And
yet that Marie should do so, she could not believe; and if she did,
harshness and suffering were to be her sole reward! Oh, that in
religion, as in every thing else, man would judge his brother man by
his own heart; and as dear, as precious, as his peculiar creed may be
to him, believe so it is with the faith of his brother! How much of
misery, how much of contention, of cruelty and oppression, would pass
away from this lovely earth, and give place for Heaven's own unity and
peace, and harmony and love.
CHAPTER XXX.
"Oh, bear me up
Against the unutterable tenderness
Of earthly love, my God! In the sick hour
Of dying human hope, forsake me not!"
MRS. HEMANS.
For some months all was gayety and rejoicing in Segovia, not a little
heightened by the exciting preparations for the much desired war. The
time had now come when Ferdinand could, with safety to the internal
state of his kingdom, commence the struggle for which he had so
impatiently waited, since the very first hour of the union of Arragon
and Castile. Troops were marshalling secretly all over Spain; the
armorers and smiths were in constant requisition. The nobles were
constantly flitting from their hereditary domains to the court, eager
and active to combine all the pomp and valor of a splendid chivalry
with the more regular force; standing armies, which in almost every
European land were now beginning to take the place of the feudal
soldiery, so long their sole resource.
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