aculate Mary!" (_ave Maria purisuma_) is the formula with which a
visitor salutes persons in a house, and the response is, "conceived
without sin" (_sin pecado concebida_) {113} These words are engraven on
the facades of many public buildings and private houses. They are used
also by way of exclamation in familiar conversation, in order to express
surprise and admiration. Relate to a Spaniard some extraordinary
act,--as, for example, a murder, an incendiarism, an earthquake,--and you
will hear him exclaim, "Ave Maria!" just as an Englishman would say,
"Dear me, is it possible? You don't say so!" Such is the prestige that
hovers about the name of the Virgin in the national customs of Spain.

Although the Virgin is in the eyes of Spaniards but an only being, and
although they do not believe that there is more than one mother of God,
yet the devotion which they tender to her is diversified in its forms
according to the various _advocations_ which the clergy have invented,
which the popes have sanctioned, and to which the liturgy has given an
official character. But the word _advocation_ extends itself to a
special name, a name significant of that with which the name of the
Virgin is coupled, and which is sometimes derived from the facts in her
history, from the endowments of her mind, or from the places in which her
image has miraculously appeared. To the first class pertain the Virgin
of the Nativity, the Virgin of Candlemas, the Virgin of the Assumption,
the Virgin of Griefs, the Virgin of the Seven Griefs; the Virgin of
Anguish or Agonies; and the Virgin of Solitude. To the second class, the
Virgin of the Conception, of the Rosary, of Mercy, of Remedies, and of
Pity. To the third class, the Virgin of Carmen, of Zaragoza, of
Guadaloupe, of Copacabana, of Olivia de la Victoria, of Penacerada, of
Regla, of Cavadoraga, of Montserrat, of Nieves, of Fousanta, of Atocha,
{115} and innumerable other places.

The Virgin of the Rosary is so called, because it is before her image
that her devotees pray the rosary. This pious exercise consists in a
paternoster and ten _Ave Marias_, repeated five times. The advocations
of the Virgin _de las Carretas_, the Virgin of the Dew, and some others,
are of an origin now unknown. In truth, this multiplication of the same
religious type has no fixed limits.

But the most extraordinary thing in this peculiarity of Roman Catholic
worship is, that not only is the Virgin not worshippe