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
cha