Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/474

448 448 RISING IN THE ALPUXARRAS. I'ART wondered at, as there were very {ew, probably, who '■ — would not sooner imitate their Granadine brethren, in assuming the mask, of Christianity, than encoun- ter exile under all the aggravated miseries with which it was accompanied.^^ Castile might now boast, the first time for eight centuries, that every outward stain, at least, of infi- delity, was purified from her bosom. But how had this been accomplished ? By the most detestable expedients which sophistry could devise, and op- pression execute ; and that, too, under an enlight- ened government, proposing to be guided solely by a conscientious regard for duty. To comprehend this more fully, it will be necessary to take a brief view of public sentiment in matters of religion at that time. ciiristianity It is a singular paradox, that Christianity, whose etanisra. doctriucs inculcate unbounded charity, should have been made so often an engine of persecution ; while Mahometanism, whose principles are those of avowed intolerance, should have exhibited, at least till later times, a truly philosophical spirit of toleration. ^^ Even the first victorious disciples of the prophet, glowing with all the fiery zeal of 33 The Castilian writers, espe- cho's Moorish friend, Ricote. Don oially the dramatic, have not been Quixote, part. 2, cap. 54. insensible to the poetical situations 34 The spirit of toleration pro- afforded by the distresses of the fessed by the Moors, indeed, was banished Moriscoes. Their sym- made a principal argument against pathy for the exiles, however, is them in the archbishop of Va- whimsically enough contrasted by lencia's memorial to Philip III. an orthodox anxiety to justify the The Mahometans would seem the conduct of their own government, better Christians of the two. The reader may recollect a perti- See Geddes, Miscellaneous Tracts nent example in the story of San- (London, 1702-6,) vol. i. p. 94.