t of the Lord's Supper,
at least once a-year. Confessors amplify this obligation, and require
their penitents to observe both these sacraments frequently. Devout
persons who aspire to greater spiritual perfection practise these
observances once a week. Still, however, the church is satisfied with an
annual celebration of them by each of its members, and fixes the period
for that performance at Easter. The infraction of this rule is
considered a mortal sin, and the clergy use every possible means to
enforce the precept. The two sacraments are inseparable, and to obey the
injunction of confession and communion is called "to comply with the
church," (_cumplir con la Iglesia_).

The method employed by the clergy to discover delinquents with reference
to these obligations, is as rigid and severe as any that can be devised
by the most despotic civil authority. About the middle of Lent the
priest and one of his assistants form a general census of all their
parishioners. In the acts of confession and communion, the penitent
receives two tickets, which certify his obedience to the paschal precept,
and when the assigned period is over for these observances, the priest
goes from house to house to gather the tickets; so that it is impossible
to conceal any infraction of the rule. Until within the last few years,
it was the custom to write the names of all defaulters upon a board,
exposed to public view in the churches, by way of punishment of the
delinquents; and, consequently, those who were the subjects of this
punishment were badly looked upon by the towns-people, and considered as
atheists and heretics. The result of this absurd penal code was, that
men preferred sacrilege to dishonour, and complied externally with the
precept, making an imperfect confession, receiving the eucharist in a
state of culpability, and committing, consequently, in the eyes of a
Roman Catholic, one of the blackest crimes. Whether it was on account of
a grave inconvenience resulting from this mode of punishment, or by
virtue of that decay in the ecclesiastical influence in Spain, so notable
in recent years, we cannot determine, but that practice has now been
completely abolished; and even in Madrid and the principal cities of the
kingdom, the "complying with the church" has lost its compulsory
character, and been reduced to those who truly believe in its efficacy.
It is true that the clergy still give tickets, as testimonials, to those
who pe