wolves, O Lord, have entered thy flock, for the shepherds are few; many are hirelings and as hirelings they care only for shearing and not for feeding thy sheep."[424] [Sidenote: ALONSO DE ESPINA] To Fray Alonso de Espina may be ascribed a large share in hastening the development of organized persecution in Spain, by inflaming the race hatred of recent origin which already needed no stimulation. He was a man of the highest reputation for learning and sanctity and when, early in his career, he was discouraged by the slender result of his preaching, a miracle revealed to him the favor of Heaven and induced him to persevere.[425] In 1453 we find him administering to Alvaro de Luna the last consolations of religion at his hurried execution, and he became the confessor of Henry IV.[426] In 1454, when a child was robbed and murdered at Valladolid and the body was scratched up by dogs, the Jews were, of course, suspected and confession was obtained by torture. Alonso happened to be there and aroused much public excitement by his sermons on the subject, in which he asserted that the Jews had ripped out the child's heart, had burnt it and, by mingling the ashes with wine, had made an unholy sacrament, but unfortunately, as he tells us, bribery of the judges and of King Henry enabled the offenders to escape.[427] The next year, 1455, as Provincial of the Observantine Franciscans, he was engaged in an unsuccessful attempt to drive the Conventuals out of Segovia or to obtain a separate convent for the Observantines.[428] Thenceforth he seems to have concentrated his energies on the endeavor to bring about the forced conversion of the Jews and to introduce the Inquisition as a corrective of the apostasy of the Conversos. He is usually considered to have himself belonged to the class of Converso who entertained an inextinguishable hatred for their former brethren, but there is no evidence of this and the probabilities are altogether against it.[429]