Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/429

403 PERSECUTIONS IN GRANADA. 403 rcer of improvement, further than it had advanced chaptek for centuries. It must, indeed, be confessed, that '- this powerful agency is sometimes for evil, as well as for good. It is this same impulse, which spurs guilty Ambition along his bloody track, and which arms the hand of the patriot sternly to resist him ; which glows with holy fervor in the bosom of the martyr, and which lights up the fires of persecu- tion, by which he is to win his crown of glory. The direction of the impulse, differing in the same individual under different circumstances, can alone determine whether he shall be the scourge or the benefactor of his species. These reflections have been suggested by the ximenes. 1 r 1 T 1 I r> his constaii- character or the extraordmary person brought for- cyofpnr- J r c pose. ward in the preceding chapter, Ximenes de Cisne- ros, and the new and less advantageous aspect, in which he must now appear to the reader. Inflexi- ble constancy of purpose formed, perhaps, the most prominent trait of his remarkable character. What direction it might have received under other circum- stances it is impossible to say. It would be no great stretch of fancy to imagine, that the unyield- ing spirit, which in its early days could voluntarily endure years of imprisonment, rather than submit to an act of ecclesiastical oppression, might under sim- ilar influences have been aroused, like Luther's, to shake down the ancient pillars of Catholicism, in- stead of lending all its strength to uphold them. The latter position, however, would seem better assimilated to the constitution of his mind, whose sombre enthusiasm naturally prepared him for the