More to be desired was her doom, with all its anguish, than that of her destroyer and desolater, Spain. Here God’s judgments are written on the page of history in characters of fire: “Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled; and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! When thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled; and when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee.” As Spain did to others, so was it done to her. From the foremost place amongst the nations of the earth, she was cast into the depths of a degradation far worse, far lower than that into which she plunged the Empire of the Incas. She robbed the stores of an industrious people, destroyed their water-courses, deprived them of the means of subsistence. And from that day, even to the present, want, and scarcity, and cleanness of teeth in all her cities has been her own portion. Her very nobles, amidst their pomp and pride, have hungered and suffered thirst; the children of her chiefs and conquerors have pined away, and their eyes have failed them for want of those common fruits of the field of which, under the Inca’s beneficent sway, every poor man had enough and to spare. Well have the Despoplados of Spain—bare, and brown, and barren—avenged the fertile plains of Tahuantin Suyu, laid waste by the cruel stranger. The punishment sprang naturally out of the offence. The booty was a weight round the neck of the robber that sank him to perdition. It was the gold of Peru that ruined Spain. When she put forth her hand and took it, she took the curse of God with it. To the proud and idle Castilian, the lord of the New World, industry became the brand of slavery; commerce, a degradation; trade, the appropriate work of Jews and infidels. All those useful arts which make a people’s prosperity and happiness were neglected or despised. And the treasure that undermined the life and the energy of the nation, supplied at the same time fuel to sustain the fire of that long conflict which was the passion and the doom of the Spanish monarchy. In the contest that followed the Reformation, Spain was the great champion of Rome. Spain and England stand out before us during the last half of the sixteenth century, representatives of the principles that were contending for the world’s future; and sometimes the conflict seems almost narrowed to a duel between them. Victory for Spain, meant victory for Rome; meant kingly and priestly tyranny; the inquisition, the rack, and the stake. Victory for England, meant an open Bible, free thought, equal rights, liberty of conscience. And the tide of battle ebbed and flowed; and flowed and ebbed again. Sometimes it seemed as if the God of battles would declare for His own cause; sometimes it looked as though He stood aloof, and did not heed what men were doing on the earth.