Chapter V

DEVOTION of Protestants scriptural and reasonable--That of 102 Roman Catholics poetical and affectionate--Religious enthusiasm leads to insanity--Mental devotion as distinguished from physical--Nature of Roman Catholic devotion accounted for by the worship of images--Intercession of saints--Saint Anthony--The illiterate guided by bodily vision rather than spiritual discernment--Horace confirms this--Illustrated by popular errors--Sensual and poetical elements were introduced to devotion by the Greeks--Destruction of images by the Emperor Leo the Iconoclast--Opinion of Pope Leo the Great--Images adorned like human beings perplex the mind between truth and fiction--Familiar examples--Money-contributions for adornment of images--Belief that saints can cure certain complaints--List of those--Saint Anthony of Padua's miracles--The fete of _San Anton Abad_--Virgin Mary, and her innumerable advocations--A list of several--The Rosary--Statues of the Virgin--Immense value of their wardrobes and trinkets--The most ugly of those statues excite most devotion--Virgin of Zaragoza--The heart of Mary--Month of Mary (May)--Kissing images--Anecdote of the Duke of A--- and his courtezan--Habits and promises--Penance

CHAPTER VI.

FEAST-DAYS--Processions and Novenas--Corpus Christi--How 122 performed in Seville, and the sacred dances of _los seises_--How in Madrid--Procession of Holy Week--The _Santo Entierro_--Clerical processions--Procession of the Rosary--Rites of Roman Catholicism--Jubilee of forty hours--_Romerias_ or pilgrimages

CHAPTER VII.

PURGATORY--Deliverance from by devotions of 142 survivors--Those devotions described--Difference between dogma of purgatory and other dogmas--Modes of drawing out souls--Masses for the dead--Legacies to pay for them--External representations of images and pictures--Day of All Souls and its practices--The Andalusian Confraternity of Souls--_Mandas piadosas_--Debtor and creditor account between the church and purgatory--How balanced--Bull of Composition--Soul-days--_Responses_--_Cepillo_, or alms-box--Financial operation--Origin of bills of exchange and clearing house--Wax Candles--Their efficacy--Cenotaphs--Summary of funds, and reflections on their misapplication

CHAPTER VIII.

AURICULAR CONFESSION--A sacrament inseparable from that of 152 communion--Obligatory on all once a year--Plan of discovering defaulters--How punished--Evils of confession--Power of the priest--Four evils pointed out--Discoveries in the Inquisition in 1820--Facility of obtaining absolution--Louis XIV.--Robbers and assassins--The confessional--Practice, how conducted--Expiatory acts--Refusal of absolution--A husband disguised as his wife's confessor--The injunction of secrecy on part of confessor--Advantages of the knowledge he gains--Jesuits advocate the confessional--No fees for confession, but gratuities are generally given

CHAPTER IX.

FASTS AND PENANCES--How observed--Indulgences--Spain is 170 privileged by the Bull of the Holy Crusade--Description of that bull--Prices of copies--Commissary-General of Crusades--His revenues--Their shameful application--Copy of that bull--Other acts of penance--The _Disciplina_ or whipping--_Cilicios_

CHAPTER X.

FALSE MIRACLES, RELICS, AND RELIGIOUS 187 IMPOSITIONS--Veneration of crucifixes and statues or images--Their power of healing--Picture at Cadiz--_Lignum Crucis_--Veronica--Bodies of saints--How procured--Inscriptions--Lives of saints--Maria de Agreda--St Francis--Scandalous representation of the appearance of the Virgin to a saint--Fray Diego de Cadiz--_Beata_ Clara--Her fame and downfall--The nun, Sister Patrocinio--Her success, detection, confession, and expulsion--She returns, and is protected by a high personage--She is again expelled, but again returns and founds a convent--Its disgraceful character and suppression--Her flight towards Rome--Occurrences on the road--Her return to Spain