mish Church, a lady called
Veronica met our Saviour in the street of Amargura, in Jerusalem, bearing
his cross, on the way to Mount Calvary; and perceiving the perspiration
running down his face, she offered the use of her handkerchief, which our
Lord is said to have used, or to have permitted Veronica to use, in
wiping the sweat from his temples. In performing this operation, the
handkerchief happened to be folded into double, treble, or quadruple, and
it was found that an exact impress of the Saviour's visage was indelibly
stamped on every fold! These portraits, they say, have been preserved,
and are certainly venerated as sacred relics in different places. One is
exhibited in Rome, another in Padua, and a third in Jaen, in Andalusia.
A public exhibition of this _holy face_ is permitted, annually, on a
certain day appointed for the purpose, when a plenary indulgence is
granted to all who go to look upon it, to confess and to receive the holy
communion. It is only the most ignorant and superstitious who are found
to believe in this fable; indeed, it has now become proverbial with a
Spaniard, when told of any thing that seems impossible, to say, _Eso y la
cara de Dios estan en Jaen_,--That and the face of God are in Jaen."

The bodies of saints exposed to public veneration in many churches are
almost innumerable. The authenticity of these holy remains is founded on
pontifical bulls invested with all necessary formalities. The way of
procuring these remains of corrupt mortality is very easy and simple. It
consists in gathering up, in the catacombs of Rome, some of the infinite
numbers of bones there deposited; there is never wanting some devout
antiquarian to discover that they are those of a saint or a martyr, and
the assertion is supported by old parchments of remote ages, made in
Rome, where the profession is of great use. Those testimonies are
presented to the Roman Datary, and by means of a fixed sum found in a
tariff comprising many other articles, the pontifical sanction is
obtained, and then the bones become converted into objects of general
devotion.

The inscriptions on Roman altars and sepulchres in the pagan ages are
used to support those inventions. All the world knows the history of the
celebrated saints Perpetua and Felicity, whose beatifications have no
other foundation than the words _perpetua felicitas_, so very common on
the monuments of that nation. The improbability of some of the fictions