Instances of enthusiasm are so rare, even in the most austere orders, that there is strong ground to suspect its seeds are destroyed by a pervading corruption of morals. The Observant Franciscans, the most numerous community in this town, have not been able to set up a living saint after the death, which happened four or five years since, of the last in the series of servants to the order, who, for time immemorial, have been a source of honour and profit to that convent. Besides the lay-brothers--a kind of upper servants under religious vows, but excluded from the dignity of holy orders--the friars admit some peasants, under the name of Donados, (_Donati_, in the Latin of the middle ages,) who, like their predecessors of servile condition, give themselves up, as their name expresses it, to the service of the convent. As these people are now-a-days at liberty to leave their voluntary servitude, none are admitted but such as by the weakness of their understanding, and the natural timidity arising from a degree of imbecility, are expected to continue for life in a state of religious bondage. They wear the habit of the order, and are employed in the most menial offices, unless, being able to act, or rather to bear the character of extraordinary sanctity, they are sent about town to collect alms for their employers. These idiot saints are seen daily with a vacillating step, and look of the deepest humility, bearing about an image of the child Jesus, to which a basket for alms is appended, and offering, not their hand, which is the privilege of priests, but the end of their right sleeve, to be kissed by the pious. To what influence these miserable beings are sometimes raised, may be learned from a few particulars of the life of Hermanito Sebastian (Little Brother Sebastian) the last but one of the Franciscan collectors in this town.