Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/449

423 PERSECUTIONS IN GRANADA. 423 with compassion for the unhappy beings, who so chapter heedlessly incurred the heavy liabilities attached to _ their new faith. Every Spaniard, doubtless, antici- pated the political advantages likely to result from a measure, which divested the Moors of the peculiar immunities secured by the treaty of capitulation, and subjected them at once to the law of the land. It is equally certain, however, that they attached great value in a spiritual view to the mere show of conversion, placing implicit confidence in the puri- fying influence of the waters of baptism, to whom- ever and under whatever circumstances adminis- tered. Even the philosophic Martyr, as little tinc- tured with bigotry as any of the time, testifies his joy at the conversion, on the ground, that, although it might not penetrate beneath the crust of infideli- ty, which had formed over the mind of the older and of course inveterate Mussulman, yet it would have full effect on his posterity, subjected from the cradle to the searching operation of Christian disci- pline. ^^^ With regard to Ximenes, the real author of the work, whatever doubts were entertained of his dis- cretion, in the outset, they were completely dis- pelled by the results. All concurred in admiring 40 " Tu vero inquies," he says, que nova superveniente discipline, in a letter to the cardinal of Santa juvenum saltern et infantum atque Cruz, " hisdem in suum Mahome- eo tutius nepotum, inanibus illis lem vivent anitnis, atque id jure superstitionibus abrasis, novis im- merito suspicandum est. Durum buentur ritibus. De senescentibus, namque majorum instituta relin- qui callosis animis induruerunt, quere ; attamen ego existimo, con- haud ego quidem id futurum infi- sultum optime fuisse ipsorum ad- cior." Opus Epist., epist. 215. — mittere postulata : paulatim nam- Also, Carta de Gonzalo, MS,