If you ask upper-class Spaniards, priestly or lay, about the religion of the people of Spain, you will be told that half the nation are bigots and the other half free-thinkers and atheists, or at best indifferent Laodiceans: a sweeping assertion that has so often been made that it has become a commonplace with foreign journalists and magazine writers. To accuse the nation at large of bigotry, atheism, or indifferentism, is nevertheless as unjust as to accuse the army of cowardice. Small though is the attendance of the working classes at Mass, and hostile though they are to the practice of confession, they are none the less deeply religious--firm believers in the efficacy of prayer, and loyal to the fundamental tenets of their faith, such as dependence on the will of God, gratitude for small mercies vouchsafed by a good Providence, and devotion to the Virgin and the saints. In the middle class there is, no doubt, a good deal of rather shallow free-thinking, although it usually goes little beyond a scoff at superstition and contempt for miracles and images, and is confined to the men. The women usually follow in their mothers’ footsteps, attend Mass, run through the rosary, and thoroughly enjoy the processions which enliven so many Church festivals. Confession, however, is perfunctory even among middle-class women, and the poor avoid it altogether. For strict observance of the ordinances and for material support of the Church you must go to women of higher social position, ladies of title and the wives of rich men, whose political relations keep them hand in hand with the priests and the Religious Orders. They are the bulwark of the Church in Spain. Indeed, it is often said that if all the ladies of the aristocracy could be locked up for a few years, the Church of Spain would go to pieces, so little real hold has it on any other element in the national life. These ladies attend Mass every day and confess with great regularity. They consider it the highest privilege to be “wardrobe keepers” for the _santos_ (saints-images) in their favourite churches; they dress and undress the image of the Virgin with their own hands for festivals, and they keep in their own houses the jewels and other treasures belonging to her. In some cases they also look after the vestments of the priests and take charge of the altar linen. And they give or bequeath large fortunes to different monasteries and convents, and to religious houses built to receive orphans and old people, repentant Magdalens, and girls in training for domestic service. But no one is admitted to institutions supported by ladies of devout life save on condition of daily attendance at Mass and regular confession and communion. And therefore the people say that such charity is not dictated by love for their poorer brethren, but is merely given in order to prop up a decadent Church, and many will starve rather than ask for it.