But if Bensaken was kind in his judgment of the ancient Queen, whose guilt or innocence will never be made the subject of inquiry before a court of impeachment in this world, he was less inclined to say a good word for the women of Spain. And in this matter he was no harder on them than others who have lived long enough in this demonstrative country to know the facts in the case. The women of Spain are, as a nation, more beautiful than those of any foreign country in which I have travelled, and this average beauty covers the peasant classes as well as the better-born. This is to be mentioned in connection with the fact stated by all who are familiar with Spain, that virtue is scarcely known. It is impossible, without disregard of the proprieties, to go into the statistics which an illustration of this fact would require. I was repeatedly assured that ladies would regard it as a reproach, an evidence that they were slighted, if they had not an acknowledged lover besides their legal lord. Of course the men are worse than the women, if worse can be, and little or no disgrace can be said to accrue when the vice is so common that virtue is an exception, and is despised at that. If it be asked, how can such a state of things be, when the church embraces in its bosom all the people, young and old, and confession is required of all who commune? the answer is easy. The forced celibacy of the priests tends to corruption, and they have no moral power over the people, unless it be a moral power for evil. And this vice is not necessarily a vice of a Roman Catholic people: it is the vice of the climate: as genial to the south as intemperance in drink is to the north. We must be charitable in our judgments of our neighbors and our fellow-sinners everywhere. It is a very common impression that the sins of a people are fashioned by the type of the religion they profess; and that this vice, which prevails all over the south of Europe, has some relation to the Roman Catholic religion, which is also the ruling influence of church and state. Doubtless the reformation of the church would reform the state also, but human nature will remain substantially the same, and the vices peculiar to the climate would still discover themselves to a greater or less extent. Under the Protestant influences of the north of Europe, intemperance prevails fearfully. So it does in our country, in spite of the highest moral culture and the best opportunities of education. Religion in its purest forms does not reach the masses of mankind in any country so as to save all of them from vice, and in its imperfect development, as in Romish or half-reformed countries, it is even less powerful to deter the multitude from evil. CHAPTER XIV. GRANADA.