The Sneerers And
Scoffers At Religion Do Not Spring From Amongst The Simple Children
Of Nature, But Are The Excrescences Of Overwrought Refinement, And
Though Their Baneful Influence Has Indeed Penetrated To The Country
And Corrupted Man There, The Source And Fountainhead Was Amongst
Crowded Houses, Where Nature Is Scarcely Known.
I am not one of
those who look for perfection amongst the rural population of any
country; perfection is
Not to be found amongst the children of the
fall, wherever their abodes may happen to be; but, until the heart
discredits the existence of a God, there is still hope for the soul
of the possessor, however stained with crime he may be, for even
Simon the magician was converted; but when the heart is once
steeled with infidelity, infidelity confirmed by carnal wisdom, an
exuberance of the grace of God is required to melt it, which is
seldom manifested; for we read in the blessed book that the
Pharisee and the wizard became receptacles of grace, but where is
there mention made of the conversion of the sneering Sadducee, and
is the modern infidel aught but a Sadducee of later date?
It was dark night before we reached Evora, and having taken leave
of my friends, who kindly requested me to consider their house my
home, I and my servant went to the Largo de San Francisco, in which
the muleteer informed me was the best hostelry of the town. We
rode into the kitchen, at the extreme end of which was the stable,
as is customary in Portugal. The house was kept by an aged gypsy-
like female and her daughter, a fine blooming girl about eighteen
years of age. The house was large; in the upper storey was a very
long room, like a granary, which extended nearly the whole length
of the house; the farther part was partitioned off and formed a
chamber tolerably comfortable but very cold, and the floor was of
tiles, as was also that of the large room in which the muleteers
were accustomed to sleep on the furniture of the mules. After
supper I went to bed, and having offered up my devotions to Him who
had protected me through a dangerous journey, I slept soundly till
the morning.
CHAPTER III
Shopkeeper at Evora - Spanish Contrabandistas - Lion and Unicorn - The
Fountain - Trust in the Almighty - Distribution of Tracts - Library at
Evora - Manuscript - The Bible as a Guide - The Infamous Mary - The Man
of Palmella - The Charm - The Monkish System - Sunday - Volney - An
Auto-Da-Fe - Men from Spain - Reading of a Tract - New Arrival - The
Herb Rosemary.
Evora is a small city, walled, but not regularly fortified, and
could not sustain a siege of a day. It has five gates; before that
to the south-west is the principal promenade of its inhabitants:
the fair on St. John's day is likewise held there; the houses are
in general very ancient, and many of them unoccupied. It contains
about five thousand inhabitants, though twice that number would be
by no means disproportionate to its size.
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