On the following day in the same place the examination was continued--his neglect of Holy Days and Fastings in England and Germany; his attendance at heretic preachings (although he emphatically denied that he ever partook of the communion in any Protestant church); his doubts concerning the Incarnation, the Miracles, the Sacraments; his familiarity with magical arts; his praise of heretics and heretic Princes,--these were some of the many points of indictment which he had to face. The _Book of Conjurations_, and others like it, he professed to have had only out of curiosity, although he despised and discredited sorcery; but he had wished to study the divining art, and especially the divinatory (prophetic) side of astrology, merely out of scientific interest, and therefore had such books by him. Heretics he had praised, only for the moral virtues they had showed, or from convention (as in the case of Queen Elizabeth). The course of his examination was making clear to Bruno at last in how great danger he really stood; and on this day he made, probably in hope of immediate release, a formal and solemn abjuration of all the errors he had ever committed pertaining to the Catholic life and profession, all the heresies he had believed and the doubts he had permitted himself to hold about the Catholic Faith or the decrees of the Church; and prayed that the Holy Tribunal would receive him into the bosom of the Holy Church, provide him with remedies proper to his salvation, and show mercy upon him. [Sidenote: July 30.] The earlier processes against him at Naples and at Rome were, however, recalled to mind; and on the following day he was again questioned as to his familiarity with the magic arts. Three weeks later Morosini was examined and Ciotto re-examined; in both cases the evidence was wholly in Bruno's favour. Then a long interval elapsed. It was not till the 30th of July that the case was again taken up.[117] Bruno had nothing to add to his defence, except his constant desire to enter the Church, if he could only do so without undergoing the bondage of monkhood again. Worn out by anxiety, and possibly by torture, he humbled himself before his judges: kneeling, he asked pardon of God and of his judges for all the errors he had committed, and offered himself as prepared for any penance they might lay upon him. He hoped his chastisement might exceed rather in gravity than in publicity, whereby dishonour might be cast upon the sacred habit of the Order which he had borne; and if by the mercy of God and of "their illustrious lordships," his life should be granted him, he promised to make amends for the scandal he had created by equally great edification. XVI [Sidenote: Dec. 22.]