But these were not the fatal losses. These men could have been replaced, such is the bountiful fertility of nature. But, in those days, if a man was reared who possessed independence or force of mind, or had much mind of any kind, he was likely to become a Protestant; and, if he did, one of two calamitous fates awaited him, either of which made him useless to Spain: he either concealed his opinions, and thus stifled his nobler life, or else the Inquisition destroyed him. Never was such successful war waged upon the human mind as in Spain at that period, for every man who manifested any kind of mental superiority was either slain or neutralized. If he escaped the goldmines, the wars, and the Inquisition, there was still the Church to take him in and convert him into a priest. Nor need we go as far as Spain to see the fatal damage done to communities by the absorption of promising youth into the priesthood. We have only to go to the French parts of Canada, and mark the difference between the torpid and hopeless villages there, and the vigorous, handsome towns of New England, New York, and Michigan, just over the border. The reason of this amazing contrast is that on our side of the line the natural leaders of the people found mills, factories, libraries, and schools; on the other side they enter convents and build churches; and the people, thus bereft of their natural chiefs, harness forlorn cows to crazy carts, and come down into Vermont and New Hampshire in harvest-time to get a little money to help them through the long Canadian winter. Thus, in Spain and Italy, the men who ought to serve the people, prey upon them, and the direct and chief reason why the northern nations of Europe surpass the southern is, that in the north the superior minds are turned to account, and in the south they have been entombed in the Church or paralyzed by titles of nobility. [Illustration: After Sedan. "Señor, we have brought to your Majesty this paroquet, which we found as we were going our rounds in camp."--From _Gil Blas_, Madrid, September, 1870.] Hence, in the country of Cervantes, in the native land of Gil Blas and Figaro, there is now little manifestation of their comic fertility and gayety of mind. A member of the American Legation obligingly writes from Madrid in 1875: