The people have a word of contempt for the religious principles of women such as these. They call them _beata_, which according to the dictionary means “devout,” but which the poor translate as “canting.” There is a world of difference to them between the lady who is _religiosa_ (religious) and the one who is _beata_. _Religiosa_ is applied to a woman who devotes her life to God and works for the sake of doing good; _beata_ means one who lives, moves, and has her being under the thumb of the priests and the Religious Orders. The poor say that unless they are prepared to attend Mass and confess regularly, they can expect nothing from women, however rich, who are known to be _beatas_. For alms given unquestioningly and without insistence on previous compliance with the rules of the Church, the sick and needy turn by preference either to persons recognised as “religious” or to those who “have nothing to do with those follies.” That is how the practice of confession is characterised by the democracy in the privacy of their own homes. They dread and distrust the confessors, and no poor man or woman will speak freely in the presence of one of their own class who is in the habit of confessing. Yet notwithstanding their antagonism to this primary dogma of their religion, the working classes, and especially the peasantry, are, as already stated, deeply and sincerely devout, and firmly uphold the Christian faith as they understand it. One of the most remarkable features in the spiritual life of the nation is the clear comprehension of even the least educated among them that the sins of the priests and the Religious Orders stand apart from and leave unsmirched the national religion. “What have I to do with those people?” said a young fisherman to the writer. “Confess to a priest? Never! I confess to God and my mother, and I want no priest to come between me and my God.” “I? Confess to a priest? What for? Every night when I go to bed I confess my sins to the Virgin, and I can die as well after that as if I had received the holy oils,” said an old woman of deep and sincere faith. “I do not allow my wife to go to confession,” said a master mason. “If she insisted I should refuse to provide for her. I will have no traffic with the gentry of the long skirts in _my_ family.” “No, I did not call in a priest when my husband was dying. He would have died all the sooner if I had, he hated them so. We poor people never call the priest if we can help it. We say ‘death gave us no time.’ The priests pretend to believe it; they are glad enough to be saved the trouble of coming to our houses because, if we send for them, they have to give the holy oils gratis. And we get buried all the same,” said a young widow who had lost husband and child within three months of each other. “And you are not afraid the dead will stay longer in purgatory if they die without the holy oils?” I have frequently asked on hearing such statements.