Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from History of the Reign of Philip the Second, Vol. 3: King of Spain
The peculiar nature of the. War in which the Spaniard for eight centuries had thus been engaged exercised an important in?uence on the national character. Gener ation after generation had passed their lives in one long, uninterrupted crusade. It had something of the same effect on the character of the nation that the wars for the recovery of Palestine had on the Crusaders of the Middle Ages. Every man learned to regard himself as in an especial manner the soldier of Heaven, - forever fighting the great battle of the Faith. With a mind exalted by this sublime conviction, what wonder that he should have been ever ready to discern the imme diate interposition of Heaven in his behalf P - that he Should have seen again and again the patron saint of his country, charging on his milk-white steed at the head of his celestial chivalry, and restoring the waver ing fortunes of the fight? In.this exalted state of feeling, institutions that assumed elsewhere only a political or military aspect wore here the garb of religion. Thus the orders of chivalry, of which there were several in the Peninsula, were founded on the same principles as those of Palestine, where the mem bers were pledged to perpetual war against the infidel.
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