It still convenes in the old hall of its former glory. A venerable moss-covered pile, vast and gloomy, with lofty towers and turrets of rock, with hewn cells and deep dungeons. Here may be seen, fixed to the rock, the rings and chains, worn and rusty with age, where the victims of superstition suffered beneath the decrees of this ancient Court. Slow and proud, along the dark stone corridors, and beneath the dusky arches of this great prison-palace, the High Bonzes and the devotees walk in state. Ushered with pompous ceremonial, and with the grand incantations to the gods and devils of the Superstition, into the lofty and obscure hall of the Star-Chamber, the _Convocation_ sits. In deep alcoves around are stored the ponderous volumes, containing all the mysteries and terrors of the Superstition. In these are the horrid imaginings of fanatical Priests and devotees; the _dogmas_ and _canons_ of the Superstition; the dreadful arsenal, whence were drawn those frightful weapons of superstitious terror, whence issued the chains and bolts, and scourges, the faggots and the flames. One hears the groans of the tortured, the steps of the jailers, the clashing of the chains, when, in these long and resounding aisles and arches, the winds moan, the distant footsteps fall, or the old casements in the ruinous towers shake and rattle. Nor is the arsenal wholly useless now; the weapons are not all rusty; _anathemas_ may yet be found to terrify, and restraints to punish. _Heresy_ [pho-phi], as any doubt concerning the Queen-pope and the _Superstition_ is called, drives the culprit from Society, deprives the Bonze of all preferment, of his employment, and turns him ignominiously _adrift_, to live or to starve. _Convocation_ watches over the _Sacred Writings_, to see that no change, not so much as of a syllable, be made; not trusting to _Jah_, who may have himself, perhaps, grown indifferent to the matter. A curious thing, showing how irrationally men will act in respect of an irrational system. For the notion is that this Word of Jah (the _Sacred Writings_), being his _Revelation_ (Word), have always been by Him exactly preserved through all the ages and the changes of languages, and of transcription, and of _everything to this hour_. Why is it to be supposed, then, that He will suddenly lose his power to preserve, or will be indifferent to preserve? Punishments in the ordinary Courts are not very remarkable, only there is one so characteristic of the English, so comically barbarous, that I will try to describe it.