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APPLICATION OF THE METALS, chap, xviii.

first harvest of the mineral treasures of America came, were as a nation most intensely imbuedwith religious feelings. Whatever descriptionmay be given to the Christianity that had formerlyprevailed in Spain , it had in the contest of sevencenturies with the Moors who were settled among;them, and who possessed the most beautiful andfertile portions of their country, been changedinto a chivalric feeling, having little connexionwith the common duties of life, but exciting themto bold achievements, to the endurance of severeprivations, and to a strenuous exertion in suchenterprises as could inflict injury on the Maho-metan unbelievers. Their piety was not thatof the humble devotee fraught with feelings ofrepentance, and accompanied with resolutions ofamendment, but of warlike partisans fighting forthe power or the purity of the holy virgin, or forthe excellence of real or imaginary saints, to whosehonour they had devoted their swords and theirzeal. To propitiate these beings, they vowed todedicate a portion of the spoil acquired by theiradventurous rapine ; and hence the churches, theshrines, and the altars were decorated with thegold and the silver collected by the first expedi-tions to the American shores.

The irruptions of the Mahometans into thedistricts around them rendered the treasures ofthe churches insecure, till the final conquest ofthat race had produced internal tranquillity at the