One very puzzling question in connection with this worship of the images is how far even the better educated Spaniards recognise the fact that the different images, _e.g._, of the Virgin--the Virgin of Sorrows, of Miracles, of the Pillar, of the Kings, and hundreds more--are all representations of one and the same Virgin Mary, and how far they consider them to be distinct individuals. Probably the worshippers themselves are not at all clear on the point: that the prayers offered before these images are in most cases addressed, not to the Person represented, but to the image itself, there seems little doubt. In the case of the populace the images certainly seem to be distinct individuals; indeed, I have been pitied more than once by kindly peasants for having “only one Christ.” “_We_ have many: there is the Christ of the Descent from the Cross, and the Christ of the Waters, besides the Christ of the Flagellation in the Parish Church, all very miraculous.” An intelligent man of middle age, better educated than most of his class, said to me in reference to the affection of the Spanish peasants for their images of the Virgin. “You would be shocked if you could hear what we say to the Virgin in our houses and when we see her in the streets. But it is not irreverence or disrespect, as you would consider it. It is that we feel towards her as one of the family and talk to her as we should to one of ourselves.” The return of certain confraternities after carrying their images through the streets in Holy Week presents an extraordinary spectacle. This is especially the case with images belonging to the poorer quarters. In one town the procession of one of these images returns early on the morning of Easter Eve, after moving slowly through the streets, from its church to the distant cathedral and back, all through the night. The bearers of the platform, which is a great weight, the members of the confraternity, the soldiers--for the Army always has a place in these functions--and the band in attendance, are all worn out with fatigue, but when they reach the threshold of the church they revive, the band strikes up an animated march, and the whole crowd assembled to do honour to “Our Lady” seem to go crazy with joy at having brought her safely back to her “home” (_á su casa_). The richly dressed life-sized image is lifted down from the platform by many eager hands, and swayed to and fro in time to the music almost as if dancing, and the whole atmosphere of the scene is that of a rejoicing welcome to a beloved being who has returned to her family after a long absence fraught with danger. Nothing brings home to the observer the intense reality of the people’s feeling for their _santos_ like such a scene as this. It is, however, seldom witnessed by foreigners or even by the well-to-do of their own nation. It is so much a matter of course in Spain that no one goes out of his way to see it, and I was present on such an occasion only by the merest chance.