s is so immensely great that
there is not a sufficient number of priests in the neighbourhood to
discharge the duty of saying them; the incomes, therefore, received by
the clergy accumulate, and are disposed of for other purposes. Thus the
church becomes a debtor to purgatory for thousands of masses which,
though paid for, remain unsaid. In these cases the clergy have recourse
to the pope, and demand a bull called _bulla de composicion_, for which
the datary at Rome exacts a considerable sum of money. In fact, this
bull is to compress, by a science which appears very like that of
chemistry, the virtue of four or five thousand masses unsaid into only
one which _is_ said; so that if four or five thousand or more souls ought
to be drawn out by means of the like number of masses, one single mass
alone, through the medium of the bull, produces this grand result; and by
this homoeopathic process the consciences of the debtors are pacified.

It may easily be imagined that these practices lead to the greatest
abuse. Before the suppression of the friars, the convents were the great
depositaries of this species of treasure. The bishops, and even the
government itself, have often desired to look into these accounts in
order to see whether the will of the testator had been exactly complied
with in the application of the funds to their intended purposes. But the
prelates of the respective orders have always most tenaciously resisted
any such encroachment on their faculties and jurisdiction. It is quite
certain that the incomes from these _mandas piadosas_ were frequently
laid out in repairing convents, erecting new chapels, celebrating
religious feasts, and purchasing rich ornaments, and other precious
objects, for augmenting the splendour of the sacred rites and ceremonies.
When, at the end of the year, the account came to be stated of this
branch of the church's industry, and there appeared to be a vast
disproportion of masses said in comparison with the sums received, the
procurador of the order in Rome solicited a bull of composition. The
account was thus balanced, and every thing nicely adjusted.

Although, on every day in the year, the suffrages of all classes may be
offered in favour of souls in purgatory, there are some days especially
privileged and set apart in the calendar for the purpose, with this note
affixed to them, _dia de anima_ (Soul-day), and on which the effect of
the suffrage is supposed to be infallibl