eeply rooted in the public manners, that, in the
eyes of most Spaniards, any person who would dare to censure it would
pass for an unbeliever or a heretic.

There are two days in the year on which it is prohibited to say mass at
all; these are, Thursday in Passion-week and Good Friday. The English
tourists know the eminently dramatic character which distinguishes these
feasts at that season of the year in St Peter's at Rome. All the offices
of the seven days of that week are well calculated to excite the
imagination, and awaken in the coldest hearts the most lively sympathy
with the great events then commemorated. Every thing connected with
those rites breathes grief and sadness, and there is a certain mournful
solemnity in them which harmonises with the scenes of our Saviour's
passion. The chapters of the four Evangelists, containing the narrative
of that great event, from the going up of our Lord to Jerusalem to the
crucifixion, are chanted by three priests, each one taking a distinct
part. One takes the words in which the evangelist recounts those events;
another the words put into the mouths of Judas, Pilate, Peter, and the
other persons referred to in the narrative; and the third, whose voice is
generally a profound bass, the words of the Saviour. The solemnity of
the Thursday has for its object the institution of the eucharist, and the
long series of ceremonies in which this grand mystery is symbolised,
concludes by conducting, in solemn procession, the consecrated host from
the great altar of the church, where it has been preserved all the year,
to a wooden sanctuary in the same church, more or less richly adorned,
called the monument (_monumento_), which is dressed up with a profusion
of jewels, lights, and flowers, and remains all night guarded by some of
the devout, and, in towns which contain a garrison, by military
sentinels. Some of those monuments are, in truth, works of architecture
of great merit; and among them that of the cathedral of Seville is
distinguished for its gigantic dimensions, and for the richness and
elegance of its structure.

In the offices for Good Friday, the host is restored to the altar, with a
ceremony as solemn as that of the day preceding; and the services, which
are very long, refer to all the scenes of the crucifixion, including all
the passages in the prophecies and other parts of the Old Testament in
which the event is prefigured or foretold. After the offices are gone