The liberal Spanish papers overflowed with wit at the
proclamation of infallibility. They announced that his holiness was now
going into the lottery business with brilliant prospects of success;
that he could now tell what Father Manterola had done with the thirty
thousand dollars' worth of bulls he sold last year and punctually
neglects to account for, and other levities of the sort, which seemed
greatly relished, and which would have burned the facetious author two
centuries before, and fined and imprisoned him before the fight at
Alcolea. The minister having charge of the public instruction has
promised to present a law for the prohibition of dogmatic doctrine in
the national schools. The law of civil registry and civil marriage,
after a desperate struggle in the Cortes, has gone into operation with
general assent. There is a large party which actively favors the entire
separation of the spiritual from the temporal power, making religion
voluntary, and free, and breaking its long concubinage with the crown.
The old superstition, it is true, still hangs like a malarial fog over
Spain. But it is invaded by flashes and rays of progress. It cannot
resist much longer the sunshine of this tolerant age.
Far up the mountain-side, in the shade of a cluster of chestnuts, is a
rude block of stone, called the "King's Chair," where Philip used to sit
in silent revery, watching as from an eyry the progress of the enormous
work below.
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