religious Titans, as it were, who heaped Pelion on Ossa, not to dethrone the Deity they adored, but to admire more closely the mild countenance of the Virgin-Mother smiling on the Infant Jesus. In our days, when everything is sacrificed to some gross and stupid idea or other of comfort, people no longer understand these sublime yearnings of the soul towards the Infinite, which were rendered by steeples, spires, bell-turrets, and ogives, stretching their arms of stone heavenwards, and joining them, above the heads of the kneeling crowd, like gigantic hands clasped in an attitude of supplication. Political economists shrug their shoulders with pity at all these treasures lying idle without returning anything. Even the people are beginning to calculate how much the gold of the pyx is worth: they who once scarcely dared to raise their eyes on the white sun of the host, whisper to themselves that pieces of glass would do quite as well to decorate the monstrance as the diamonds and precious stones; the church is, at present, hardly frequented by any one save travellers, beggars, and horrible old hags, atrocious dueñas clad in black, with owl-like looks, death's-head smiles, and spider hands, who never move without a rattling, as if of rusty bones, medals and chaplets, and, under pretence of soliciting arms, murmur atrocious propositions concerning raven tresses, rosy complexions, burning glances and ever-budding smiles. Spain itself is no longer Catholic! The Giralda, which serves as a campanila to the cathedral, and rises above all the spires of the town, is an old Moorish tower, erected by an Arabian architect, named Geber or Guever, who invented algebra, which was called after him. The appearance of the tower is charming and very original; the rose-coloured bricks and the white stone of which it is built, give it an air of gaiety and youth, which forms a strange contrast with the date of its erection, which extends as far back as the year 1000, a very respectable age, at which a tower may well be allowed to have a wrinkle or two, and be excused for not being remarkable for a fresh complexion. The Giralda, in its present state, is not less than three hundred and fifty feet high, while each side is fifty feet broad. Up to a certain height the walls are perfectly even; there are then rows of Moorish windows with balconies, trefoils, and small white marble columns, surrounded by large lozenge-shaped brick panels. The tower formerly ended in a roof of variously coloured varnished tiles, on which was an iron bar, ornamented with four gilt metal balls of a prodigious size. This roof was removed in 1568, by the architect, Francisco Ruiz, who raised the daughter of the Moor Guever, one hundred feet higher in the pure light of heaven, so that his bronze statue might overlook the sierras, and speak with the angels who passed. The feat of building a belfry on a tower was in perfect keeping with the intentions of the members