Thirty-three propositions, dependent on the first one, were submitted to calificadores and condemned as before, while nineteen others, extracted from his papers, were explained by him and dropped. Drearily and slowly the proceedings dragged along. On March 3, 1616, the accusation was presented, but it was not until June 6, 1619, that the publication of evidence was reached. Yet the case seems still to have been in the preliminary stage for on July 10th the Suprema ordered that the propositions, which had now grown to fifty-seven in number, should be submitted to calificadores and on their report the tribunal should decide whether to transfer him to the secret prison. It waited more than six months before it reached a decision, February 5, 1620, to make no change but, when the Suprema learned this, it ordered him to the prison of familiars, which was done on August 12th. Then, on the 18th, he selected patrones to advise him and, on September 25th, he presented the interrogatories for the witnesses in defence. On May 12, 1621, he was informed that all that he had required had been done for him. On July 5th the consulta de fe voted that he should be warned and required to retract the proposition respecting fasting and those derived from it--which he had already done spontaneously six years before; as for the others, he was acquitted. The Suprema took nearly a year to consider this and did not confirm it until June 2, 1622, when the trial ended with the reading of the sentence on June 30th.[370] All this reads like a travesty and might well be the subject of ridicule were it not for the serious import on a nation's destiny of a system under which eight years of a man's life could be consumed on a matter which the outcome showed to be so frivolous, to say nothing of the indefinite number of calificadores and officials whose energies were wasted on this solemn trifling. * * * * * [Sidenote: _THE PULPIT_]