pith and strength had been slowly gnawed away, was imposing and
majestic still. But the priest, the soldier, and the courtier had been
busy too long, and had done their work too thoroughly, to leave much hope
of arresting the universal decay.

Nor did there seem any probability that the attempt would be made.

It is always difficult to reform wide-spread abuses, even when they are
acknowledged to exist, but when gigantic vices are proudly pointed to as
the noblest of institutions and as the very foundations of the state,
there seems nothing for the patriot to long for but the deluge.

It was acknowledged that the Spanish population--having a very large
admixture of those races which, because not Catholic at heart, were
stigmatized as miscreants, heretics, pagans, and, generally, as accursed-
-was by nature singularly prone to religious innovation.
Had it not been for the Holy Inquisition, it was the opinion of acute
and thoughtful observers in the beginning of the seventeenth century,
that the infamous heresies of Luther, Calvin, and the rest, would have
long before taken possession of the land. To that most blessed
establishment it was owing that Spain had not polluted itself in the
filth and ordure of the Reformation, and had been spared the horrible
fate which had befallen large portions of Germany, France, Britain, and
other barbarous northern nations. It was conscientiously and thankfully
believed in Spain, two centuries ago, that the state had been saved from
political and moral ruin by that admirable machine which detected
heretics with unerring accuracy, burned them when detected, and consigned
their descendants to political incapacity and social infamy to the
remotest generation.