. Spanish life in town and country . hich other countries of far less importanceare able to sustain. No wonder that her writers The Army and Navy 197 are pointing out that instead of being satisfiedwith immense long-winded despatches and notes,couched in grandiloquent language, which Span-ish Foreign Ministers seem to think amply suffi-cient, strong nations have a habit of sending aniron-clad, or two or three cruisers to back up theirdemands, and that no other European countrybut Spain thinks it safe or wise to leave her coastsand her commerce entirely without protection incase of a European w
. Spanish life in town and country . hich other countries of far less importanceare able to sustain. No wonder that her writers The Army and Navy 197 are pointing out that instead of being satisfiedwith immense long-winded despatches and notes,couched in grandiloquent language, which Span-ish Foreign Ministers seem to think amply suffi-cient, strong nations have a habit of sending aniron-clad, or two or three cruisers to back up theirdemands, and that no other European countrybut Spain thinks it safe or wise to leave her coastsand her commerce entirely without protection incase of a European war breaking out. Will thenation itself take the matter in hand, and in this,as in so many other matters, advance in spite ofits Government ? If it waits for the political see-saw by which both parties avoid responsibility,there will be small chance of a navy. The sameministry is in power to-day which landed thecountry in the Spanish-American War, and itwould seem as if the nation considers it the bestit can produce. Manana veremos f. CHAPTER XII REUGIOUS UFE THK natural bent of the Spanish mind is re-ligious. Taking the nation as a whole,with all its marvellous variations in race andcharacter, no portion of it has ever been re-proached for insincerity in its religious beliefs. Ithas been often held up to reproach for bigotryand superstition; but the people have in pastages been penetrated by a sincere reverence forwhat they have believed to be religion, and per-haps no other nation has been more thoroughlyimbued with an unwavering faith in the dogmastaught by its religious instructors. English Ro-man Catholics—especially those who have secededfrom the Anglican Church—are fond of declaringthat Spain is a splendid Catholic country, thehome of true Catholicism, and so forth. To acertain extent this has been true of it in the past,and dignity, loyalty, and the love of God arestill the ideals of the people at large, although inSpain, as in some other Continental nations, theprac
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