cases in which the host when profaned has, when broken, sent forth blood. If a sacristan omits to light the lamp which burns at night before the eucharist, the lamp lights itself. There are innumerable persons in Spain who believe that he who is born on Good-Friday has a cross on the roof of his mouth, and the faculty of curing diseases by mere contact with his hands, or even a piece of his garment. The palms which are blessed on Palm-Sunday, and the candles burnt on Good-Friday before the sacrament, have power to preserve houses from thunderbolts. The same faculty is attributed to a small bell blessed by the priest. In times of drought, which are the greatest calamities that afflict the Spanish soil, a favourite image is taken out and conducted in procession, in order to implore genial showers of rain. Thanks to the invention of the barometer, and a practical knowledge of the aspect of the weather, it almost always happens that this ceremony is followed a few days afterwards by a copious supply. But it would require an entire volume to enumerate all the errors and superstitions of this description which have been propagated by the clergy in Spain, and which form the chief props of their power. Relics have served as efficacious instruments to accomplish that end. The _lignum crucis_, pieces of the cross on which the Saviour suffered, are profusely distributed not only in the churches, but in the private houses of many persons. In most of the cathedrals are preserved and shown to the public, on certain occasions, some of the thorns which composed our Saviour’s crown; in others, fragments of the Virgin’s veil; and in the cathedral of Jaen, _the face of God_. A description of this last-named wonder may not be unacceptable to some of our readers, and therefore we give a description of it in the words of a living English writer:—“According to the tradition of the Romish Church, a lady called Veronica met our Saviour in the street of Amargura, in Jerusalem, bearing his cross, on the way to Mount Calvary; and perceiving the perspiration running down his face, she offered the use of her handkerchief, which our Lord is said to have used, or to have permitted Veronica to use, in wiping the sweat from his temples. In performing this operation, the handkerchief happened to be folded into double, treble, or quadruple, and it was found that an exact impress of the Saviour’s visage was indelibly stamped on every fold! These portraits, they say, have been preserved, and are certainly venerated as sacred relics in different places. One is exhibited in Rome, another in Padua, and a third in Jaen, in Andalusia. A public exhibition of this _holy face_ is permitted, annually, on a certain day appointed for the purpose, when a plenary indulgence is granted to all who go to look upon it, to confess and to receive the holy communion. It is only the most ignorant and superstitious who are found