For cinctured round with spiry wheaten ears And clustering grapes of gold, Types of the pure oblation offered now For bloody rites of old,
Here, (by no freak of fancy,) underneath Its rim of mystic red, It shaded from a Roman summer's sun The sacred snow-white head
Of our dear Pius; as from church to church, Amidst the kneeling throng, Serene he passed--a vision of delight, The ancient ways along!
Angels of Rome! oh! shield that head beloved From danger and all fears; Watch o'er the pontiff brave, the sovereign good, The priest of fifty years!
And when his hour arrives, so long postponed By Christendom's fond prayer, May he in heaven's own hierarchy throned, Be still our glory there!
In his latest historical work, (_Isabelle de Castille. Grandeur et Décadence de l'Espagne_,) the distinguished historian, M. Capefigue, says that, besides other debts to Isabella of Castile, Spaniards also owe an association that saved Spain from disorder and anarchy--_La Santa Hermandad_, the holy brotherhood, whose law was that of absolute solidarity. Cervantes, in _Don Quixote_, never lets an occasion pass of praising the brotherhood, with which Isabella also introduced the holy office--the Inquisition. It is our habit, says M. Capefigue, in matters historical, to avoid the adoption of ready-made opinions, and more especially declamations. We must examine with judgment the customs, the institutions, of a period--the necessities of an epoch. Then, frequently, every thing is justified and explained. Power is not inflexible through pleasure or caprice, but through necessity. Ogres only exist in fairy tales. In political history there are no men who from mere caprice eat human flesh. There are two periods in the history of the Inquisition. In the first, it rendered immense services. Ferdinand and Isabella had just delivered Spain. But the Moors still covered the land, and had to be watched. In constant communication with the Arabs in Africa, they ceased not to invoke the aid of their brethren across the strait. Together they conspired to reconquer Andalusia, the promised land of the Arabs, who never ceased longing for the lovely countries watered by the Guadalquivir. Theirs it was to hope and to plot. Spain's it was to detect and punish them. In times of peril for a state, exceptional powers are given, extraordinary tribunals created. At a period exclusively religious, the sign of Spanish nationality was Catholicity. Christian was the synonym of citizen, and the holy office was charged with the police of the state against those who accepted not the law of the land. Not only France but other countries have had their committees of public safety and their revolutionary tribunals. In the second period, the Inquisition--no longer useful to the state--became a tribunal of theology. It pursued heresy, which in societies based on religious principles is always a danger. Most remarkable is it that even in its decline the Inquisition preserved its popularity so largely among the great men of Spain. Lope de Vega was the chief of familiars of the holy office. Calderon was one of its most ardent members, bearing its banners at _autos da fe_. Velasquez gloried in the title. Murillo paints the flowers--the saints that ornament the _san benito_--and Zurbaran takes his grandest heads from the Dominican fathers of the _santa fide_. Without the guard and protection of the Inquisition, Spain would not have effected the great things in her history. Torn by interior dissensions, she would not have had the Americas; the reign of Charles V. would not have been so glorious, nor would she have gained the battle of Lepanto and saved Christian Europe.