If, as Thoreau said, “God is on the side of the most sensitive,” then He should have been very close to the timid, irresolute lad in Seville, in whom the softer traits of character, so unexpectedly developed in the adventurous founder of the RincÓn family, now stood forth so prominently. Somber, moody, and retiring; delicately sensitive and shrinking; acutely honest, even to the point of morbidity; deeply religious and passionately studious, with a consuming zeal for knowledge, and an unsatisfied yearning for truth, the little JosÈ early in life presented a strange medley of characteristics, which bespoke a need of the utmost care and wisdom on the part of those who should have the directing of his career. Forced into the world before his time, and strongly marked by his mother’s fear; afflicted with precarious health, and subjected to long and desperate illnesses in childhood, his little soul early took on a gloom and asceticism wholly unnatural to youth. Fear was constantly instilled into his acutely receptive mind by his solicitous, doting parents; and his life was thereby stunted, warped, and starved. He was reared under the constant reminder of the baleful effects of food, of air, of conduct, of this and that invisible force inimical to health; and terror and anxiety followed him like a ghost and turned about all his boyish memories. Under these repressing influences his mind could not but develop with a lack of stamina for self-support. Hesitancy and vacillation became pronounced. In 15 time, the weight of any important decision gave him acute, unendurable agony of mind. Called upon to decide for himself a matter of import, his thought would become confused, his brain torpid, and in tears and perplexity the tormented lad would throw himself into the arms of his anxious parents and beg to be told what course to pursue.

Thus his nature grew to depend upon something stronger than itself to twine about. He sought it in his schoolmates; but they misread him. The little acts which were due to his keen sensitiveness or to his exaggerated reticence of disposition were frequently interpreted by them as affronts, and he was generally left out of their games, or avoided entirely. His playmates consequently became fewer and more transient as the years gained upon him, until at length, trodden upon, but unable to turn, he withdrew his love from the world and bestowed it all upon his anxious mother. She became his only intimate, and from her alone he sought the affection for which he yearned with an intensity that he could not express. Shunning the boisterous, frolicking children at the close of the school day, he would seek her, and, nestling at her side, her hand clasped in his, would beg her to talk to him of the things with which his childish thought was struggling. These were many, but they revolved about a common center––religion.

The salient characteristics already mentioned were associated with others, equally prominent, and no less influential in the shaping of his subsequent career. With the development of his deep, inward earnestness there had appeared indications of latent powers of mind that were more than ordinary. These took the form of childish precocity in his studies, clearness of spiritual vision, and maturity in his conduct and mode of life. The stunting of his physical nature threw into greater prominence his exaggerated soul-qualities, his tenderness, his morbid conscientiousness, and a profound emotionalism which, at the sight of a great painting, or the roll of the Cathedral organ, would flood his eyes and fill his throat with sobs. When the reckless founder of the family experienced a reversal of his own dark traits of soul, nearly three centuries before, it was as if the pendulum had swung too far in the opposite direction, and at the extreme point of its arc had left the little JosÈ, with the sterner qualities of the old Conquistador wholly neutralized by self-condemnation, fear, infirmity of purpose, a high degree of intellectuality, and a soul-permeating religious fervor.

At the mention of religion the timid lad at once became passionate, engrossed––nay, obsessed. In his boyhood years, before the pall of somber reticence had settled over him, he had 16 been impressed with the majesty of the Church and the gorgeousness of her material fabric. The religious ideals taught him by his good mother took deep root. But the day arrived when the expansion of his intellect reached such a point as to enable him to detect a flaw in her reasoning. It was but a little rift, yet the sharp edge of doubt slipped in. Alas! from that hour he ceased to drift with the current of popular theological belief; his frail bark turned, and launched out upon the storm-tossed sea, where only the outstretched hand of the Master, treading the heaving billows through the thick gloom, saved it at length from destruction.

The hungry lad began to question his parents incessantly regarding the things of the spirit. His teachers in the parochial school he plied with queries which they could not meet. Day after day, while other boys of his tender age romped in the street, he would steal into the great Cathedral and stand, pathetically solitary, before the statues of the Christ and the Virgin Mary, yearning over the problems with which his childish thought was struggling, and the questions to which no one could return satisfying replies.

Here again the boy seemed to manifest in exaggerated form the reversed characteristics of the old Conquistador. But, unlike that of the pious Juan, the mind of the little JosÈ was not so simple as to permit it to accept without remonstrance the tenets of his family’s faith. Blind acceptance of any teaching, religious or secular, early became quite impossible to him. This entailed many an hour of suffering to the lad, and brought down upon his little head severe punishments from his preceptors and parents. But in vain they admonished and threatened. The child demanded proofs; and if proofs were not at hand, his acceptance of the mooted teaching was but tentative, generally only an outward yielding to his beloved mother’s inexorable insistence. Many the test papers he returned to his teachers whereon he had written in answer to the questions set, “I am taught to reply thus; but in my heart I do not believe it.” Vainly the teachers appealed to his parents. Futilely the latter pleaded and punished. The placid receptiveness of the RincÓn mind, which for more than three hundred years had normally performed its absorptive functions and imbibed the doctrines of its accepted and established human authorities, without a trace of the heresy of suspecting their genuineness, had at last experienced a reversal. True, the boy had been born in the early hours of nineteenth century doubt and religious skepticism. The so-called scientific spirit, buried for ages beneath the dÉbris of human conjecture, was painfully emerging and preening its wings for flight. The “higher 17 criticism” was nascent, and ancient traditions were already beginning to totter on the foundations which the Fathers had set. But Spain, close wrapped in mediaeval dreams, had suffered no taint of “modernism.” The portals of her mind were well guarded against the entrance of radical thought, and her dreamers were yet lulled into lethargic adherence to outworn beliefs and musty creeds by the mesmerism of priestly tradition. The peculiar cast of mind of the boy JosÈ was not the product of influences from without, but was rather an exemplification of the human mind’s reversion to type, wherein the narrow and bigoted mentality of many generations had expanded once more into the breadth of scope and untrammeled freedom of an ancient progenitor.

As the boy grew older his ability to absorb learning increased astonishingly. His power of analysis, his keen perception and retentive memory soon advanced him beyond the youths of his own age, and forced him to seek outside the pale of the schoolroom for the means to satisfy his hunger for knowledge. He early began to haunt the bookstalls of Seville, and day after day would stand for hours searching the treasures which he found there, and mulling over books which all too frequently were anathema to the orthodox. Often the owner of one of these shops, who knew the lad’s parents, and whose interest had been stirred by his passion for reading, would let him take one or more of the coveted volumes home over night, for the slender family purse would not permit him to purchase what his heart craved. Then came feasts for his famished little soul which often lasted until daybreak.

It happened one evening that, when he crept off to his little room to peer into one of these borrowed treasures, his father followed him. Pushing the chamber door softly open the parent found the boy propped against his pillow in bed, absorbed in a much-thumbed volume which he was reading by the pale light of the single candle.

“Is it thus that you deceive your poor parents?” the fond father began, in a tone of mock severity.

The startled lad stifled a cry and hastily thrust the book beneath his pillow. The father’s interest now became genuine. Leaning over the terrified boy he drew forth the volume.

“Voltaire!”

The doting father stood petrified. Voltaire, Antichrist, Archfiend of impiety––and in the hands of his beloved son!

Sleep fled the little household that night. In his father’s arms, while the distressed mother hung over them, the boy sobbed out his confession. He had not intended to deceive. He had picked up this book in the stall without knowing its 18 nature. He had become so interested in what it said about the Virgin Mary that he forgot all else. The shopkeeper had found him reading it, and had laughed and winked at his clerk when he bade the boy take it home for the night. The book had fascinated him. He himself––did not his father know?––had so often asked how the Virgin could be the mother of God, and why men prayed to her. Yes, he knew it mocked their faith––and the sacred Scriptures. He knew, too, that his father would not approve of it. That was why he had tried to hide it beneath his pillow. He had been wicked, desperately wicked, to deceive his dear parents––But the book––It made him forget––It said so many things that seemed to be true––And––and––

“Oh, padre mÍo, forgive me, forgive me! I want to know the truth about God and the world!” The delicate frame of the young lad shook in paroxysms of grief.

Alas! it was but the anguished soul-cry which has echoed through the halls of space since time began. What a mockery to meet it with empty creed and human dogma! Alas! what a crime against innocence to stifle the honest questionings of a budding mind with the musty cloak of undemonstrable beliefs.

“But, my son, have I not often told you? The Holy Church gives us the truth,” replied the father, frightened by the storm which raged within the childish soul, yet more alarmed at the turn which the mind of his cherished son was apparently taking––his only son, dedicated to the service of God from the cradle, and in whom the shattered hopes of this once proud family were now centered.

“But this book laughs at us because we pray to a woman!” sobbed the boy.

“True. But does not its author need the prayers of so pure a woman as the Virgin? Do we not all need them? And is it not likely that one so good as she would have great influence with God––much greater than we ourselves, or even the best of men, could have?”

“But how can she be the mother of God? The Bible does not teach that!”

“How do you know that the Bible does not teach it, my son?”

“I––I––have read––the Bible,” faltered the lad.

“You have read the Bible!” cried the astonished father. “And where have you done that, you wicked boy?”

“At the bookstore of Mariano,” confessed the trembling child.

“Madre de Dios!” burst from the father, as he started to his feet. “Mariano is a wicked infidel! The Bishop shall hear of this! Ah, well may the Holy Father in Rome grieve to see 19 his innocent babes led astray by these servants of hell! But, my son,” returning to the boy and clasping him again in his arms, “it is not too late. The Virgin Mother has protected you. You meant no harm. Satan covets your pure little soul––But he shall not have it!” The father’s tremulous voice mounted high, “No, by the Saints in heaven, he shall not have it!”

The boy’s assurance slowly returned under the influence of his father’s tender solicitude, even though he remained dimly conscious of the rift widening little by little between his parents’ settled convictions and his own groping thought. With the assuaging of his grief came again those insistent questions which throughout his life had tormented his peace and driven him even to the doors of infidels in search of truth.

“Father,” he began timidly, “why was I wicked to read the Bible?”

“Because, my son, in doing so you yielded to the temptations of Satan. The Bible is a great and mysterious book, written by God himself. He meant it to be explained to us by the Holy Father, who is the head of the Church which the good Saint Peter founded. We are not great enough nor good enough to understand it. The Holy Father, who cares for God’s Church on earth, he is good enough, and he alone can interpret it to us. Satan tries to do with all men just what he did with you, my child. He seeks to make them read the Bible so that he can confuse them and rob them of their faith. Then when he gets possession of their souls he drags them down with him to hell, where they are lost forever.”

“And does the Holy Father really believe that Mary is the mother of God?” persisted the boy, raising his tear-stained face.

“Yes––is she not? The blessed Saviour said that he and God were one. And, as Mary is the mother of Christ, she is also the mother of God––is she not? Let us read what the good Saint John Chrysostom says.” He rose and went into another room, returning in a few minutes with a little volume. Taking the boy again on his knee, he continued, “The blessed Saint tells us that the Virgin Mary was made the mother of God in order that she might obtain salvation for many who, on account of their wicked lives, could not be saved, because they had so offended divine justice, but yet, by the help of her sweet mercy and mighty intercession, might be cleansed and rendered fit for heaven. My little son, you have always been taught that Mary is heaven’s Queen. And so she is ours, and reigns in heaven for us. Jesus loves to have her close to him, and he can never refuse her requests. He always grants 20 what she asks. And that is the reason why we pray to her. She never forgets us––never!”

A troubled look crossed the boy’s face. Then he began anew. “Father dear, God made everything, did He not? The Bible says that, anyway.”

“Yes, child.”

“Did He make Satan?”

The father hesitated. The child hurried on under the lash of his holy inquisitiveness. “Father, how did evil come into the world? Is God both good and bad? And how can a good God punish us forever for sins committed here in only a few short years?”

“Ah, queridito!” cried the harassed father. “Such questions should not have entered your little head for years to come! Why can you not run and play as do other children? Why are you not happy as they are? Why must you spend your days thinking of things that are far too deep for you? Can you not wait? Some day you shall know all. Some day, when you have entered the service of God, perhaps you may even learn these things from the Holy Father himself. Then you will understand how the good God lets evil tempt us in order that our faith in Him may be exercised and grow strong––”

“And He lets Satan harm us purposely?” The boy’s innocent dark eyes looked up appealingly into his father’s face.

“It is only for a short time, little son. And only those who are never fit for heaven go down with Satan. But you are not one of those,” he hastily added, straining the boy to him. “And the Masses which the good priests say for us will lift us out of purgatory and into heaven, where the streets are pure gold and the gates are pearl. And there we will all live together for––”

“Father,” interrupted the boy, “I have thought of these things for a long, long time. I do not believe them. And I do not wish to become a priest.”

The father fell silent. It was one of those tense moments which every man experiences when he sees a withering frost slowly gathering over the fondest hopes of a lifetime. The family of RincÓn, aristocratic, intensely loyal to Church and State, had willingly laid itself upon the sacrificial altar in deference to its honored traditions. Custom had become law. Obedience of son to parent and parent to Sovereign, spiritual or temporal, had been the guiding star of the family’s destinies. To think was lawful; but to hold opinions at variance with tradition was unspeakable heresy. Spontaneity of action was commendable; but conduct not prescribed by King or Pope 21 was unpardonable crime. Loss of fortune, of worldly power and prestige, were as nothing; deviation from the narrow path trodden by the illustrious scions of the great Juan was everything. That this lad, to whom had descended the undying memories of a long line of glorious defenders of kingly and papal power, should presume to shatter the sacred RincÓn traditions, was unbelievable. It was none other than the work of Satan. The boy had fallen an innocent victim to the devil’s wiles.

But the house of RincÓn had withstood the assaults of the son of perdition for more than three centuries. It would not yield now! The all-powerful Church of Rome stood behind it––and the gates of hell could not prevail against her! The Church would save her own. Yes, the father silently argued, through his brother’s influence the case should be laid before His Eminence, the Archbishop. And, if need be, the Holy Father himself should be called upon to cast the devil out of this tormented child. To argue with the boy now were futile, even dangerous. The lad had grown up with full knowledge of his parents’ fond hopes for his future. He had never openly opposed them, although at times the worried mother would voice her fears to the father when her little son brought his perplexing questions to her and failed to find satisfaction. But until this night the father had felt no alarm. Indeed, he had looked upon the child’s inquisitiveness as but a logical consequence of his precocity and unusual mental powers, in which he himself felt a father’s swelling pride. To his thought it augured rapid promotion in the Church; it meant in time a Cardinal’s hat. Ah, what glorious possibilities! How the prestige of the now sunken family would soar! Happily he had been aroused to an appreciation of the boy’s really desperate state in time. The case should go before the Archbishop to-morrow, and the Church should hear his call to hasten to the rescue of this wandering lamb.