It is now certain that the great majority of the
Spanish Cortes will be moderate Radicals, and S. Zorrilla, the Premier, has ad- -dressed to them a somewhat important speech. He sees his way to an endurable finance, he uttered platitudes about Cuba, tut his main concern is evidently with the Church. Upon this subject he has modified his attitude, which was one of unbending hostility, and he is now evidently willing to accept a compromise. "We must," he says, "respect the feeling of the Catholics, which is, at all events, that of our wives and daughters." That is, so far as we know, the first open acknowledgment by a great official that in -Southern Europe Catholicism is now influential principally through the women, the men having ceased to believe that, or any -other creed. At the same time, it is to be noted that S. Zorrilla -does not argue that the creed is therefore to be persecuted. Rather it is to be respected, as that of very feeble, but very love- -able persons, with a title to as much consideration "as is con- datent with modern progress."
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