Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/477

451 DEATH OF ALONSO DE AGUILAR. 451 tolerance, no longer hooded in the darkness of the chapter cloister, now stalked abroad in all his terrors. Zeal. '- — was exalted into fanaticism, and a rational spirit of proseljtism, into one of fiendish persecution. It was not enough now, as formerly, to conform pas- sively to the doctrines of the church, but it was enjoined to make war on all who refused theni. The natural feelings of compunction in the dis- charge of this sad duty was a crime ; and the tear of sj^mpathy, wrung out by the sight of mortal agonies, was an offence to be expiated by humili- ating penance. The most frightful maxims were deliberately engrafted into the code of morals. Any one, it was said, might conscientiously kill an apostate wherever he could meet him. There was some doubt whether a man might slay his own father, if a heretic or infidel, but none whatever as to his right, in that event, to take away the life of his son or of his brother.^^ These maxims were not a dead letter, but of most active operation, as the sad records of the dread tribunal too well prove. The character of the nation underw'ent a melancholy change. The milk of charity, nay of human feeling, was soured in every bosom. The liberality of the old Spanish cavalier gave way to the fiery fanaticism of the monk. The taste for blood, once gratified, begat a cannibal appetite in 36 See the bishop of Orihaela's presses an opinion, with which treatise, " De Belle Sacro," etc., Bleda heartily coincides, that the cited by the industrious Clemencin. government would be perfectly jus- (Mem. de la Acad, de Hist., torn, tified in taking away the life of vi. Ilust. 15.) The Moors and every Moor in the kingdonn, for Jews, of course, stood no chance in their shameless infidelity. Ubisu- this code ; the reverend father ex- pra. ; — and Bleda, Cor6nica,p. 995.