The prayer especially consecrated to the drawing souls out of purgatory, and which forms an essential part of the office for the dead, is called in Spanish responso. It is composed of three anthems taken from the book of Job, a paternoster, and a collect, and ends with the formula, Requiem eternam dona eis, Domine. When the prayer is in favour of all souls, the eis remains in the plural; but if it is in favour of one particular soul, then the singular ei is used. On the day of All Souls, when an innumerable crowd of people assembles in the cemeteries, the priests also attend in great numbers to say responsos, at so much a-piece, for those who desire them. In a certain Spanish city, which we forbear to name, we have seen these priests rival each other in lowering the prices current of these precious performances. One was crying out, “I say a responso for tenpence;” [148a] and another, “I say it for fivepence.” [148b] This may appear incredible, but it is an undeniable fact.
In all Roman Catholic churches there is a cepillo (alms-box), nailed to the wall, and having this inscription upon it, “Para las benditas almas del purgatorio,” (For the blessed souls in purgatory), for the reception of contributions: and the circumstance has given
rise to an operation of mercantile character which is certainly very ingenious, and to which some Spaniards attribute the origin of bills of exchange. The priest of a parish of Andalusia, for example, has occasion for a certificate of the baptism or of the burial of some person in a parish of Arragon or in Navarre. The fee for this document is usually two pesetas. As it is almost impossible to send so small a sum from one extremity of the Peninsula to the other, the priest of Arragon or of Navarre draws two pesetas from the cepillo, or alms-box of his parish, and the Andalusian priest puts the same sum into the cepillo of his parish, or he says two masses as an equivalent. In this way purgatory is converted into a kind of clearing-house, which wonderfully facilitates the transaction of business in the funds of the ecclesiastical market.
A circumstance peculiar to the worship celebrated in favour of souls in purgatory is the prodigality of lighted candles which are consumed on those occasions. There is no doubt that the object of this practice is to expose to the view of the faithful a lively image of the flames by which these souls are tormented in their probationary state. A traveller, worthy of credit, assures us that the wax consumed with this object in the city of Granada alone (in which there are about forty churches), on the day of All Souls, amounted, a few years ago, to the incredible sum of £10,000.
The cenotaphs placed in the churches when the funeral rites of some rich man are celebrated, are, in truth, nothing but perfect pyramids of burning flames produced by wax candles. It is a common belief, maintained
in the pulpit and in the confessional, that the brighter these candles burn the more efficacious will be the suffrages. The royal family of Spain has had the good taste to avoid this error. In the magnificent monastery of the Escurial, where the remains of deceased members of the royal family are deposited, all show is reduced to a sumptuous carpet of black velvet, worked with gold, and spread out upon the floor, on the centre of which is a cushion of the same materials, and upon that a royal crown of gold. At the extremities are placed four immense candelabra of solid silver, called blandones, with their corresponding wax candles of various diameters and sizes.
From what has been said in this chapter the reader may form some idea of the immense sums of money which the clergy absorb by virtue of this belief in the dogma of purgatory. When he reflects that those contributions are upon a more liberal scale than any others which the Spanish nation pays, and that the product is sunk by the most unproductive of all the classes in society, he will then be able to arrive at some conjecture as to who and what are the Roman Catholic clergy of Spain. These contributions, be it remembered, are paid, on every day in the year, in all parts of the Peninsula, and by persons of every category in the nation, from the very meanest to the most elevated in rank. The means employed to wring these sums from the contributors are infallible in their effects. The attack is made, indiscriminately, by appeals to charity, family affection, and reciprocal duties of parents, children, brothers, and sisters. The act of liberating a Christian soul from
the dreadful torments which purgatory is supposed to inflict, however opposed to reason may be the idea of operating by material fire upon the incorporeal essence of the soul, is considered superior, in the estimation of every sensible and Christian heart, to any succour which can be given to hunger, misery, nakedness, or other numerous corporal afflictions. In this way the money which might be spent in wiping the tears from the cheek of the widow and the orphan, and be applied to the erection of useful human institutions, is prodigally spent in a mysterious and incomprehensible operation, which, after all, is a purely human invention, and which, by its practical results, and the great amount of wealth it draws to the Roman Catholic Church, bears a greater affinity to a financial operation than to any religious duty.
It would be almost impossible to calculate the advantages which would have resulted to the Spanish nation from those great resources, if the product had been applied in the construction of roads, canals, or other useful labours. But this immense capital being thus spread about in small fractions, the inevitable consequence has been a continual draining of the public wealth, the perpetuating of a theological error (contradicted by Holy Scripture, and by the true doctrine of the church of Christ), and that pomp and splendour which the clergy are enabled to assume by such abundant means, in addition to the funds received by them from other sources.