TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE SPANISH REVOLUTION.
THE accounts from Spain are confused enough, but at least they make one point clear. The Ultramontanes have done their work, and Rome has lost one more people. For twenty-three years, ever since the promulgation of the consti- tution of Narvaez, the priesthood has been strong in Spain, and from 1856 has been virtually absolute, has made and dismissed ministries, has controlled the Queen, has regulated or rather refused education, has maintained "the freedom of monastic life," that is, its exemption from the law, and has made its influence felt in the daily life of every household. So complete has been its power, that it has been able to act without audible remonstrance till Europe quoted Spain as the last of the sincerely Catholic countries, the Spanish as the last civilized race which still heartily approved a priestly re'llime. Men were thrown into dungeons with impunity on the charge of propagandism. To open a Protestant church was a virtual impossibility. To be a Jew was to be persecuted, till exile seemed an easier alter- native than residence in cities where Jews had once in the benighted Mohammedan days been almost princes. The Church could scarcely wish for power more full, she used it without scruple, and as in Austria, so in Spain, she evoked a silent hate which among some classes extends itself, we greatly fear, to the creed she has so fearfully misrepresented. The middle classes of Spain, we believe, have abandoned Chris- tianity almost as fully as Catholicism, the townspeople hate the priests with a hatred which imperils even their lives, and if the peasantry are still faithful,—a point on which answers vary in every province,—it is to the curas who serve the altar and not the monks who defend it, to the Catholic faith and not the Catholic Church. The Revolution arrives at last, and the first cry of the people is for religious liberty, the first decree of the new Government the expulsion of the Jesuits, the first promise the suppression of the great religious corporations. The worst charge which can be produced against a candidate for the throne is that he is brought up by priests ; the most natural candidate, the ablest descendant of Charles V., Albrecht of Austria, is decried as an Ultramontane ; and there are leading Spaniards who maintain that they must choose a Protestant Prince, lest perchance the country should fall once more under the dominion of his confessor. And, finally, it is proposed, as if to show that the hostility is not simply a " Red " hatred of priests, but a genuine explosion of faith in religious freedom, that monks and nuns should be "free," free as in France and Italy, to throw off the cowl and the veil and return into the world,—that orders are not in- delible, a point which in England the Legislature has not yet reached. All accounts agree that whatever may be the course of the Revolution, this much, at least, is clear, that the nation has broken with Rome, that no Spanish soldier will be sacrificed to defend the Papacy, that the priesthood will be forbidden to meddle in mundane affairs, that the Ultramon- tane policy, the policy of the Syllabus, the policy which is to culminate next year in an (Ecumenical Council, pledged to place the Papacy above the Church Universal, has been re- jected with ignominy in Spain. Twenty-three years of un- restrained sovereignty have ended in this, and Mr. Disraeli bids England dread the wisdom of the Vatican ! Italy, Austria, Spain, all lost in the reign of Pio Nono, and the Pope calls on the Church to decree that as mouthpiece of the deposi- tary of Inspiration his utterances are infallible, to be obeyed like the decreos of the Lord of whom he assumes to be Vice- terent I A priest to turn lawyer in Spain with impunity I—what is the secular victory of Mentana to that crushing spiritual defeat ? It is a mere spasm of wickedness, say the priests, a temporary victory of Satan, one of those passing visitations of wrath earned by the shortcomings of the faithful. It may be ; but it is strange that a similar outburst should have occurred in all Catholic countries, and should have been attended with one and the same phenomenon, that power once transferred from the priesthood to the State is never fully regained. No nation which has once abandoned autos-da-fe' has ever resumed them, no State which has once resumed ecclesiastical property has ever restored it, no people who have once prohibited the clergy from high political office have again submitted to their rule. And the reason is clear. In a " spasm " which lasts but for ten years a generation rises from infancy to manhood, and then the country is ruled for half a century by men who have grown up ignorant that the whole duty of man is to obey the priesthood ; and that is a creed grown men are slow to learn.
On the religious question all accounts are consistent and in their general bearing satisfactory, but it is difficult to say as much on the political side. General Prim has announced in a letter to the Gatdois, a paper which he calls the Moniteur of the Spanish Revolution, that he has decided in favour of an imported monarch, and has informed the Emperor Napoleon that this monarch will belong to one of the reigning families of Europe. As the General is for the hour master of the situation, this decision destroys the last chance of a Federal Republic, or even of a commonwealth with a head elected for life, which in a country needing leadership might have been the most expedient compromise. Spain is still to be declared incapable of freedom without an idol to which the multitude may look up with awe as something above themselves, an image in velvet and jewels which men may worship, and so abstain from their neighbours' goods. A Governor Spain may need, but that is no reason that she should need a Governor's sons, and the General has conclusively proved that this is not what he means by announcing that the King will be sought among the reigning houses of Europe,—that is, among a caste which, for a century, has not produced a man of first-rate governing power, which is nowhere in harmony with the ideas of the age, and which at heart cherishes warmly the belief in a supernatural claim of birth. Granting, however, for the sake of argument, that the very symbol of order required was a Prince without too much ability, and,—what we should grant most cordially,—that the Liberator knows Spain better than any of his critics can profess to do, it is hard to comprehend the policy of delay. Why not pro- claim his choice at once ? Reverence for the national will t If he may settle the form of government, where is the imper- tinence of selecting its head ? Doubt as to his choice ? It is almost inconceivable to us that an old and able conspirator should have organized such a movement so successfully, should have thought out and fixed on a form of government, and should not have decided beforehand on the Prince to be presented for national acceptance. The Cortes is to choose ? Did a popular assembly ever make such an attempt except under leadership, or is a deadly fight between Republicans and Monarchists, partizans of this Prince and friends of that great family, the fitting introduction to a constitutional regime? Or is it wise to leave Spain for another month without either a Sovereign or an Assembly, to be distracted by every variety of wild appeal to a people already suffering from hunger and want of work ? Prim may be certain of controlling Madrid, for- its garrison is devoted to him ; but it is not Madrid alone that is hungry, not only in the great cities that the temptation of property acquired without labour may be held out to a people already demoralized by permitted lotteries. The cry of war to the rich is not the sound with which a new era should be hailed, and there is serious danger of that cry. There is, we admit, one theory on which we can understand Prim's action, but it is one for which there is as yet no evi- dence whatever. If he has selected a Prince sure to be offensive to the Emperor of the French, and sure also of sup- port in Berlin, a Prince either of Hohenzollern, Savoy, or Orleans, it may be needful that the candidate should be in Madrid before his choice is announced, that the State should be fully organized before armies can cross her frontier. Such a de'nouenzent would, though highly dramatic, be scarcely more theatrical than the Revolution itself, but of such a denouement there is as yet no sign. All evidence points to the belief that. Prim sincerely intends to await the assembling of the Cortes, then to propose his nominee, who will in all probability be. Ferdinand of Coburg, father of the King of Portugal, to be elected by acclaim, and that operation might have been as easily performed within a week of the installation of the Provisional Government. As it is, there is grave danger lest constitutionalism should be inaugurated by a battle in the streets of every great city in Spain.
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