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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
unajaula de locos ! ' ( this world is a cage of fools !) ' Rejoice with me that I am leaving it , though I suffer sorely . What lights are those ? The viaticum !—ah , true !—let it come !—other fools coming to see a comrade off I—this is as it should be . Let them come ! let my children be grateful to me for it !' " The clergy now entered the chamber , which was soon filled with the smoke of torches and the fumes of frankincense . The viaticum was
administered with due solemnity , and the holy oil and ointment administered immediately afterwards , seeing the few hours the moribund had to live . The benediction is given—the pilgrim is ready for his journeythe ties which bound him to this world are snapped asunder : like the balloon inflated , he begins to spurn the earth , panting to be borne along * on the breezes of eternity .
" During the performance of this ceremony Don Augustm s countenance would have appeared to an indifferent observer as indicative of a most serene and placid state of mind . But the eye of friendship could plainly read , in the play of his features , in the slight contraction between his eyes , and in his compressed lips , how painful to him was the part he acted in that scene . As the priests , and monks , and acolites retreated through the gallery , when the rustle of the last surplice was heard on the
threshold , and the last torch flickered along the walls and across his features , they assumed an expression of satisfaction . He looked at me- ** 4 My good friend , it is all over ! the farce is played—they are gone I '—^ then , after a pause , raising himself in his bed , and rallying into one effort the last ebbings of existence , while his dark eye shot forth a glance of corresponding meaning , he exclaimed , ' Esto para ellosl' ( this for them !) accompanying it with the gesture which of all others is , with Spaniards ,
the most expressive of withering contempt . * He fell back exhausted ; the death-rattle was heard so loud as to bring the capuchin back into the room , and to the bedside ; the padre throws himself on his knees , and recites the prayer for the departing spirit . A loud cry escapes the sufferer ; his eyes , for some minutes fixed on vacancy , undergo a quick conyulsive motion ; his features become distorted ; he is dead !"—Vol . ii , pp . 207-209 ,
This story is stated , in a note , to be " true to the letter , as all its circumstances were witnessed by the writer . " It is sufficient by itself to prove the truth of the position , that the clergy of Spain have made themselves bated , and that their influence is not attributable to one particle of respect or love . In cases nuch as this , confession becomes nothing more than an
irritating bondage , but it is \ rell known to have been a most powerful instrument of abuse in the hands of the monks , and frequently wielded for their own purposes . In 1835 the number of monasteries in Madrid amounted to tlnrty-nine and the number of nunneries to thirty-three . Some very interesting information regarding them is given in these volumes
* Thb gesture , termed a corU < U mangos ( literally , a out of the tleeTet ) , eopeuta in dapping on * band forcibly against the iotide of the el bow-joint of the other am , vbieh l » suddenly raUed , with the fist clenched , —the countenance at the tame tlm * tttorfesalnir , with the" utnftott energy , th * tentimcnts meant to be conrtyed .
Untitled Article
Madrid in 1 * 35 . 681
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1836, page 531, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2661/page/7/
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