecture and ornaments from decay, have remained in the peasant's hands for the comfort of his family, or the improvement of the little spot he cultivates. The spiritual instruction of the young and ignorant has become the care of the secular clergy, whose education and higher gifts, intellectual and moral, make the change a national blessing. The impoverished industry and neglected agriculture of the land have received an accession of vigorous labour no longer tempted into sloth by a privileged and sensual life. In the cities and larger towns the convent buildings have been displaced to make room for private dwellings of more or less convenience and elegance, or have been appropriated as public offices or repositories of works of art. The extensive grounds which were monopolized by *The Practical Working of the Church in Spain,' by Rev. Frederick Meyrick, 1850. some some of the orders in the crowded midst of populous quarters have been converted into walks or squares dedicated to the public health and recreation. In a word, what was intended as the object of monastic endowments has been to some extent realised. What was meant for the good of all, though entrusted to a few, has been taken from the few, who used it as their own, and distributed, rudely it may be, but yet effectually, among the many, who were entitled to and needed it.'* In addition to the suppression of the monastic orders, the Government has assumed a direct control over the revenues of the Church. The number of ecclesiastics was considerably reduced by the Concordat of 1851. The number of bishops remains as before; but the Church dignitaries and superior clergy have been reduced from 4382 to 1923. The policy of the Government, in dealing with the property of the Church, has fluctuated with the state of parties. By a decree of the Cortes, in 1836, all future acquisitions of land in mortmain under any pretext were forbidden; and the property of churches, chapters, brotherhoods, and other spiritual denominations, was secularised. Tithes and all other ecclesiastical revenues were abolished, and the clergy were deprived of all direct reliance on the people for their support. The State thus became the owner of all the property of the Church, and imposed a special tax instead for its support. By the Concordat of 1851 all titles acquired under previous sales of church property were confirmed; but the portions remaining unsold were restored to the Church. A compromise was effected between the Papacy and the Crown with respect to presentation to certain dignified offices; but the right of the Church to acquire landed property was revived, and certain orders of nuns were re-established. The suppression of monasticism was finally acquiesced in. The revenue of the primate-archbishop of Toledo was fixed at 16007. a-year; that of the eight other archbishops at from 1500l. to 13007. a-year, and of the bishops at from 11007. to 8007. a-year-certainly moderate stipends compared with the princely revenues joyed by the dignitaries of the Spanish Church in the days of its grandeur. The salaries of curates in town parishes vary from 30%. to 1007. a-year, and the minimum in rural parishes is fixed at 221. a-year. In 1855 the Government introduced, and the Cortes passed, a law of amortization, under which all land held by the State, the Church, and lay corporations, was directed to be sold, and 80 per cent. of the proceeds to be applied in works of public utility. The operation of this law was suspended in consequence of the opposition it met with from the clergy: it is, however, we believe, now again in force; but no *Wallis's 'Spain.' The Clero et Culto Tax. further further sales of church property are to be made without the consent of the bishops. A recent convention between the Pope and the Queen of Spain (1859) restores to the Spanish clergy the right of acquiring both landed and other property in addition to their fixed incomes paid by the State; and Her Majesty pledges herself to maintain, to the utmost of her power, the temporal and spiritual authority of the Holy See. It is certain that the Church in Spain has not, at the present time, any commanding influence over the public mind. In the rural districts, and among the ignorant and uneducated, the power of the priesthood is doubtless considerable, but we are not aware that it is oppressively exercised. In the towns there is an absolute independence of all clerical domination, as is attested by all who have possessed opportunities of personal observation; nor is the press at all scrupulous in its mode of handling ecclesiastical subjects. A writer whom we have previously quoted asserts that he constantly heard the most extreme Protestant opinions from the lips of the middle classes; and that, before his own countrymen, the best resource of a priest is silence.* The intolerance which exists is the effect of a traditionary system, which has made unity in religion the basis of government, and punishes dissent as a species of treason. Uniformity of faith is still considered the true foundation of the throne. By the 137th Article of the Penal Code of 1848 it is declared that a Spaniard who publicly apostatizes from the Catholic Apostolic and Roman religion is punishable with transportation, and becomes for ever afterwards unqualified for the exercise of any profession. This theocratic demand of religious as well as civil allegiance was common to all European states in the sixteenth century. England only cast off her constitutional intolerance after a long struggle of opinion, and our nonconformists were, three centuries ago, liable to penalties for the public exercise of their religion little short of those which are now in force in Spain. Opinion is of slow growth in the Peninsula, and her public men have not yet discovered how to reconcile toleration with the ancient principles of the monarchy. One of the most eminent of Spanish statesmen, however, freely admitted the decline of ecclesiastical power. 'All government,' he said, 'depends for its security on one of two things-the influence of the clergy, or the military power. Clerical influence, the support of absolute government in Spain, has been destroyed: it exists no longer; and there is nothing left in its absence to protect society, to maintain order, and to support Government, but the military arm.'t The *The Practical Working of the Church in Spain,' p. 197. † Speech of Sr. Bravo Murillo in the Cortes in 1851. intolerance 6 6 intolerance with which Spain is justly charged (and which has lately manifested itself so offensively on the subject of Protestant burial) is embodied in her laws and institutions rather than displayed in private life. Although,' says a writer already quoted, the Constitution does not tolerate, the people certainly do in the most important sense of the word. A stranger might pass a year in any part of Spain without hearing a single inquiry as to his religious opinions, or being troubled by one impertinent interference with the entire freedom of his religious action. By some this would be set down to indifference, but it certainly is not bigotry; and I was well satisfied to take it for enlightened religious toleration.'* As an indication of increasing liberality, it is impossible not to refer to a recent bold expression of opinion by one of the royal chaplains in the presence of the Queen. The preacher, one of the most eminent of his order, took occasion in the Chapel Royal to state his conviction that the Pope ought to be relieved of his temporal kingdom, in order that he might devote himself to his spiritual duties and to the ecclesiastical superintendence of Christendom. The full significance of this sentiment can only be understood when the intimate relations between the Papacy and the Crown of Spain are taken into consideration. Spain owes much of her late improvement to the increased strength of the Government, and to the cessation of those military revolts which kept the country in a state of chronic anarchy and made material progress impossible. Free institutions were of little avail in the absence of order. Constitutional Spain is still, however, ruled somewhat on the maxims of her old despotism. The Cortes between the years 1835 and 1858 have been dissolved fourteen times. The traditions of centuries are not to be obliterated by the institutions of a day. It has been well said that what Spain needed most was not a Constitution, but a Government; and her leading modern statemen, with one eminent exception, have seldom scrupled, when they found they could not rule vigorously within the limits of the Constitution, to overrule it. Constitutional government is in truth not yet practicable, in the sense at least in which it has been accepted in England; the country does not at present possess all the elements which enter into the composition of our parliamentary system, where the informed will of the nation is embodied in the Legislature, and finds its expression in the Cabinet. The number of persons possessed of the elective franchise is 157,931, being one for every 98 inhabitants; of deputies Vol. 111.-No. 221. * Wallis's 'Spain,' p. 289. M the the number is 349, being one for every 4431 inhabitants and 452 electors. In the election of 1857, 109,503 electors voted, and 48,248 abstained from voting. The want is felt of a sufficiently extensive intelligent, independent, and wealthy middle class, as well as of a resident landed aristocracy to give importance to the provinces and to lead the public mind. Centralisation is at present the essence of Spanish rule. A responsible ministry means, practically, a ministry responsible to the Sovereign. The executive really governs, and the favour of the Court is therefore of the first importance to a minister, who may find his career suddenly cut short by its displeasure. A disgraced minister would in vain rally his parliamentary supporters and put his rival in a minority; the new minister would immediately dissolve the assembly that opposed him, and soon find himself surrounded by a body of steady supporters. The practical ascendency of the executive over the legislature is not perhaps to be regarded in the present transition state of the country as an unmixed evil. In the assurance of protection and order, industry is thriving, agriculture has awakened, and commerce has started into new life. Notwithstanding the real subordination of the legislative to the executive power, the Cortes are sometimes the theatre of animated debate, and the noble language of Spain is heard in oratory which would do credit to the greatest political assembly of the world. It is much more satisfactory to note the recent rapid renovation of Spain than to trace its former melancholy decline. With regard to education, the progress in half a century has been most remarkable. In 1803, out of a population of 10,250,000, the number of scholars in all the educational establishments of the kingdom did not exceed 30,000, or one to every 340 inhabitants. In 1855 the number of children attending the schools of primary instruction was 1,004,974, or, taking the population from the last census at rather more than 15,000,000, one to every fifteen inhabitants. The number of normal schools or training colleges in the kingdom during that year was 1485. This is a great change, showing the profound darkness in which long adversity had plunged the people, and the wonderfully rapid spread of modern education. In 1827 the total number of students attending the public universities and seminaries was 13,677. In 1833 the number had increased to 18,000; and the total number attending universities and all other schools was nearly 500,000, while in 1859 the number receiving elementary education had again very greatly increased. By a law of 1812 the Government was *Anuario Estadístico de España,' 1858. charged |