While this was proceeding, my sainted master was on his knees in the pulpit, his hands and eyes turned towards heaven, apparently filled with the divine essence, and utterly unconscious of the noises and disturbance around him, so completely was he wrapped in his heavenly meditations. Some approached him, and begged him, “for the love of God, to succor the poor wretch who was dying: and that, doubtless, at his intercession, the Lord would not prolong his sufferings.”
The devout commissary, as though disturbed from a sweet vision, looked around him, first at the suppliants and then at the delinquent. “My good friends,” said he slowly, “you ought not to ask a favor for him whom God has so signally chastised. But as he has commanded that we should return good for evil, we may with more confidence implore his pardon for the poor wretch who has dared to place an obstacle in the way of his holy commission.”
Then, descending from the pulpit, he desired them all to pray for the sinner, and that the devil with which he was possessed might be cast out. The congregation with one accord threw themselves on their knees, and commenced in a low voice to repeat the litany; while my master, before he approached the possessed sinner with the cross and holy water, turning his eyes to heaven till the whites could only be seen, delivered a pious oration, which drew tears from the eyes of the hearers. This being finished, he commanded the holy bull to be brought and placed on the head of the possessed, and immediately the sinner of an Alguazil began by degrees to recover himself.
Interchanged kindnesses
Directly he was restored to consciousness, he threw himself at the feet of the holy commissary, and implored his pardon. He confessed that what he did was by the commandment of the Devil, who was excessively annoyed at the appearance of the holy man, and was fearful that he should lose his dominion over the people if they were to purchase his indulgences. My master, in the most benevolent manner, pardoned him, and interchanged kindnesses with him, giving him advice very much to his comfort and advantage. Great now was the demand for indulgences amongst the bystanders, and not an individual would go from church without one, neither man, woman nor child.
The news soon spread, and people came flocking from all parts, so that no sermons were necessary in the church to convince them of the benefits likely to result to the purchasers. The inn where we resided was crowded with applicants, and wherever we went in that district, thousands of indulgences were sold without a single sermon being preached.
I must confess that I, amongst many others, was deceived at the time, and thought my master a miracle of sanctity; but hearing the merriment which it afforded to the holy commissary and the Alguazil, I began to suspect that it originated in the peculiarly fertile invention of my master, and although young, from that moment I ceased to be a child of grace; for I argued within myself, “If I, being an eyewitness to such an imposition, could almost believe it, how many more, amongst this poor innocent people, must be imposed on by these robbers.”
I quitted my fifth master at the end of four months, during which I experienced some very fatiguing and unpleasant adventures.
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