and showed him the close connection which subsists between all these dogmas. The poor man had been deprived of the ordinary means of instruction; but these priests, who were more opposed to the Gospel than water is to fire, says the narrator, taught and enlightened him. Those who boasted themselves to be the great extirpators of the truth became its propagators. The peasant of whom we speak thus attained to the fulness of the faith which hitherto had only just dawned upon him. It was a striking example of the wonderful way in which Divine Goodness sometimes calls its chosen ones. There were many other such instances.'[25] [Sidenote: RODRIGO DE VALERIO.] The chief reformer of Spain was to spring from a higher class. He was born in Andalusia, the Baetica which in the eyes of the ancients was the fairest and happiest of all the countries in the world. Near rocky mountains, on a vast plain of picturesque and solemn aspect, lies Lebrixa, an ancient town about ten leagues from Seville on the Cadiz side. Here lived Rodrigo de Valerio, a young man of a rich and distinguished family. He had, in common with the Andalusians, great quickness of apprehension; fancy sparkled in his speech, and his temperament was very cheerful. Like them, he was distinguished by his love of pleasure, and it was his glory to surpass in its indulgence all the young men with whom he associated. He generally lived at Seville, a town called by the Romans 'little Rome' (_Romula_), which had long been a centre of intelligence, and where the Alcazar and other monuments recalled the magnificence of the Moorish kings. Rodrigo had received a liberal education, and had learned a little Latin; but this had been speedily forgotten amidst the diversions of youth. There was not a hunt nor a game at which he was not present. He was to be seen arriving at the rendezvous mounted on a superb horse, richly equipped, and himself magnificently attired.[26] Easy and skilful in bodily exercises, he carried away every prize. Full of grace and elegance, he succeeded in winning the favor of fair ladies. His delight was to mount the wildest horse, to scale the rocks, to dance with light foot, to hunt with horn and hound, to draw the cross-bow or shoot with the arquebus, and to be the leader of fashionable young men in every party and at every festival.