In times of great calamities, such as earthquakes and epidemics, this spirit of penance is resuscitated and exercised with great fervour; public prayers are offered up, and sermons are preached, which inspire terror and increase the natural fear and alarm attending the catastrophe. On these occasions the churches are filled, and nothing is heard in them but shrieks of grief and expressions of repentance. But the misfortune overpast, all those external signs of religious sentiment disappear, and society at large once more returns to the usual routine of business and pleasure. CHAPTER X. FALSE MIRACLES, RELICS, AND RELIGIOUS IMPOSITIONS—Veneration of crucifixes and statues or images—Their power of healing—Picture at Cadiz—_Lignum Crucis_—Veronica—Bodies of saints—How procured—Inscriptions—Lives of saints—Maria de Agreda—St Francis—Scandalous representation of the appearance of the Virgin to a saint—Fray Diego de Cadiz—_Beata_ Clara—Her fame and downfall—The nun, Sister Patrocinio—Her success, detection, confession, and expulsion—She returns, and is protected by a high personage—She is again expelled, but again returns and founds a convent—Its disgraceful character and suppression—Her flight towards Rome—Occurrences on the road—Her return to Spain. It is easy to conceive the abuse that may be made by the clergy of the credulity of a nation in which such ridiculous and absurd practices prevail as those to which we have already alluded. The priest is considered, in Roman Catholic countries, as the representative of Jesus Christ, the only depositary of true doctrine, the only dispenser of celestial favours, the agent of the supreme authority of the Pope,—in a word, the infallible oracle, to whose teachings the faith cannot be opposed, and whose mandates must not be resisted under penalty of incurring a mortal sin. Thus all his words carry the stamp of irresistible power. The Spanish clergy have always known the resources they could draw from this position, and they have abused it in order to establish numberless false miracles, which, at the same time that they add to their prestige, greatly augment their treasure. There is scarcely a cure of an infirmity which human flesh is heir to, that is not attributed to some prodigy from heaven. There is scarcely a town in Spain in which they do not venerate a crucifix which has perspired, or a virgin’s statue which has moved its eyes. In some places they pretend to believe that bells are rung without being touched; in others, roses grow, out of their proper season, to serve the festivals of the church. At the time of the expedition of the Earl of Essex to Cadiz, the English took their swords and cut asunder a certain painting of a religious subject in one of the churches, whereupon the edges of the cut canvas began to bleed, and the blood remains there to this day, and may be seen by the curious in one of the parish churches of that city! They relate numerous