are set a-ringing,--pigeons
are let off upon the wing,--every one makes the greatest possible noise,
striking the benches of the church, firing rockets within its walls, and
salvos of artillery in the squares. Some churches enjoy the privilege of
saying only low masses (_misas rezadas_) on this day.

We have spoken of the obligation of all to hear mass on Sundays and
feast-days; and we should add that this is the only act of devotion
required from Spaniards on those days. By the words, "observe the
feasts," is understood, in Spain, that after joining in the mass, as
before stated, believers are at liberty to dedicate the day to every
species of diversion and profanity. In France and in England, it is
obligatory also to attend vespers on the Sundays. Not so, however, in
Spain, where, in the evenings, scarcely a person is to be seen in the
churches.

All truly religious men who read the foregoing remarks, and in which
there is not the least exaggeration or departure from the truth, will
imagine, doubtless, that the modern ecclesiastical authorities of the
peninsula have, at least, attempted to rectify all that is absurd and
irreverent in those practices, and to strip a ceremony so august and
imposing as that of the mass of all that a want of true devotion, and
that ignorance and neglect on the part of the clergy, has introduced to
that ceremony,--nevertheless it is not so; the clergy themselves appear
to co-operate in those attempts to pervert the ideas of the nation. The
proof of it is, that being ordered by all the councils, especially that
of Trent, to preach a sermon, during the high mass, explaining the gospel
for the day, as is done in all other Roman Catholic countries, yet in
Spain no such practice is observed, except in poor and small towns; so
that the Spaniard is not only wanting of that spiritual aliment which the
reading of the Bible is able to furnish, but also of a person to explain
those parts of Scripture which he has been hearing read, and in a strange
language, during the mass. Preaching, as has already been stated in our
introductory chapter, is in Spain reduced to panegyrics on the saints,
and to Lent-sermons,--which, in truth, have only reference to the gospel
for the day; and although this spiritual food is administered but seldom
and in small quantities, that is to say, eight or ten times from
Ash-Wednesday until Palm-Sunday, there is no doubt whatever of its
beneficial effects, and that by