tribes) Christianity brought about in a comparatively short lapse of
time.

The reason is twofold. In the first place, the new form of religion
taught that all men were equal; consequently it was more to the taste of
the individualistic Spaniard than the state doctrines of the Roman
Empire.

Secondly, it permitted him to worship his deity in as many forms
(saints) as there were days in the year; consequently each village or
town could boast of its own saint, prophet, or martyr, who, in the minds
of the citizens, was greater than all other saints, and really the god
of their fervent adoration.

Hence Christianity was able to introduce into the Roman province of
Hispania a social organization which was to exert a lasting influence on
the country and to acquire an unheard-of degree of wealth and power.

When the temporal domination of Rome in Spain had dwindled away to
nothing, other foreigners, the Visigoths, usurped the fictitious rule.
Their state was civil in name, military in organization, and
ecclesiastical in reality.

They formed no nation, however, though they preserved the broken
fragments of the West Roman Empire. The same spirit of individualism
characterized the tribes or people, and they swore allegiance to their
local saint (God) and to the priest who was his representative on earth
(Church)--but to no one else.

Consequently it can be assumed that the Spanish nation had not as yet
been born; the controlling power had passed from the hands of one
foreigner to those of another: only one institution--the Church--could
claim to possess a national character; around it, or upon its
foundations, the nation was to be built up, stone by stone, and turret
by turret.

* * * * *

The third foreigner appeared on the scene. He was doubtless the most
important factor in the formation of the Spanish nation.

It is probable that the Church called him over the Straits of Gibraltar
as an aid against Rodrigo, the last Visigothic king, who lost his throne
and his life because too deeply in love with his beautiful Tolesian
mistress.

Legends explain the Moor's landing differently. Sohail, as powerfully
narrated by Mr. Cunninghame-Graham, is one of these legends, beautifully
fatalistic and exceptionally interesting. According to it, the destiny
of the Moors is ruled by a star named Sohail. Whither it goes they must
follow it.

In the eighth century it happened that Sohail, in her irre