nually a Pope's Bula or Bull--a small pardon, or indulgence, or
plenary remission of sins. The exact meaning of these things is a little
obscure; the high authorities themselves do not universally agree about
them, except so far as to say that they are of prodigious value of some
sort. The orthodox explanation, I believe, is something of this kind.
With every sin there is the moral guilt and the temporal penalty. The
pardon cannot touch the guilt; but when the guilt is remitted, there is
still the penalty. I may ruin my health by a dissolute life; I may
repent of my dissoluteness and be forgiven; but the bad health will
remain. For bad health, substitute penance in this world and purgatory
in the next; and in this sphere the indulgence takes effect.

Such as they are, at any rate, everybody in Spain has these bulls; you
buy them in the shops for a shilling apiece.

This is one form of the thing. Again, at the door of a Spanish church
you will see hanging on the wall an intimation that whoever will pray so
many hours before a particular image shall receive full forgiveness of
his sins. Having got that, one might suppose he would be satisfied; but
no--if he prays so many more hours, he can get off a hundred years of
purgatory, or a thousand, or ten thousand. In one place I remember
observing that for a very little trouble a man could escape a hundred
and fifty thousand years of purgatory.

What a prospect for the ill-starred Protestant, who will be lucky if he
is admitted into purgatory at all!

Again, if you enter a sacristy, you will see a small board like the
notices addressed to parishioners in our vestries. On particular days it
is taken out and hung up in the church, and little would a stranger,
ignorant of the language, guess the tremendous meaning of that
commonplace appearance. On these boards is written 'Hoy se sacan
animas,'--'This day, souls are taken out of purgatory.' It is an
intimation to every one with a friend in distress that now is his time.
You put a shilling in a plate, you give your friend's name, and the
thing is done. One wonders why, if purgatory can be sacked so easily,
any poor wretch is left to suffer there.

Such practices nowadays are comparatively innocent, the money asked and
given is trifling, and probably no one concerned in the business
believes much about it. They serve to show, however, on a small scale,
what once went on on an immense scale; and even such as they are, pious
Cath