ts, and even gallantries of individuals; it fetters their reason,
and deprives it of all liberty and independence; and, above all, it
raises up in the midst of society, a privileged and isolated class,
superior to the power of the law and the government; into the hands of
that class it puts an absolute and irresistible authority, which is
exercised by invisible means, but means far more efficacious and terrible
in their effects than those of the civil power. From this universal and
irresistible predominance it results that the entire existence of the
Roman Catholic is a continual observance of the worship which he
professes, and consequently, that Roman Catholicism, at the same time
that it entirely modifies man, must of necessity, in its turn, receive,
in some degree, the impress of that temper which nature has bestowed upon
him. Thus we see that Roman Catholicism is more zealous, more
enthusiastic, more turbulent, in Ireland, more artistic in Italy, more
philosophic in Germany, more literary and discursive in France, more
idolatrous in the States of South America, more reserved and modest, more
decent and tolerant, less ambitious in its aspirations, and less
audacious in its polemics, in England than in any other part of the
world.

As to Roman Catholicism in Spain: we see thrown in its face its cruel
intolerance, its puerile practices, its profane language, its blind
submission, or rather the absolute slavery in which it places the
believer with respect to the priest. There is much truth in these
charges; but all of them are accounted for by an observance of history,
and by a knowledge of the natural character and circumstances which have
contributed to foster and strengthen religious sentiments in Spain.

The intolerance of Roman Catholicism in the Peninsula, carried to
tyranny, and, frequently, even to ferocity, has been a consequence of the
religious wars of six centuries,--wars which the Goths sustained with
unwearied perseverance against the Moors of Africa. The Goths had
embraced the Christian religion with all the ardour and sincerity
peculiar to a nation but recently delivered from a violent and savage
state; for, although a generous race, they were ignorant and coarse in
their habits. Their conversion to Christianity not only entirely
modified their moral and religious notions, and introduced among them a
greater elevation of feeling and an amplitude of ideas, but associated,
intimately, the religious