There is a society, or brotherhood, designated the school of Christ (“_La Escuela de Cristo_”), very much addicted to this self-castigation. They meet together regularly in a subterranean chapel, which is kept in total darkness during their exercises. The priest who conducts them ascends a pulpit, and all his performance consists in the most lamentable exclamations, which excite not only the grief, but the horror, of the hearers. Every thing in these meetings breathes obscurity, and is calculated to appal the human mind. There nothing is heard of the goodness of God, or of his mercy, but, on the contrary, he is represented as an inexorable tyrant, always disposed to punish with the most horrible pains those who have offended him. CHAPTER VI. FEAST-DAYS—Processions and Novenas—Corpus Christi—How performed in Seville, and the sacred dances of _los seises_—How in Madrid—Procession of Holy Week—The _Santo Entierro_—Clerical processions—Procession of the Rosary—Rites of Roman Catholicism—Jubilee of forty hours—_Romerías_ or pilgrimages. From the time at which the true spirit of Christianity, under the dominion of the popes, began to be corrupted, and experience taught what effects might be drawn from material worship, founded chiefly on pomp and a complication of religious ceremonies, the Roman Catholic clergy, especially those of Spain, have never ceased to multiply and vary the means of occupying the imagination of men with exterior acts of an apparently religious character. One of the principal abuses emanating from this idea has been the invention of feast-days, which are ordered to be observed as days of rest in the same manner as Sunday. So numerous are the feast-days in the Spanish calendar, that there is scarcely a month in the year which does not contain three or four of them. The chief mysteries in the life of Jesus Christ, viz., the nativity, the epiphany, the passion, the resurrection, ascension, and others,—the celebrated epochs in the life of the Virgin Mary, and some of her advocations, and the apostles, and a few favourite saints,—are the objects to which those different feast-days are consecrated; and as on these all kinds of labour are suspended, and as their number, including Sundays, forms nearly a third part of the whole year, the vacuum they leave in productive labour and in the exercise of professional avocations is incalculable; so that feast-days may be enumerated among the various causes tending to bring about the poverty of the nation. But besides these days, there are others, called days of mass, on which it is obligatory to attend that rite, although it is lawful to pursue secular occupations.