with the inconsistencies and the failings of the clergy, and inspired him with a contempt for that order which he was usually at no pains to conceal. His attachment to the cause of Christ lasted just as long as it was profitable. Such considerations are not applicable, however, to the independent Christian population of Spain. With it the extinction of Moslem domination was a measure of political necessity, of national existence, of individual freedom. For five hundred years the struggle had continued. More than once the petty states which had sprung from the weak and insignificant community established in the Asturias in the face of Moorish triumph, expanded by ages of undaunted resolution and superhuman valor, and finally developed into a number of kingdoms whose mutual antagonisms were the greatest menace to their stability and power, had been on the point of submitting once more in humiliating subordination to Moslem authority, evidenced by the regular and humiliating rendition of homage. Generations of battle had engendered in the mind of the Spanish Christian a sentiment of ferocious hatred against the infidel enemy who had usurped the empire of his ancestors; who had defeated his most valiant sovereigns; to whose harems had been consigned the most beautiful maidens of his race, either as a degrading tribute or as the spoils of war; whose sacrilegious hands had seized the sacred treasures of his altars; who had deposited with exultant shouts within the mosque of his capital the bells whose solemn tones had so often called to their devotions the pilgrims assembled at the holy shrine of Santiago. The grosser passions of avarice and military ambition were, indeed, rarely absent from the motives which prompted the conduct of the mediæval Spaniard. Inherited prejudice, early education, the maxims of his religious guides, all had a tendency to intensify the detestation entertained by him against such as refused assent to the doctrines of his creed. The Castilian despised the knowledge and the intellectual accomplishments which made the Moor immeasurably his superior, but he often reluctantly confessed the bravery of his infidel adversary in the field. This antipathy and intolerance, while openly encouraged by the clergy for professional reasons, were in reality less marked among the ecclesiastics than elsewhere. As their order monopolized the meagre learning of the time, they were better qualified to appreciate the scientific acquirements which distinguished the polished enemies of their faith. As representatives of a system largely maintained by organized hypocrisy, they condemned in public what they often studied with wonder and delight in the luxurious solitude of the convent and the monastery. The prelates as well as the nobles did not disdain to imitate the vices of the Moslem, especially condemned by their religion, their canons, the precepts of their Founder, and the example of the chaste and abstemious Fathers of the Church.