most horrible
pains those who have offended him.

CHAPTER VI.

FEAST-DAYS--Processions and Novenas--Corpus Christi--How performed in
Seville, and the sacred dances of _los seises_--How in Madrid--Procession
of Holy Week--The _Santo Entierro_--Clerical processions--Procession of
the Rosary--Rites of Roman Catholicism--Jubilee of forty
hours--_Romerias_ or pilgrimages.

From the time at which the true spirit of Christianity, under the
dominion of the popes, began to be corrupted, and experience taught what
effects might be drawn from material worship, founded chiefly on pomp and
a complication of religious ceremonies, the Roman Catholic clergy,
especially those of Spain, have never ceased to multiply and vary the
means of occupying the imagination of men with exterior acts of an
apparently religious character. One of the principal abuses emanating
from this idea has been the invention of feast-days, which are ordered to
be observed as days of rest in the same manner as Sunday. So numerous
are the feast-days in the Spanish calendar, that there is scarcely a
month in the year which does not contain three or four of them. The
chief mysteries in the life of Jesus Christ, viz., the nativity, the
epiphany, the passion, the resurrection, ascension, and others,--the
celebrated epochs in the life of the Virgin Mary, and some of her
advocations, and the apostles, and a few favourite saints,--are the
objects to which those different feast-days are consecrated; and as on
these all kinds of labour are suspended, and as their number, including
Sundays, forms nearly a third part of the whole year, the vacuum they
leave in productive labour and in the exercise of professional avocations
is incalculable; so that feast-days may be enumerated among the various
causes tending to bring about the poverty of the nation. But besides
these days, there are others, called days of mass, on which it is
obligatory to attend that rite, although it is lawful to pursue secular
occupations.

Among the most popular exercises of worship, and from which the clergy
draw most profit, are worthy of note those of _processions_ and
_novenas_. In the most important among the former, that of _Corpus
Christi_ is the chief, and most observed. In that procession, it is the
practice to carry about the streets the _host_ and certain images of
saints. This rite was established in the twelfth century, in consequence
of a dream or vision had by a woman