sture--perhaps the most
contemptible--which frequently offended the public eye, before the
American advent, was the practice of prowling about with doll-saints
in the streets and public highways. A vagrant, too lazy to earn an
honest subsistence, procured a licence from the monks to hawk about a
wooden box containing a doll or print covered by a pane of glass. This
he offered to hold before the nose of any ignorant passer-by who was
willing to pay for the boon of kissing the glass!

During Holy Week, a few years ago, the captain of the Civil Guard
in Tayabas Province went to the town of Atimonan, and saw natives
in the streets almost in a state of nudity doing penance "for the
wounds of Our Lord." They were actually beating themselves with
flails, some of which were made of iron chain, and others of rope
with thongs of rattan-cane. Having confiscated the flails--one of
which he gave to me--he effectually assisted the fanatics in their
penitent castigation. Alas! to what excesses will faith, unrestrained
by reason, bring one!

The result of tuition in mystic influences is sometimes manifested
in the appearance of native Santones--indolent scamps who roam
about in remote villages, feigning the possession of supernatural
gifts, the faculty of saving souls, and the healing art, with the
object of living at the expense of the ignorant. I never happened
to meet more than one of these creatures--an escaped convict named
Apolonio, a native of Cabuyao (Laguna), who, assuming the character
of a prophet and worker of miracles, had fled to the neighbourhood
of San Pablo village. I have often heard of them in other places,
notably in Capis Province, where the Santones were vigorously pursued
by the Civil Guard, and as recently as May, 1904, a notorious humbug
of this class, styling himself _Pope Isio, alias Nazarenong Gala_,
was arrested in West Negros and punished under American authority.

The Spanish clergy were justifiably zealous in guarding the Filipinos
from a knowledge of other doctrines which would only lead them to
immeasurable bewilderment. Hence all the civilized natives were
Roman Catholics exclusively. The strict obedience to _one_ system
of Christianity, even in its grossly perverted form, had the effect
desired by the State, of bringing about social unity to an advanced
degree. Yet, so far as I have observed, the native seems to understand
extremely little of the "inward and spiritual grace" of religion. He
is so