The last vicar-general of the order was the celebrated Father Fray Cirilo de Alameda, now Archbishop of Burgos, well known for his attachment to the cause of Don Carlos, during the civil war between that prince and Queen Christina.

The vow of obedience was observed with the most rigorous exactness. The chief of each convent was a despot to whose mandates it was not possible to offer the least resistance. All his inferiors, except those ordained to the priesthood, spoke to him only on their knees. The most tyrannical precepts were obeyed with the greatest docility. It would often occur that the guardian, or the prior, wishing to exercise influence in some powerful family, commanded one of his friars to use all possible means of gaining an introduction, so that the end might be accomplished. In this way they became possessed of great power over the most important families in the chief cities and towns of the kingdom; and from these families they received large donations and handsome legacies.

The penal code of the convents provided for certain offences the punishment of flagellation, imprisonment in a dungeon for indeterminate periods, living on bread and water, and public confession of sins. The mildest punishment consisted in being compelled to eat off the ground, kneeling, at the hour of the refectory. The friar who by his conduct had become incorrigible, and worthy of the severest punishment, was sent away, for the remainder of his life, to one of the convents situated in desert places.

All the religious orders of Spain have produced many men eminent for science and virtue, and among these may be reckoned one of the greatest and most distinguished statesmen that ever governed in that country,—such was the Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros, minister of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic sovereigns, and of Charles V. This cardinal was the founder of the proud university of Alcala; he was the conqueror of Oran, and the great reformer in all branches of the administration and of the government.

The sacred sciences owe to him inexpressible benefits for his famous Complutense Polyglot Bible, one of the most correct and splendid editions of the sacred writings hitherto published. One of the few copies now extant of that monument of piety and wisdom is to be found in the British Museum. Such men, however, were, it must be admitted, extremely rare exceptions, which do not weaken the force of our objections to the whole system of monastic institutions.

The corruption of the monastic orders began during the earliest times of the monarchy. In the time of Isabella the Catholic, the immorality of the friars had arrived at such a height as to induce that eminent woman, led by the counsels of the Cardinal Cisneros, to demand of Pope Alexander VI. a bull permitting her to introduce a radical reform among the religious orders in Spain. The Pope resisted, but, ultimately, was obliged to cede to the Spanish court; and Isabella checked, for some years, the disorders which brought so much scandal on the nation. The fact is, that the friars formed a separate state, independent of the government, and even of the bishops; they acknowledged no authority but that of the Pope, and their communications with the court of Rome were as frequent as they were private and mysterious. The bishops often claimed the right to exercise their own authority over this part of the ecclesiastical state, but always in vain; and although the Chamber of Castille, which was the supreme tribunal, lent its support to those just pretensions, that support was always disregarded by the pontifical court. The friars never would submit themselves to the bishops, except to receive holy orders from them; and whenever these were refused, although it might be on strong and just grounds, the friar had recourse at once to Rome, and returned from thence ordained.

We have not entered, in our list of religious orders, that of the Jesuits, because these formed an entirely separate class, and the greatest insult that could be committed against a Jesuit was to call him a friar. The Spanish Jesuits, like those throughout all Europe, were, in their exterior conduct, modest and decorous. They mixed but little with the lower classes of society, and their chief occupation was to direct the consciences of eminent persons, and particularly those of kings, bishops, and ministers. In Spain, as in all other places, they took a large share in politics, they patronised good studies, and accumulated great wealth. If jesuitical casuistry had not its birth in Spain, at least the greater part of its ecclesiastical writers, who propagated and defended that absurd and immoral conceit, were Spaniards, as may be seen on reference to the catalogue of them published by Pascal, in his Lettres d'un Provincial. The names of Escobar and of Sanchez have left a deplorable reputation for them in this branch of ecclesiastic literature. The treatise De Matrimonio of the latter contains such profound immorality, and such dangerous and obscene queries and doctrines, that the Inquisition included the publication in its index of prohibited books. But far greater scandal was produced throughout Europe by the book entitled De Rege et Regis Institutione, written by the celebrated Jesuit, Juan de Mariana. This man, truly great, and whom Gibbon places in the number of the most distinguished historians of ancient and modern times, wrote that work, apparently with the view of assisting in the education of Philip IV., but in reality to justify the assassination committed in France on the person of Henry III., and probably to prepare for that of his successor. Mariana sustains, with warmth, with eloquence, and with erudition, the dogma of regicide; determines the cases in which the commission of that crime is not only lawful but necessary and praiseworthy; lays down rules by which the deed should be executed, under certain and determinate circumstances; and even goes the length of excusing the use of poison, if other means fail, to get rid of a tyrant! The book was prohibited by all the governments of Europe, and burnt publicly in Paris by the hands of the common hangman.

That culpable and highly dangerous doctrine was not the only one of the same character with which the Jesuits poisoned the public morals in Europe. The system of ethics which they taught in their classes, and propounded from the pulpit and confessional, had for its basis the famous doctrine of probablism, by means of which all crimes found a powerful subterfuge through which their perpetrators were enabled to avert responsibility and punishment. For all kinds of excess, that doctrine afforded excuses; and hence falsehood, perjury, robbery, and even murder and adultery, might be converted by it into innocent actions, by means of the sophisms and frauds with which that absurd theory was interwoven. To this was united, in order to exasperate opinion against such men, the irresistible influence which these Jesuits exercised in all the courts. Meanwhile the immense wealth which they were accumulating, by means of commerce with the West Indies and in South America, betrayed, in the so-called Company of Jesus, a mundane and ambitious spirit totally incompatible with that which ought to prevail in every religious and cloistral establishment. About the middle of the eighteenth century, all the enlightened men of Europe exclaimed against that company, and ardently desired its extermination; and, although many works were published against it, and the voices of many religious orders were raised in denouncing it to the pontifical throne and to the public, such was the power and dexterity with which it neutralised these hostile dispositions, that nobody dared to attack its front, until a king of Spain, the illustrious Charles III., undertook that great work, and carried it on to its consummation with as much resolution as ability.

We have already described the characters of those good and able ministers who surrounded that monarch, and we have alluded to their Jansenistic doctrines, which were diametrically opposed to those professed by the Jesuits. But neither the upright principles nor enlarged ideas of the monarch, nor yet the influence exercised by Aranda, Campomanes, Floridablanca, and Roda, would have been sufficient to induce him to take a measure so violent, if there had not intervened a circumstance which necessarily appeared, in his eyes, an outrage on his dignity, a wound on his self-respect, and a threat against the legitimacy of his rights.

The king was as much a Jansenist as his ministers. The Jesuits knew it, and resolved to make a secret war against him, which should terminate in his dethronement. Father Rizzio, General of the Jesuits established in Rome, gave orders to all the chiefs of the convents belonging to their institution to propagate, by means of their subalterns, as well by private conversations as through the confessional, the important secret that Charles III. was the illegitimate son of Ferdinand VI., and that, consequently, he ought to be considered as a usurper of the throne of his reputed father. The minister, Roda, intercepted a correspondence containing irrefragable proofs of that abominable intrigue; and this was sufficient to make the king resolve upon a course of action which he had refrained from for some time, at the instance of his ministers, through fear of offending the court of Rome and of bringing a scandal on the Christian world. The king had no power to suppress a religious order; but he could, as chief of the state, expel from his territory any persons whomsoever, and this was the part which he took with respect to the individuals of the Company of Jesuits. The execution of this grand design was a master-work of foresight and prudence. The civil authorities of all the towns having Jesuitical establishments, as well in Spain as in the colonies, received a sealed packet from the government. On opening the outer cover was found an order that the interior packet was not to be opened till a certain day and at a certain hour, and in the presence of the subaltern authorities, and a most severe injunction to keep even that operation secret till the moment of its execution. On the arrival of the day and hour appointed the packets were opened, as had been previously arranged, simultaneously; and then was found, in each, an order to take immediate possession of the houses of the Jesuits, to sequester their goods, and transmit, without delay of time, their persons to the nearest port, in which would be found vessels already waiting to receive them on board, and convey them into Italy. This was done, at the same instant, in all places for hundreds of leagues in extent, without the Jesuits, with all their cunning, having received a breath of information, or entertained a suspicion, as to the stroke impending over them; and, what is still more strange, without having given rise to the least symptom of complaint or disapprobation. On the contrary, the other religious orders, who had been offended by the haughty bearing of the Jesuits, and who beheld their opulence and preponderance with envy, celebrated their fall without restraint, and considered it as a triumph of the true religion over the dangerous novelties which these men had introduced.

From that period nobody cared for the Jesuits nor thought of them, and the rest of the reigns of Charles III. and Charles IV. passed without a single voice being raised in their favour.

In 1817, Ferdinand VII., released from his captivity in France, and ruled entirely by the persecuting and fanatical party, not satisfied with having re-established the Inquisition, wished also to recall the Jesuits. The Council of Castille, which he consulted, pro forma, on that business, showed itself favourable, moved by the able report of his fiscal, Gutierez de la Huerta, a man known for his Voltairean opinions, who was suspected of having received a large sum of money to defend, with energy, the cause of fanaticism and of intolerance. The few Jesuits who have outlived their expulsion, and who are scattered over some of the towns of Italy, are returning to the Peninsula in such small numbers, that they are scarcely enough to occupy the ancient establishment of San Isidro in Madrid. Their installation, which was announced as an epoch of triumph, disappointed the expectation of the court, and of their friends. Those extraordinary beings, whose dress, customs, and even affected Italian accent, were opposed to the national habits and the ideas of the new generation, were beheld by the public with the most perfect indifference. It was said publicly that they were strangers, and that they despised their country; that they ate maccaroni instead of garbanzos; {67} and people spread about innumerable other epigrams and satires against them, regardless of the government police, and even without fear of the inquisitors. But what most tended to destroy their reputation was the circumstance that none of them were in a condition to instruct youth, and that, in order to fill the professorships of their college, they were obliged to take their professors from the secular ranks, some of them notorious for their independent and anti-Roman-Catholic opinions. When they began to recruit novices, they were unable to find any decent men, or known family, who would submit their children to their rule; and their noviciate was consequently composed of only ninety young persons, and these drawn from the lowest classes of society.

For the space of seventeen years they maintained themselves in this precarious condition, without advancing one step in their popularity, and even without exhibiting any of the qualities which had given confidence to their rule in former times. Far from captivating the will of the people, they exasperated it to such a degree, that in 1834, after the death of the king, the people of Madrid, in one of those moments of madness and irritation so frequent after the scourge of the cholera, penetrated the establishment of those holy fathers, and inhumanly sacrificed them to their fury. Even to this day the mystery which covered that sanguinary catastrophe has never entirely been revealed. One thing is certain, that in spite of the religious ideas of Spaniards, and of the superstitious veneration with which they beheld a religious habit, the Jesuits were immolated without causing one murmur of fanaticism or one tear of compassion.

It is but a few years ago that the Spanish government had the inexpressible condescendence to allow a community of Jesuits to establish itself in the magnificent convent of Loyola, the country of their founder. The last revolution which happened in that country offered them an opportunity of putting in practice those absolute principles which have always governed their conduct. The government of Espartero, informed of their secret intrigues, by which they contrived to agitate the public mind in the Basque provinces in favour of Don Carlos, ordered them to be expelled to the Balearic Islands; but they, fearful perhaps of severer measures being adopted against them, and convinced of the general hatred in which they were held by the people, fled to France, from whence it is probable they will not attempt to recross the frontier.

Monachism, then, has entirely disappeared from Spain, where only two convents remain for the instruction of those who are destined for the priesthood in the Philippine Islands. These men live within the cloisters according to the ancient regime; but they are forbidden to appear in public in the costumes of their respective orders. The preservation of those two establishments was considered indispensable for the preparation of materials for the government of those remote possessions, where the Indians are accustomed to obey the priest, and look upon him with more respect than that shown to the civil authority, and where their influence is sufficient, according to general opinion, to put down that revolutionary spirit which has despoiled Spain of her splendid dominions in South America. All this, however plausible, may arise out of a mistaken policy. New political ideas and legislation, under constitutional rule, have respected the convents of the nuns. One can scarcely conceive of this inconsistency on the part of governments which, under the name of liberty, have ruled Spain in these latter times. If the abolition of the convents of friars had for its chief ground the uselessness of those who inhabited them, it must be admitted that infinitely more useless is the life of a nun, consecrated to perpetual idleness, and without further occupation than that of assisting in the choir and in devotional practices, to which duties she could equally resign herself in the bosom of her own family.

The religious communities of women have the same denominations as the convents of friars, and they call themselves Augustines, Franciscans, Benedictines, &c. The respective rules of their organization do not exact from them, in any case, more duties than those of a contemplative life; and, in reality, there are now but few of those convents of nuns whose inmates dedicate themselves to the task of giving to persons of their own sex even the imperfect and limited education which, after all, forms no part of that useful knowledge required by modern civilization.

The Spanish nuns are, absolutely, some of the most insignificant of beings. There is nothing recorded of them either good or bad, and for many centuries we have no account of any Spanish nun distinguished for her talents, her writings, or even for her eminent virtues. In their conversation, they display a childish simplicity and an unwearied curiosity, together with an extraordinary deficiency of knowledge as it respects the fundamental truths of the Christian faith. The amusements with which they while away their secluded lives are reduced to those of making sweets (dulces), dressing images of saints, embroidering scapularies, {71a} and other such-like frivolities. A celebrated living poet has characterised them with great propriety and truth in the following epitaph:—

"Aqui yace Sor Belen, Que hizo almibares mui bien, Y paso la vida entera Vistiendo ninos de cera." {71b}

Except the convents of nuns of the mendicant orders, the greater part of them, in Spain, possessed, prior to the constitutional regime, considerable inheritances. These, however, having been, by a decree of the Cortes, converted and sold as national property, all their means are reduced to a bare subsistence on a small pension which ought now to be paid from the public treasury; but as that obligation has frequently been neglected in consequence of the repeated disturbances which have interrupted the peace of the monarchy, those unhappy women have often been overwhelmed with the greatest privations and misery. In such cases Christian charity has lent its succour, and all classes of the state have contributed to their relief. The government, on different occasions, has prohibited the admission of novices to these convents of nuns, in order that death itself might, without violence, extinguish those institutions, which are contrary to the ideas of the age. But this salutary provision has been imprudently eluded by the bishops, and recently modified by an article of the concordat effected with the court of Rome a few years ago, and which is everywhere unpopular.

One of the great evils resulting from the continuance of these nuns in Spain is, that they occupy numerous edifices worthy of a better purpose, and generally in the best situations in populous cities. Only one convent of this class deserves particular mention, on account of the great historical recollections connected with its existence, for the singularity of its organization, and for the pious object of its institution. It is called the Convent de las Huelgas, and is situated at a short distance from Burgos.

This magnificent establishment, founded and enriched by ancient monarchs, maintained an hospital in which a great number of invalids were attended to with the greatest care. The abbess wore the mitre and baculo like the bishops, and exercised both civil and criminal jurisdiction in the vast dominions belonging to the convent; she was called Senora de horca y cuchillo, {72} and was the chief of several ecclesiastical and secular officers. The sumptuous church of this convent contained within its walls the ashes of many of the kings and princes of ancient Spanish dynasties.



CHAPTER III.

CELIBACY AND MORALS.—Illicit relations formed by the clergy—Shameless avowal of their fruits—Ferocious character of love in the cloisters—Three flagrant cases—Murder of a young lady by her confessor, the Carmelite of San Lucar—His trial and sentence—Murder by a wife of her husband under the direction of her confessor, the Capuchine of Cuenca—His trial, imprisonment, and escape—Murder of a lady by the Agonizante of Madrid—His trial and execution—Scandalous occurrences in the Convent of the Basilios of Madrid—Forcible entry of the civil power—Murder of the abbot—Suppression of inquiry—Shameful profligacy of the Capuchines of Cascante and the nuns of a neighbouring convent—Mode of its discovery—Imprisonment of inmates of both convents—Removal of prisoners—Their mysterious escape—Exemplary performance of vows in some cases—Dangers of celibacy—Spanish women and their influence on society.

Religious celibacy has been justly censured, by true Christians, as opposed to the ends of creation, to the spirit of the gospel, and the good order of human society. If so severe a prohibition can scarcely be observed without great mortification and inconvenience by a few,—a very small number of men, endued with an aptitude which places them above the ordinary laws of humanity,—what shall we say to the possibility of its exercise by men with no such fitness for the task,—men of a nation whose very climate is incessantly soliciting the expansion of the sensual faculties,—a nation of whose social organization frequent intercourse in all the affairs of life between the two sexes is one of the most essential and necessary elements? We have already alluded to the state of concubinage in which the Spanish clergy were living prior to the reign of Isabella the Catholic. But we shall not be guilty of an injustice in admitting, that from that period until our own times a great number of the Spanish clergy, as well regular as secular, have borne the yoke with singular patience, and have, with exemplary self-denial, resigned themselves to the severe privation imposed upon them by that ordinance of their church. On the other hand, however, we cannot dissimulate the violent struggle between inclination and duty which they have had to sustain, and the immense difficulty of resisting a temptation which the frequent intercourse with the female portion of their charge has always offered to the clergy and friars in the discharge of their functions, especially when it is considered how prodigal nature has been to the women of the Peninsula in the bestowment of her richest personal attractions, and that great facilities have been given to the spiritual guides for the abuse of that prestige conferred upon them by the habit of their order.

In large towns, the presence of the bishops, and the respect which a polished and select society inspired, were, for the most part, a check on the impure inclinations of the clergy, even when their own sense of virtue and religion was insufficient to lead them to a spontaneous compliance with their arduous but sacred duty. But in small towns where these barriers did not exist, the clergy and friars, it must be admitted, infringed, and continued grossly to infringe, frequently in a scandalous manner, the vow of celibacy which they had solemnly sworn to observe. The priest of a rural parish, who was generally the most important personage of the whole population, had so frequent and such dangerous opportunities of forming relations of an illicit character with the weaker sex, that he required a proportionate degree of sanctity, virtue, and prudence, to resist them. These relations, however, be it said to the shame of Spain, once formed, are not concealed, but are generally openly and unblushingly made known to the public. All the towns-people know very well the person who is the priest's querida; {75} nay more, on many occasions they have recourse to her influence over the mind of their pastor; and even the fruits of these illicit relations are commonly known throughout the parish by the name of "the children of the priest!" (los hijos del cura.)

Not many years ago, in a small town in Valencia, and on a Sunday, the parishioners assembled in the square according to custom, waiting till the bell should announce to them the hour of entering the church to hear mass; hour after hour passed—no bell sounded—the people directed their steps towards the house of the priest's querida, where they found that he had passed the night in orgies of drunkenness and dissipation, and was, even then, in a state of intoxication.

It is worthy of note, as a remarkable circumstance, borne out by experience and by facts well authenticated, that the softer passion of the mind is, generally, in the cloisters, one of a cruel and ferocious character, quite incompatible with its natural essence. The archives of the Spanish tribunals abound with criminal proceedings against friars, for murders committed on the persons of their unhappy victims or paramours. There are three celebrated instances of this kind,—one against the Carmelite of San Lucar, another against the Capuchine of Cuenca, and the third against the Agonizante of Madrid.

The first of these notorious delinquents was a man of middle age, robust, strong, and who, until the event now referred to, had not given occasion for the least suspicion as to his morality. A young lady, of extraordinary beauty, and held in great esteem by all the towns-people for the purity of her conduct and the sanctity of her life, used frequently to attend the confessional of this Carmelite friar. He conceived for her, secretly, a violent passion, which he kept up and fostered through the constant interviews which his vocation afforded him in gaining the unlimited confidence of his penitent. But he contrived, with incredible command over himself, to suppress his feelings. He never uttered one word to the young creature which could indicate to her the risks she was incurring in seeking for his guidance and blessing. One day, however, she appeared before him on her knees at his confessional, and, with a simplicity and sweetness, such as innocence alone can command, informed him that, with the advice and consent of her parents, she was about to enter into the married state, and now came before him, as her spiritual father, to prepare herself for so important an ordinance by the previous sacraments of confession, absolution, and the holy communion. The friar heard this simple statement, received the child's confession, little as that amounted to, pronounced upon her the absolution, and administered to her the eucharist, without betraying the least perturbation or confusion in his countenance. On rising from her knees, as pure, as holy, and as fully and freely pardoned from sin as her fond and simple mind imagined it was in the power of her church and its minister to make her, the friar said he wished her to go to the vestibule (porteria {77}), where he would give her some counsel relative to the new state into which she was about to enter. The unsuspecting girl blindly obeyed the voice which had often before directed her in the ways of virtue; she rose, went to the indicated spot, where already stood the friar, who, without uttering one word, drew from his bosom a poniard, and thrust it into the heart of his ill-fated victim, who fell mortally wounded at his feet. With the utmost coolness, the assassin retired to his cell, wiping the gory blade on the sleeve of his habit, as if he had been performing a most innocent deed. The alarm was immediately given. The friar was arrested and thrown into prison. Proceedings were commenced, and supported by evidence which left no doubt as to the author of the crime, and the circumstances under which it was committed. The public prosecutor (fiscal) moved the court for the extreme penalty of death; but against this sentence arose a strenuous opposition on the part of the bishops, who pretended, in the first place, that the crime was one which ought only to be judged by the ecclesiastical authority, and in the second, that in no case could the penalty of death be inflicted on a priest. The contest was carried to the government for its decision, and the minister, Campomanes, a zealous defender of the sovereign's rights, as well as a constant enemy to the usurpations of the clergy, confirmed the jurisdiction of the civil power which had heard the cause, and declared that the Spanish legislature offered no impediment to the execution of the last penalty of the law, if the judges found sufficient grounds to warrant them in awarding it. The judges did so find, and pronounced sentence accordingly; but the king, Charles III., commuted the sentence to perpetual banishment and imprisonment. The assassin was conducted to Puerto Rico, where he ended his life, weighed down by remorse, though his hours were consecrated to penitence and prayer.

The history of the second case, viz., that of the Capuchine of Cuenca, bears a still more scandalous and atrocious character. The unhallowed passions of this great criminal had their origin also in the confessional. The accomplice of his wickedness was, too, his "daughter of confession," (hija de confesion. {78}) She was the wife of a carpenter of respectable character, who, not content with the influence which the friar exercised over the conscience of his wife, wished that influence might also be brought to bear over the concerns of his own modest household, and therefore frequently invited the friar to his table. The latter and his querida, unknown to the confiding carpenter, passed some years in a total abandonment of themselves to vicious courses. The friar began, subsequently, to imagine he observed a certain coldness or indifference on the part of his companion in guilt, and, attributing that change to a feeling of the woman's self-disgust and reproach, he had recourse to the most diabolical means of searing her conscience, and making her still more the associate of his depravity: indeed, it is not possible even to read without horror of the abominable artifices to which this monster of iniquity had recourse, although these were all minutely detailed in the written charges brought against him at his trial, and were deposed to by the woman herself, she being fully corroborated by the testimony of other witnesses secreted in a part of the house from whence his revolting conduct was both seen and heard. One step in the path of immorality and crime too often leads on to another. The friar at length imagined that the woman's indifference arose from some latent spark of affection which she still bore to her husband, and he resolved on sacrificing the life of the unfortunate man whose connubial rights seemed to stand in his way. Full of impatience for the consummation of the diabolical project when once he had determined on its execution, and having given to his victim a strong soporific, which threw him into a heavy sleep, he proceeds to urge on the faithless wife to the act of stabbing her unconscious husband. This tragedy she performed with one of the unhappy man's own instruments of trade, under the guidance of the friar, who first ascertained and indicated to her, by the pulsations of the doomed man's heart, the exact spot into which she was to give the instrument its fatal plunge.

The extreme docility of the woman in the hands of the friar, as disclosed in the evidence, can only be explained by the absolute control which he held over her conscience and her will; and, doubtless, even that control arrived at such a pitch, that, at last, the yoke became insupportable, if we may judge from the declarations which she made during the trial, for she appeared to take credit to herself for the revelations which she then made of all the disgusting particulars connected with the crimes of that detestable culprit.

Immediately after the perpetration of the crime, the civil power seized the persons of both the guilty parties, and began to prosecute judicial inquiries, with the greatest secrecy, under the clandestine supervision of the bishop. The proceedings were prolonged to an indefinite period, until the friar had been six years in prison, within which interval the woman died. In a popular commotion which occurred in Cuenca in consequence of an invasion by the French, all prisoners were set at liberty, and this execrable miscreant disappeared.

The Agonizante of Madrid {81} (which is the third case) also murdered the companion of his vices, on her own bed too, in which they had passed the preceding night. The true motive of this murder could never be satisfactorily ascertained. But the friar having been taken in flagrante, the judges could not hesitate for a moment in passing sentence of death upon him. All the Spanish clergy had recourse to Ferdinand VII., and used their utmost influence to obtain a pardon, or at least a commutation of the sentence; but the king was inflexible, and the criminal died at the hands of the executioner, by the garrote, in the Plazuela de la Cebada, in Madrid.

Under the same reign of Ferdinand VII., the Convent of the Basilios of Madrid was the theatre of most scandalous and sanguinary atrocities, which had their origin in the relaxed manners of the inhabitants of that establishment. The friars were accustomed to introduce by night into the cloisters women of ill fame, and this custom had grown into something like a right or privilege, which the friars were resolved to maintain at all hazards, as it was afterwards proved; for the abbot, who until then had connived at these irregularities, wished all of a sudden to adopt a system of the utmost rigour and discipline, and to reduce the friars to the severe observances of their order. The convent was situated in the most populous part of Madrid. One night in the year 1832, loud screams were heard by the inhabitants of the opposite houses, and by people who were passing in the streets. The civil authorities were called to the spot, and informed of the circumstances. They demanded entrance at the doors of the convent, but the friars refused to comply. Force became necessary. The gates were broken open, and the officers rushed in. All, however, that the public could ever learn of that nocturnal invasion was simply that the head of the unfortunate abbot was found in one cell, and his trunk in another. Ferdinand VII. did not on that occasion display the same degree of indignation and severity as he had done towards the Agonizante. He was at that moment in all the plenitude of his despotic power, and this mysterious affair of the convent of the Basilios was buried in the most profound oblivion.

These terms of harmony have always existed between the Spanish monarchs and the clergy, who have been accustomed to lend themselves, reciprocally, to the interests and persecutions of each other; and hence it is that a great number of crimes similar to that just referred to has never before been brought to light. Some of these, however, have been of such a nature and magnitude, and accompanied with such extraordinary circumstances, that, in spite of the efforts made by the clergy to conceal them, they have not altogether eluded the public curiosity. To this class belongs the celebrated case of the Capuchines of Cascante, the recollection of which is traditionally preserved, and is still the subject of many a conversation, although to the present day we are not aware of any account that has been published on the subject of that shameful transaction. There still exist those who either were children in the time of Charles III., or who heard, from the lips of their fathers or grandfathers, all the particulars of that flagrant case, as well as of the extraordinary sensation which the discoveries then made produced on the public mind. The facts, which appear indisputable, are these:—Towards the middle of the reign of that sovereign, a prelate of one of the districts of the province of Arragon had good reason to believe that there existed intimate and criminal relations between the nuns and the friars of two convents situated in the same town. It had been observed that the number of foundlings had been for some time considerably on the increase, many of which were left, by persons unknown, in the houses of poor women, who received with them very considerable sums of money. At first, no suspicion whatever fell on the friars, who continued their offices of preaching, saying mass, confessing penitents, and giving ostentatious indications of their leading humble and ascetic lives. A diligent watch was instituted by the authorities, but as far as exterior observances went, there was no reason to believe that any suspicious persons from without ever entered the convent of the nuns; it was therefore thought right to have an internal examination of that convent, a measure never had recourse to by the authorities but on occasions of the gravest kind.

The result of this step was, that in the interior of the edifice was discovered a door leading to a subterranean passage or tunnel which crossed underneath the principal street of the town, and led direct to the convent of the Capuchines. All the inmates of both establishments were immediately taken prisoners; a judicial examination followed, when it was found that for many years the societies of these two convents had been living in a state of concubinage,—that even the outward doors of the two houses were seldom shut at night,—that the friars had free ingress to the convent of the nuns, where both sexes gave themselves up to the most dissolute abandonment in drunkenness, gluttony, debauchery, and all sorts of carnal excesses. The authorities found more than they had expected, and began to repent the course they had taken. The trials, however, were pushed forward apparently with all usual formalities, but the judges were exclusively ecclesiastics, and everything was conducted with profound caution and secrecy. The prisoners were removed to several towns in Arragon, and kept apart from each other, in different cells; but in one single night they all disappeared, and were never afterwards heard of. The only part which the civil authority took in this mysterious affair was to command the two convents to be pulled down, and salt to be sown on their foundations,—a ceremony which was accordingly performed, and one which the laws of Spain then required as to all houses which had been the scene of any atrocious offence.

It may hardly be necessary to reiterate what we have already more than once insisted on, as a well authenticated fact, that in the midst of all such irregularities and crimes as those detailed to show the unnatural and violent character of celibacy in the clergy, there always have been, in Spain, a large number of persons of both sexes, who have been privileged to take up and bear this cross of privation with singular resignation and constancy. But those efforts on the side of virtue, that perpetual conflict with sentiments most grateful to the human heart,—and that separation of an entire class, constituted in society self-acting, without any relation of endearment towards a general society,—may be considered as some of the grave inconveniences of Roman Catholicism, or rather as some of the most formidable obstacles which that faith opposes to the regular habits and to the peace of families.

The dangers of celibacy in the clergy are perhaps more serious and more inevitable in Spain than in any other country of Europe. The Spanish nation is, generally, renowned for its chivalrous sentiments, for the violence of the tender passions, and for the influence which the fair sex exercises, not only in all the domestic but in the civil and political relations of life. There is, in the society of the Spanish lady, a distinctive feature of character, called franqueza, which, above all others, gives her the greatest charm in the eyes of a foreigner. She is eminently sociable, and is the life and essence of Spanish society, in which she maintains an imperium over all tastes, affections, and operations. Besides this, it is the universal custom of Spaniards to be constantly going in and out of one another's houses without ceremony or invitation; and this frequent contact with Spanish women, generally pretty, but almost always amiable and graceful, naturally produces intimate relations, and not unfrequently reciprocal attachments. One may conceive of such a thing as a cold, repulsive resistance to such attractions in the dreariness of a desert, or even within the four walls of a cell; but when such influences are not merely occasionally, but unceasingly brought to bear upon the senses, they too often leave impressions which, by a law of our sinful nature, are capable of reciprocating so as to produce their corresponding effects. Hence humanity, unless upheld and strengthened by a superior power, is too often insufficient and prone to give up the contest.

In Spain, the inferior classes of society have always, until of late, submitted not only to the influence but to the authority of a priest or a friar; and it may well be conceived how easy it is to abuse this power in the intercourse which such functionaries have with ignorant and weak persons. In small towns, the inhabitants of which are devoted exclusively to labour, fathers and husbands pass the entire day in the fields, whilst the priest remains at home without a witness of his conduct or his actions. No domestic hearth is at liberty to exclude him. He is authorised by custom to enter all houses, at all hours, where he is received and treated almost as a god. These are facts which can be vouched by all Spaniards, by whom they are spoken of without the least reserve. In laying them before the English public, we disavow all idea of calumniating an entire class of Spanish society. Our object is to point out one of the causes which, in our opinion, enters into the number of those which, most effectively, have contributed to the decline of so sensible and generous a nation.



CHAPTER IV.

THE MASS—Its introduction but modern—The Spaniard Lainez opposed it—On what grounds—Description of the ceremony—Its religious and secular peculiarities—Sacerdotal vestments worn while celebrating it—High and Low Mass—Both performed in an unknown tongue—Consequent indifference of the congregation—Mercenary character of the mass—"Masses for the intention"—Masses for the dead—The solemn mass on Christmas eve, or Noche buena—Its profane accompaniments—Passion week—Thursday—Good Friday—Adoration of the Cross—Processions—Anecdotes of Isabella II.—Brilliant rites and ceremonies on the day after Good Friday—Uproarious conduct of the faithful on that occasion—The mass as celebrated at Toledo—Judicial combat, or judgment of God.

The mass is the chief rite in the Roman Catholic worship. The obligation for all members of that church to hear it, on every Sunday and every feast-day, is imperative and absolutely indispensable; and the infraction of it is considered a mortal sin. Although the obligation does not extend to those days of labour on which masses are said, yet pious and devout persons go to hear it, and this act is considered as eminently commendable and meritorious.

The introduction of the mass into Roman Catholic worship is of an epoch comparatively modern. In the first centuries of the church, the divine offices were but those of singing hymns and psalms, reading the Sacred Scriptures, and the sermon. These rites being terminated, a collection was made among believers for the relief of their poor; and the portion of these alms which was sent to such of them as could not attend the place of worship was called missa, or sent, from the participle of the Latin verb mittere, to send.

Many have been the disputes between Roman Catholic writers themselves touching the epoch at which that part of the ceremonial called the mass, used in the present day, was first introduced. There is no doubt that many ages of the church passed away before it was considered as a sacrifice; and even the Council of Trent were much divided in their opinions on this point, and the fathers vacillated much before they decided respecting it. The Spaniard Lainez, general of the order of Jesuits, was one of the most strenuous opposers of the novelty, and gave the same reasons for his opposition that all Protestant writers have alleged against it, viz., that the New Testament abolished the sacrifice, or rather, that ancient rites and ceremonies were superseded by the great sacrifice of the Saviour of the world himself on the cross, and that the idea itself involves the profanation that mortal and sinful man can sacrifice on his altars at his will the immaculate Lamb of God. These powerful objections were only met with excuses of convenience and utility. The Council wrestled with the reformed doctrines, and contended that its own system must necessarily be entirely different from that taught by the Reformers, not only in substance but even in its accidents. Reform denied Transubstantiation, and therefore the Roman church thought it convenient to fortify that dogma by bringing it daily before the eyes of the people, and constituting it an essential part of their worship.

If, in a Protestant point of view, the mass is considered as an attack on the true spirit of Christianity, as upholding not only transubstantiation, but also the doctrine of intercession of saints, yet still, in the eyes of a good Roman Catholic, it is a rite full of elevated thoughts, devout prayers, and highly proper and religious ideas.

The first part of the mass, from the Introite to the Offertory, is composed almost entirely of fragments of Scripture: such are, first, the Introite, generally taken from the Psalms; secondly, the Collect, which is the same as that in the Protestant Book of Common Prayer for Sundays; thirdly, the Epistle, which is part of a chapter out of the prophecies, or out of one of the epistles in the New Testament; fourthly, the Gradual, also taken from the Psalms; and fifthly, the Gospel, which, as its name indicates, is a portion of a chapter taken from some one of the four evangelists. The parts added by the popes are, first, the Kyrie Eleyson, taken from the rites of the Greek church; secondly, the Gloria, which is a magnificent outburst of the most elevated religious sentiments; and lastly, the Symbol of the faith.

The Offertory, which is the second part of the mass, is one series of prayers, in which the Canon is prepared, by offering up the host (which has to be consecrated in order to obtain upon it the blessing of the Most High), and by invoking the intercession of the saints, and enumerating all the graces and favours implored through the medium of the sacrifice. The priest, in this part of the ceremony, washes his hands; he concludes with the Preface, an act of thanksgiving, in which are explained some of the mysteries of religion applicable to the day on which they are celebrated. Among others of this latter class, the preface for the Trinity is admired for its conciseness, and the elegance and accuracy with which the composition explains that great mystery, in terms which cannot be objected to even by any Protestant church.

After the offertory follows the canon, which is the preparation for the consecration, and is also composed of prayers, in which a spirit of penitence, and the invocation of the divine protection in the solemn act about to be celebrated, form prominent features. The priest next takes the host, pronounces over it the words of consecration, and elevates it, so that the people may see and adore it. He does the like with the chalice, and then prepares himself for the communion, which consists in his eating the host and drinking the wine in the cup. Twice afterwards he pours wine and water into the cup, and drinks off the contents, which are called the ablutions. He pronounces other two prayers or thanksgivings, blesses the people, and dismisses them with the formula, "Ite, missa est," "Go, the mass is over." Still, however, he continues to read, on ordinary days, in the first chapter of St John's Gospel, or, on other solemn days, from the other evangelists.

All this is accompanied with various ceremonies, genuflections, and changes of position. For example: the prayers are said in front of the altar; the introite, the collect, and the epistle, on the right; the gospel on the left; the priest, at certain parts of the ceremony, turning his back upon the altar, and his face towards the people. In celebrating the mass, it is required that the priest be dressed in certain vestments, which are, in no small degree, complicated. Some of these are white, and of linen. Others are of silk, and in colour varied according to the solemnity of the day. For example: on the feast-day of a martyr, the ornament is red; on the feasts of the Virgin, and on those on which are celebrated any of the mysteries of the life of the Saviour, it is white; in masses for the souls of the departed, of which we shall treat hereafter, it is black; the violet colour is used in Advent and in Lent; the green on some particular Sundays. The cathedral of Seville alone enjoys the privilege, in all the Roman Catholic world, of using the sky-blue colour on the day whereon is celebrated the Conception of the Virgin.

On the altar at which mass is said, there ought to be, at least, a crucifix, two wax lights, and a slab (ara) of stone. The cloth which covers the chalice and the exterior adornment of the altar, called the frontal, must be of the same colour as the ornament of the day.

There are two kinds of mass, high mass and low mass. The first is generally performed by three priests, viz., the officiating priest, the subdeacon, who chants the epistle, and the deacon, who chants the gospel. In the high mass, the choir sings many parts of it, and the organ is played at times by way of accompaniment, and at other times as a solo, during the offertory and the canon. On these occasions incense is burned to perfume the altar, after which the deacon perfumes the officiating priest; and if persons of authority or distinction are in attendance at the office of the mass, the acolytes perfume them with the incensories.

The most extraordinary, and, we may justly say, absurd thing in all this complicated series of practices and ceremonies is, that the whole of them are performed in a language which the people do not understand, and consequently they play the part of mere spectators, without having one single religious idea communicated to the mind, or one devout sentiment to the heart. The people see nothing more than a man dressed in a certain manner, moving from one side to another, and from whose lips are proceeding words which are absolutely void of sense. Hence proceeds that species of indifference with which the people regard that spectacle, an indifference which degenerates into profanation and levity. In Spain, particularly, it is quite common for lovers to converse with each other during the mass; and the turbulent crowds which rush in towards the conclusion, the noise, the haste, and, sometimes, the bad expressions which fall on the ear, in the precincts of the edifice, form a strange and scandalous contrast to the sacred character with which the church seems anxious to invest the sacrifice of the mass. The greater number of those persons who assemble to witness it, particularly the humble classes, believe they have complied with the obligation they are under to hear the mass, if even they only see the priest; and so wearisome has this duty become to the majority of Spaniards, that the most popular priests are those who say the shortest masses.

We have heard such and such a father spoken of with enthusiasm who says the mass in twelve minutes, although it appears impossible even to read the parts composing it in less than eighteen or twenty. On the other hand, when a devout and scrupulous priest recites these offices with due deliberation, and performs the ceremonies with a becoming degree of solemnity and decorum, the church is deserted. The popular phrase in such cases is "Father So-and-so is heavy in the mass,"—("El padre tiene la misa pesada.")

There are some persons who, during the mass, read their prayers translated into Spanish; but this is really a French custom, and wholly inadmissible among a people the great majority of whom are unable to read. But the most objectionable thing in the mass is its mercenary character. The object which induces a Christian to pay for a mass, is to recompense the priest for applying the merits of the sacrifice to desires and intentions, sometimes not very pure, on the part of those who pay.

Thus they pay for a mass to obtain the health of a sick person, security during a journey, a good result from a speculation, or the preservation of a soul from the fire of purgatory. Even robbers will give a certain portion of their plunder to a priest to say a mass for their next adventure. The ordinary phrase in these cases, at the time of paying the father for the mass, is this:—"Say a mass for my intention;" so that the priest has recourse to the throne of the Most High, immolates the most sacred of victims, believes that he introduces to his own body that of the Saviour, and all this without knowing why or wherefore! He who orders a mass and pays for it has no need to reveal to any one his object or intention; and if he likes to be silent, it is a want of discretion and of delicacy on the part of the priest to question him on that point.

The price of a mass varies from a shilling to one pound sterling. A high mass is much dearer, and its price depends on the pomp and ornaments bespoken by the person desiring it. In wills and testaments it is very common to order a number of masses to be said for the soul of the testator; and even in recent times, it has been a common practice to found what are called "pious works." These consist in giving to a church a sum of money, a rural or a city property, bound by an obligation to say so many masses in the year for the soul of the donor.

Whenever it happens that this obligation is disregarded, and the required masses are not said, the Pope concedes a "bull of composition" (bula de composicion), which, in effect, commands that a single mass shall serve for all those which have been omitted. This kind of legislation will appear incredible to all those who are ignorant of the irregularities of the court of Rome; but every person who has lived in Spain knows that it is of daily occurrence.

One of the most solemn masses in the year is that which is celebrated on Christmas-eve at midnight, that being the hour at which, it is supposed, the Saviour of the world was born. It is called "The mass of the cock," (misa del gallo), as having an allusion to the hour in which it is celebrated. The hilarity of the Spaniards on this occasion is expressed in a way more analogous to that accompanying heathen rites, than to any which should pertain to Christian worship. Under pretext of taking part in so happy a commemoration, they abandon themselves, during the whole night, to the most noisy demonstrations of joy. Numerous parties of men and women perambulate the streets, singing couplets, called villancicos, which are exclusively applicable to this feast, and playing on two species of musical instruments, having the most abominable sound, called raveles and zambombas, which are never used but on this occasion. The churches are filled with people, who are far from conducting themselves with that decorum and moderation belonging to the place. The jovial dispositions then manifested are encouraged by the organ, on which are played waltzes, polkas, and even the vulgar songs heard at dances of the lower classes; and these performances are distinctly heard whilst the priest is saying the mass. In general, the believers, after having taken a part in the service, give themselves up to all the disorders of excessive eating and drinking. Nothing in modern times approximates so nearly to the orgies of antiquity as this celebrating "the good night" (la noche buena) in Spain. Sometimes the civil authorities are obliged to put a check upon them, but we believe there is no instance in which the clergy have made the slightest attempt to repress such scandalous disorders. We cannot see how the most zealous Roman Catholic can justify a practice so opposed to the true spirit of Christianity, and so deeply rooted in the public manners, that, in the eyes of most Spaniards, any person who would dare to censure it would pass for an unbeliever or a heretic.

There are two days in the year on which it is prohibited to say mass at all; these are, Thursday in Passion-week and Good Friday. The English tourists know the eminently dramatic character which distinguishes these feasts at that season of the year in St Peter's at Rome. All the offices of the seven days of that week are well calculated to excite the imagination, and awaken in the coldest hearts the most lively sympathy with the great events then commemorated. Every thing connected with those rites breathes grief and sadness, and there is a certain mournful solemnity in them which harmonises with the scenes of our Saviour's passion. The chapters of the four Evangelists, containing the narrative of that great event, from the going up of our Lord to Jerusalem to the crucifixion, are chanted by three priests, each one taking a distinct part. One takes the words in which the evangelist recounts those events; another the words put into the mouths of Judas, Pilate, Peter, and the other persons referred to in the narrative; and the third, whose voice is generally a profound bass, the words of the Saviour. The solemnity of the Thursday has for its object the institution of the eucharist, and the long series of ceremonies in which this grand mystery is symbolised, concludes by conducting, in solemn procession, the consecrated host from the great altar of the church, where it has been preserved all the year, to a wooden sanctuary in the same church, more or less richly adorned, called the monument (monumento), which is dressed up with a profusion of jewels, lights, and flowers, and remains all night guarded by some of the devout, and, in towns which contain a garrison, by military sentinels. Some of those monuments are, in truth, works of architecture of great merit; and among them that of the cathedral of Seville is distinguished for its gigantic dimensions, and for the richness and elegance of its structure.

In the offices for Good Friday, the host is restored to the altar, with a ceremony as solemn as that of the day preceding; and the services, which are very long, refer to all the scenes of the crucifixion, including all the passages in the prophecies and other parts of the Old Testament in which the event is prefigured or foretold. After the offices are gone through, the cross is placed on the ground, supported by a cushion, and all the faithful, from the highest personages of the state down to the meanest subject, bow down before it, kiss it, and leave some piece of money on a plate placed by its side. In the royal chapel of the palace are placed, close to the cross on this occasion, the files of the proceedings against criminals who have been condemned to die. The sovereign, in the act of adoration, takes into his hands one of those files, which signifies the granting a pardon to the culprit whose trial it contains. There is a pleasing anecdote related of the young Queen Isabella II., that, being but a girl when she for the first time took a part in this ceremony, and on being informed of its signification, she took up all the files placed before her; by which act of grace a free pardon was extended to all the delinquents. {98}

During the whole night of Thursday until the Friday, the faithful go about the streets in numerous companies visiting the different monuments. Every foreigner who is present at these peregrinations would take Spaniards for the most devout people in the world. The whole population are at that time circulating through the streets. The use of coaches or other vehicles is prohibited, and the churches are never empty. The different regiments of the army, the functionaries of the tribunals, and every public body, all these visit the monuments headed by their respective chiefs. The queen sets the example, accompanied by all the nobility, her ministers, and all the high officers of state. A sedan chair of great magnificence is carried in the rear for her Majesty's use, in case she should become fatigued.

On the Saturday after Good Friday only one mass is said, viz., high mass, after the consecration of the oils and blessing the water for the service of the daily ablutions of the faithful. This mass is dedicated to the resurrection, and its rites have a character really striking and romantic. When the offices commence, the altar is entirely covered with a black veil, the church is in darkness, and not a single light to be seen in the whole space. But on the intonation of the Gloria in excelsis Deo, the veil divides itself into two parts, and is drawn to the sides, which operation, suddenly performed, discloses hundreds of lights and a most splendid profusion of ornaments. Then the bells, which have been silent for the two preceding days, are set a-ringing,—pigeons are let off upon the wing,—every one makes the greatest possible noise, striking the benches of the church, firing rockets within its walls, and salvos of artillery in the squares. Some churches enjoy the privilege of saying only low masses (misas rezadas) on this day.

We have spoken of the obligation of all to hear mass on Sundays and feast-days; and we should add that this is the only act of devotion required from Spaniards on those days. By the words, "observe the feasts," is understood, in Spain, that after joining in the mass, as before stated, believers are at liberty to dedicate the day to every species of diversion and profanity. In France and in England, it is obligatory also to attend vespers on the Sundays. Not so, however, in Spain, where, in the evenings, scarcely a person is to be seen in the churches.

All truly religious men who read the foregoing remarks, and in which there is not the least exaggeration or departure from the truth, will imagine, doubtless, that the modern ecclesiastical authorities of the peninsula have, at least, attempted to rectify all that is absurd and irreverent in those practices, and to strip a ceremony so august and imposing as that of the mass of all that a want of true devotion, and that ignorance and neglect on the part of the clergy, has introduced to that ceremony,—nevertheless it is not so; the clergy themselves appear to co-operate in those attempts to pervert the ideas of the nation. The proof of it is, that being ordered by all the councils, especially that of Trent, to preach a sermon, during the high mass, explaining the gospel for the day, as is done in all other Roman Catholic countries, yet in Spain no such practice is observed, except in poor and small towns; so that the Spaniard is not only wanting of that spiritual aliment which the reading of the Bible is able to furnish, but also of a person to explain those parts of Scripture which he has been hearing read, and in a strange language, during the mass. Preaching, as has already been stated in our introductory chapter, is in Spain reduced to panegyrics on the saints, and to Lent-sermons,—which, in truth, have only reference to the gospel for the day; and although this spiritual food is administered but seldom and in small quantities, that is to say, eight or ten times from Ash-Wednesday until Palm-Sunday, there is no doubt whatever of its beneficial effects, and that by its means some temporal improvement in the habits of the people evidently results from it. But, that season over, the flock is abandoned by the shepherd, these slight impressions wear off, and the people return to the same godless and mundane system of life.

In the cathedral church of Toledo there is a particular chapel in which the mass is celebrated, according to the rite called Mozarabe, introduced, as its name indicates, in the time of the occupation by the Moors, by the Christians who lived under their yoke in that city. The Roman Catholic ritual having been made prevalent all over the peninsula by the Great Isabella, and adopted in all the churches, the faithful of Toledo still wished to preserve that form of ritual which they had practised for many centuries. Although this portion of Spain's ecclesiastical history is wrapt in great obscurity, and has given rise to many disputes among learned men, yet it is certain that in order to decide between that authority which wished to extinguish those remains of antiquity, and the people who desired to preserve them, recourse was had to what then went by the name of "the judgment of God," viz., a formal duel, attended with all the ceremonies which the feudal system had imported into Europe. The partisans of the Roman ritual placed their defence of it in the hands of one knight-errant, and those of the opposite party confided theirs to the care of another. He who defended the Roman rite was conquered in the fight; and although the conditions of the combat were not entirely observed, because the cathedral and the other churches of Toledo were, after all, reduced to the authority of the Pope, yet a chapter of canons was instituted, to whom was conceded the privilege of saying mass according to the ritual of the conquerors.



CHAPTER V.

DEVOTION of Protestants scriptural and reasonable—That of 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 these—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.

Devotion in Roman Catholicism is totally distinct in its essence from that of Protestantism. The devotion of Protestants is scriptural and reasonable; that of Roman Catholics poetical and affectionate. The Protestant considers God as a spiritual being, and, as such, incomprehensible, the only object of worship, the only fountain of grace and pardon. The Roman Catholic represents the Eternal in material forms, accessible only through the indirect medium of intercession, and addresses him with the familiarity and tenderness peculiar to the human relations between a father and a son. In prayer the truly devout Roman Catholic weeps, afflicts himself, gesticulates, touches the ground with his forehead, kisses it, strikes his breast, and reveals, by his whole physiognomy and exterior actions, a vehemence and intensity which his physical frame appears scarcely able to sustain. His prayers are full of poetical exclamations, which are called jaculatorias; and in addressing the object of his devotion, he feels more complacency in accumulating sonorous epithets, and in repeating groans and sighs, than in imploring, by properly-constructed and continuous phrases, the protection and mercy of the Almighty. Roman Catholic devotion gives a perfect idea of ecstasy, and shows that religious enthusiasm, carried to the utmost extreme, agitates the nervous system, and produces effects very similar to those of mental abstraction; and, in truth, in those asylums provided for the insane, we find many of their inmates to be persons who have fallen into that deplorable state through religious enthusiasm. There are other cases in which these excesses in devotion have ended in catalepsy; and some of those women who have been celebrated for the supernatural state in which it has been pretended they lived for many years, without food, and insensible to all external impressions, have been rather the unhappy victims of mental disease than the instruments of wilful imposture.

Perhaps some one may ask why, seeing that the mysterious principles of the Roman Catholic faith and those of the Protestants are equal, there should be so much difference in their devotional characters, the one being opposed to the other? why in the one case it is entirely mental, while the other largely participates in a physical nature? why in Protestant devotion there is thinking and reflection, while in that of Roman Catholics all is feeling and affection? The problem is resolved in a single expression,—the worship of images.

This practice, which neither the fathers nor the councils have enforced or authorised to the extent to which it has been carried by modern Roman Catholics, and especially by Spaniards, exercises so powerful an influence, or rather so irresistible an imperium, over the mind of man, that it entirely perverts his reason, and radically extinguishes in it the difference between the spiritual and the physical world. This great enigma, the solution of which the Eternal has, in his wisdom, reserved from mortal creatures, loses all its obscurity and ceases to be a mystery to the man who converses with a figure made of wood or painted on canvas; for he not only believes that it sees him, but that it can protect him, grant him favours, and even obtain for him salvation. In vain it will be said that the Roman Catholic sees in the image a symbol, an emblem, a representation. It is not so. In his eyes the image is the saint itself, and therefore he adorns it, covers it with splendid attire, surrounds it with flowers and with lights, kneels down before it, confides to it his griefs, and asks its intercession. If the object of veneration and of worship were the saint itself,—that is to say, a beatified spirit, which is supposed to dwell in heaven, and there enjoy the favour of the Eternal Being,—the prayer made and the homage rendered would be to that pure essence, and would be purged of all the external accidents of humanity. But not so do Roman Catholics generally pray. In order to pray it is necessary for them to have a material object; they must enter with that object into similar relations as those which exist between man and man; they must bring down the saint to their own level, instead of endeavouring to lift up themselves to the level of the saint, by means of a communication purely spiritual.

The proof of this is, that, among the images which represent the same original and the same type, there are some which are believed to have more power, and to be capable of working more miracles, than others. The Saint Antonio, for example, which is venerated in one church in Madrid, called La Florida, is much more popular than the Saint Antonio venerated in another, called the Church de los Portugueses. In Burgos there is a crucifix to which infinitely more solemn worship is paid than to one in any parish church, or even in any chapel of the same city. The popes have encouraged this absurd aberration of the human mind, by conceding, and permitting the bishops to concede, indulgences to certain statues, certain pictures, and even certain engravings, which represent objects of devotion. The person who prays in front of that favoured object gains so many years of indulgences; he who prays to the same saint, but before another statue, another picture, or another engraving, obtains nothing. Of course, all these concessions which are obtained are paid for in ready money.

Now to the point. Are not these means the most efficacious that can be imagined in order to materialise religion, and to subjugate it entirely to the senses? Is it not infinitely more easy and shorter, especially for rude and illiterate men, to believe in what they actually see, than in any metaphysical notions, far above the reach of their understanding, like those of a spiritual kind? From very ancient times it has been thought that the impressions which the mind receives through the medium of sight, are more striking and efficacious than those which are communicated to it by all the other organs of the senses. Horace has followed out this idea in his well-known lines:—

"Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et quae Ipsi sibi tradit spectator."

De Ar. Poe., 180.

Thus it is explained why men imagined for many centuries that the sky was a solid superficies, and that the earth was a superficial plane, bounded by the horizon; that the sun moved round the earth; that the existence of the antipodes was a chimera; that the dew fell in the same way as the rain from the upper regions of the atmosphere; and other popular errors which science has corrected, but which were in a certain way justified by the undeniable testimony of the senses. How difficult then is it, on such evidence, to doubt the existence of a soul in a human representation to which one speaks as to a person alive, and to which are tendered all marks of respect and veneration, and before whom even the priests, those masters of the people and depositaries of all true doctrine, kneel down as would a son before his father, a subject before his sovereign, and a culprit before his judge? Who would forbid this delusion to that simple and ignorant mind, whose relations with the exterior world form the only source of all his knowledge and all his feelings?

The Christian religion, purely spiritual in its dogmas and practices, never would have admitted into them this profanation of their sublime essence, if the Greek empire, by virtue of the great religious revolution conducted by Constantine, had not been placed at the head of Christendom. But the Greek Christians were descendants of those who had condemned Socrates, and had not been purged, nor have they yet been purged, of their sensual propensities, of their artistic tastes, and of their attachment to whatever is pompous and ornamental. When the Emperor Leo wished to uproot this abuse, and ordered the images venerated in the temples to be destroyed, his orders were executed with so much imprudence and cruelty, and the persecution raised against those who participated in the common error was conducted in so sanguinary and implacable a manner, that the general opinion rose against the new doctrine, and the name of iconoclast denoted in that day one of the most odious forms of heresy, and one most severely condemned by the apostolical see. {107}

The Latin Church was long preserved from that contagion. When John, the patriarch of Alexandria, consulted the great Pope Leo, whether it would be right to adorn the Christian temples with pictures representing pious objects, that eminent man answered him, that he could only be permitted to have the representations of the historical facts related in the Bible, in order that those believers who were unable to read might in this way instruct themselves in sacred history, but that great care must be taken that such a practice might not degenerate into idolatry.

We have already mentioned the fact that the Council of Granada prohibited the worship of images; but when the thrones founded by the invading nations of the north became settled, their monarchs—men profoundly ignorant, and exclusively devoted to war and conquest—placed their consciences and the direction of public affairs in the hands of the clergy, who were then the monopolisers of learning and literature. The clergy spared no means of consolidating their power, and it was their interest to brutalise the people, in order to domineer over them with the greater facility; and nothing could contribute more certainly to carry out that view than the puerilities of a worship solely limited to the adoration of the physical man. The pageantry of processions, the jewels, the splendid vestments and ornaments with which their images were covered, the miracles attributed to them, and the incense burned on their altars, were so many other soporiferous drugs administered to the understanding to lull its energy, and deprive it of every devoted thought and of all liberty of examination. There is, moreover, in the representation of a human being of the size and colour of life, a certain character of reality, which at first sight cannot do less than make a profound impression on the mind, leaving it for a time in a state of some perplexity between truth and fiction. That immovable attitude, those fixed eyes, those features which never alter the expression of the grief or the joy impressed upon them by the hand of the artist, have in themselves something of the awful and mysterious, which powerfully affects us, despite our reason and experience. How many persons are there who could look, without shuddering, on the statue of Fieschi, the celebrated French murderer, in the collection of Madame Tussaud? How many, on coming out from the chamber of horrors, in the same establishment, resolve and vow never to go into it again? How many, who would not, for any money, pass a night in the apartment in which these disagreeable objects are exhibited? And to what extreme may not that imperium extend, which these works of art exercise on the imagination, if, in addition to their resemblances to nature, superstition endows them with a supernatural power, and when reason persuades us that they hear what we say to them,—that they receive our homage, and are able to favour us with their protection?

But the Roman Catholic clergy have had another motive for promoting a belief in such things, viz., the immense wealth which they draw from them in the name of oblations, alms, and legacies. To contribute money to the adornment of a saint, and to the celebration of rites which are consecrated to it, is a meritorious work, which ensures its protection to the contributor. By this fiction the people have been made to believe that every human complaint, every one of the misfortunes that can occur in life, depends on some particular saint who defends their respective devotees against it. Saint Ramon favours women in the season of parturition; Saint Demas preserves travellers on their journeys from robbers; Saint Apollonius cures the toothache; Saint Lucy heals diseases of the eyes; Saint Lazarus cures the leprosy; Saint Roque the plague; Saint Joseph protects carpenters; Saint Casianus and Saint Nicholas preserve children; Saint Luis Gonzaga, young people; Saint Hermenegild, soldiers; Saint Thomas Aquinas, students; Saint Gloi, silversmiths; and Saint Rita, superior to all the celestial court, obtains, by her mediation, the realization of impossibilities! {110}

And yet, after all, the most popular of all the saints which the power of the Vatican has placed on its altars is Saint Anthony of Padua. The miracles which he wrought in his life are quite out of the ordinary course, and some of them appear rather preposterous and ludicrous to the incredulous. On one occasion, when he was preaching by the sea-shore, and his audience had gone away, the fishes came out to hear him. Whenever he was present at a banquet, and a plate or a soup tureen was accidentally broken, he joined the fragments so completely together that the piece recovered its former integrity. The superior of his convent forbade him to perform miracles; but, one day, seeing a man falling from a high tower, he ordered him to remain suspended in the air until the superior should give the saint permission to let him fall without injury. The devotees of Saint Anthony treat him with great familiarity, and even punish him when he does not satisfy their desires. When they wish to obtain some favour from his protection,—for example, to draw a prize in a lottery, to find a lost cow, or to find a husband for a damsel,—they burn tapers before his image, and adorn it with flowers. If they do not still obtain his favour, they place the image with its face towards the wall, in the darkest corner of the house, and even treat it with other indignities, of which decency forbids the mention.

The solemnity of the day of San Anton Abad, the protector of all horses and mules, is of a different kind, and is considered as one of the most noisy and brilliant of all public amusements. The equestrians of the city, mounted on their steeds, which, on this occasion, are splendidly caparisoned, give three gallops round the church dedicated to the saint, and, on finishing the third, they receive from the hands of the priest the blessed barley, which is designed that night as provender for their happy animals. The streets are filled with people anxious to witness this grand exhibition of luxury and of horsemanship, and the balconies are filled with ladies, whose plaudits compensate the dexterity of the heroes of the feast, or rather of the day.

But of all the devotions of Spaniards, none is so general, none so fervent, none so varied in its forms and ceremonies, as that which has for its object the mother of the Saviour. All travellers know that Spain is the classic country of Mariolatry; and certainly, if we could divest it of the idea of intercession, which is its foundation, we should find in it much of the poetical, the affectionate, and much of analogy to the temper of a people in which the imagination predominates, and which still preserves many traits of the knightly spirit of its progenitors. Mary is, in the estimation of Spaniards, a tender mother, the confidante of all their woes, and the support of all their hopes. In their prayers to her, they are prodigal of the most expressive epithets of endearment and admiration. They call her the spouse of the Holy Spirit, the door of heaven, the star of the morning, the tower of David, the tower of ivory, the house of gold, the ark of the covenant, the health of the sick, the queen of heaven, the queen of angels, of prophets, of apostles, of martyrs, and of virgins. We will not do Spaniards the injustice of suspecting them capable of believing that Mary is superior to God in power, but there is no doubt that there are in that country many benighted souls who, when they have addressed their prayers to God, asking some special favour which has not been granted, have recourse to the Virgin under a persuasion that through her means they shall obtain it. Innumerable authors of religious books have written, and it has daily been repeated from the pulpits, that the Virgin never denies a favour to her devotees; that in the mere fact of being her worshippers, they have salvation assured to them; and that it is enough to implore her by name, in order to preserve both body and soul from all danger. "Hail, most immaculate Mary!" (ave Maria purisuma) is the formula with which a visitor salutes persons in a house, and the response is, "conceived without sin" (sin pecado concebida) {113} These words are engraven on the facades of many public buildings and private houses. They are used also by way of exclamation in familiar conversation, in order to express surprise and admiration. Relate to a Spaniard some extraordinary act,—as, for example, a murder, an incendiarism, an earthquake,—and you will hear him exclaim, "Ave Maria!" just as an Englishman would say, "Dear me, is it possible? You don't say so!" Such is the prestige that hovers about the name of the Virgin in the national customs of Spain.

Although the Virgin is in the eyes of Spaniards but an only being, and although they do not believe that there is more than one mother of God, yet the devotion which they tender to her is diversified in its forms according to the various advocations which the clergy have invented, which the popes have sanctioned, and to which the liturgy has given an official character. But the word advocation extends itself to a special name, a name significant of that with which the name of the Virgin is coupled, and which is sometimes derived from the facts in her history, from the endowments of her mind, or from the places in which her image has miraculously appeared. To the first class pertain the Virgin of the Nativity, the Virgin of Candlemas, the Virgin of the Assumption, the Virgin of Griefs, the Virgin of the Seven Griefs; the Virgin of Anguish or Agonies; and the Virgin of Solitude. To the second class, the Virgin of the Conception, of the Rosary, of Mercy, of Remedies, and of Pity. To the third class, the Virgin of Carmen, of Zaragoza, of Guadaloupe, of Copacabana, of Olivia de la Victoria, of Penacerada, of Regla, of Cavadoraga, of Montserrat, of Nieves, of Fousanta, of Atocha, {115} and innumerable other places.

The Virgin of the Rosary is so called, because it is before her image that her devotees pray the rosary. This pious exercise consists in a paternoster and ten Ave Marias, repeated five times. The advocations of the Virgin de las Carretas, the Virgin of the Dew, and some others, are of an origin now unknown. In truth, this multiplication of the same religious type has no fixed limits.

But the most extraordinary thing in this peculiarity of Roman Catholic worship is, that not only is the Virgin not worshipped at all without some one of these titles which a mistaken piety has conferred upon her, but that every one of these titles has a particular class of persons singled out from among the faithful, so that some are the devotees of one Virgin and some of another; and they who profess such devotion, for example, to the Virgin of the Rosary, never pray to the Virgin of Griefs. To such a point does this exclusive affection arrive, that the devotees are apt to dispute among themselves as to the respective merits of the advocations to which each consecrates his worship. In some cities and towns the inhabitants are divided into parties, some defending one Virgin, and some another, which state of discord has resulted in angry disputes, animosities, and even acts of violence.

The statues of the Virgin are of two classes; some are made entirely of wood, including the draperies. Among these are some of superior merit. {116} Others have only the head and hands of sculpture, the rest being only a kind of frame-work, fit to support the dress, which is made of worked velvet and other rich textures.

The statues consecrated to a popular advocation have immense treasures, consisting of clothes, of crowns and collars, bracelets, and other trinkets, brilliants, pearls, emeralds, and other precious stones. The custody of these things is confided to one of the principal ladies of the city, and she is called the mistress of the robes to the Virgin (camarera mayor de la Virgin), and it is her duty, assisted by other ladies of inferior degree in the sacred household, to dress and undress the statue, varying the costume and ornaments according to the solemnity of the day.

Some few of those advocations require particular colours to be observed in the vestments appropriated to the respective statues; the Virgin of Carmen, for example, must be dressed in white and dark grey; that of the Conception in white and blue; that of Griefs in blue and red; that of Solitude in white and black, and so on. The greater number of those statues of the Virgin have in their arms a figure of the infant Christ.

It is worthy of remark, that the images which most excite devotion are generally those which are most ugly and most disproportionate. The Virgin of Zaragoza, the devotion of all Spain to which touches the borders of enthusiasm, and on which statue Ferdinand VII. conferred the office of field marshal (capitan general), is very small, and has the appearance of a carbonised mummy.

Roman Catholics, not satisfied with this indefinite multiplication of the personality of the Virgin, this innumerable variety of names and attributes ascribed to the same individuality, have gone a step farther, and worshipped one part of her body separately from the rest; and this singular idea has given birth to another, viz., "devotion to the heart of Mary,"—recently adopted in France, propagated in all the Papal dominions, converted into an especial rite which the Church of Rome celebrates with mass, vespers, and other services comprised in the missal and the breviary. If, by the words, "heart of Mary," is to be understood that muscle which serves as the centre of the circulation of the blood, or the common metaphor which attributes to the heart the affections, the desires, and all the other acts of the will, it is a mystery which hitherto has not been explained either by the Roman Catholic church, or any of the devotional books which have been written on the subject,—it is a dilemma from which Roman Catholics never will be able to escape; and, in the first case, nothing can be more preposterous than to divide adoration between the entire person and one of its parts; and, in the second case, the object of adoration is reduced to a mere verbal artifice, depending on vulgar custom or on the caprice of men. If the heart of the Virgin is adored under a supposition that it is the centre of the most pure and virtuous sentiments, why has there not been adoration of her head, which is supposed to be nourished with noble and elevated thoughts? Why not her womb, in which lay the Saviour of the world? Why not her hands, which nursed him, and performed all those various acts and offices which are dictated by maternal solicitude?