ining in the present day.

In times of great calamities, such as earthquakes and epidemics, this
spirit of penance is resuscitated and exercised with great fervour;
public prayers are offered up, and sermons are preached, which inspire
terror and increase the natural fear and alarm attending the catastrophe.
On these occasions the churches are filled, and nothing is heard in them
but shrieks of grief and expressions of repentance. But the misfortune
overpast, all those external signs of religious sentiment disappear, and
society at large once more returns to the usual routine of business and
pleasure.

CHAPTER X.

FALSE MIRACLES, RELICS, AND RELIGIOUS IMPOSITIONS--Veneration of
crucifixes and statues or images--Their power of healing--Picture at
Cadiz--_Lignum Crucis_--Veronica--Bodies of saints--How
procured--Inscriptions--Lives of saints--Maria de Agreda--St
Francis--Scandalous representation of the appearance of the Virgin to a
saint--Fray Diego de Cadiz--_Beata_ Clara--Her fame and downfall--The
nun, Sister Patrocinio--Her success, detection, confession, and
expulsion--She returns, and is protected by a high personage--She is
again expelled, but again returns and founds a convent--Its disgraceful
character and suppression--Her flight towards Rome--Occurrences on the
road--Her return to Spain.

It is easy to conceive the abuse that may be made by the clergy of the
credulity of a nation in which such ridiculous and absurd practices
prevail as those to which we have already alluded. The priest is
considered, in Roman Catholic countries, as the representative of Jesus
Christ, the only depositary of true doctrine, the only dispenser of
celestial favours, the agent of the supreme authority of the Pope,--in a
word, the infallible oracle, to whose teachings the faith cannot be
opposed, and whose mandates must not be resisted under penalty of
incurring a mortal sin. Thus all his words carry the stamp of
irresistible power. The Spanish clergy have always known the resources
they could draw from this position, and they have abused it in order to
establish numberless false miracles, which, at the same time that they
add to their prestige, greatly augment their treasure. There is scarcely
a cure of an infirmity which human flesh is heir to, that is not
attributed to some prodigy from heaven. There is scarcely a town in
Spain in which they do not venerate a crucifix which has perspired, or a
virgin's statue whi