ars.
Many a Pagan country, too, which had never heard either of Jesus or of
Mahomet, was interested in the event of the War of Granada. Montezuma
and Atahuallpa, who never had so much as dreamed of Europe, had their
fate determined by the decision of the long struggle between the rival
religions and peoples of the Peninsula; and Boabdil was not the only
monarch, by many, who then and there had his lot decided. Much of
America, and not a little of Europe, were conquered on the Plains of
Granada; and "the Last Sigh of the Moor" may have been given, not so
much to his own sad fate, as over the evil that was to come, and which
was to affect popes and princes and peoples alike. There was not a
country in the world but might have served itself well, if it had sent
aid to the struggling Moors. Instead of rejoicing over the victory of
the Spanish Christians, the world might have sent forth a wail in
consequence of it, as best expressing the sense that should have existed
of the woes which that victory was to be the means of bringing upon
mankind. The issue of that Peninsular contest was in every way bad, and
no good has ever come from it, but evil in abundance. The fountain that
was then unsealed was one of bitter waters only. The sympathies of men
should be with the Moors, who were the more enlightened, the more
liberal, and the wiser of the two races that then grappled for a final
encounter. Being the weaker party, they fell, but they were destined to
have grand funeral games.

Freed from the presence of any Mussulman states, Spain was enabled to
begin a grand European career in the latter years of the fifteenth
century, the conquest of Granada and the discovery of America having
given her a degree of power that gained for her the world's profoundest
respect. Partly by success in war, and partly through a series of
fortunate marriages, she became the first member of the European
commonwealth in a quarter of a century after the overthrow of the Moors.
The first of her Austro-Burgundian kings was made Emperor of Germany,
and by birth he was lord of the Netherlands. In a few years, and after
the conquest of Mexico, he had a French king among his captives, and the
Pope was shut up by one of his armies in the Castle of St. Angelo. Yet a
few years more, and Peru was added to the dominions of Spain. The
position and principles of the Emperor-King made him the champion of the
old order of things in Europe as against the Reformation,