CHAPTER VIII.
THE SHRINE OF GUADALUPE.
THREE miles north of the City is the Hill of Tepeyacac. Leading from the city is the ancient causeway built across the lake to Tepeyacac before the Conquest. A street car now traverses this causeway to the town of Guadalupe and the famous Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the holiest fane in Mexico. The chain of mountains which bound the Valley of Mexico on the north here project into the valley and terminate in the Hill of Tepeyacac, in the Aztec language, “the termination.” Before the Conquest, the Indians worshiped on this hill an idol called Tonantzin, “The Mother of the Gods.” This deity seemed to have corresponded to the Cybele of classical antiquity.
Father Florencia, who is the safest authority to follow on the apparition up to the year 1688, when he published his book, “The Northern Star of Mexico,” piously observes:—“The Virgin desired that her miraculous appearance should take place on this hill to dispossess the mother of false gods of the vain adoration rendered to the idol by the Indians, and to show the latter that she alone was the Mother of the true God, and the true mother of men, and that where crime and idolatry and human sacrifice had abounded, grace should still more abound.
THE LEGEND.
Tradition says that an Indian neophyte, Juan Diego, was on his way on the morning of Saturday, Dec. 9, 1531, to hear the Christian doctrine expounded by the Franciscans of Santiago Tlalteloco. His home was at Tolpetlac, and to reach the city he had to pass the Hill of Tepeyacac. On reaching the eastern side of the hill, he heard strains of music which seemed to him like the notes of a chorus of birds. He stood still to listen, and then beheld on the hillside the vision of a beautiful lady, surrounded by clouds, tinged with the colors of the rainbow.
The lady called Juan, and as her appearance was both commanding and gracious he at once obeyed, and she addressed him as follows: “Know, my son, that I am the Virgin Mary, mother of the true God. My will is that a temple should be built for me here on this spot, where you and all your race will be always able to find me and seek my aid in all your troubles. Go to the Bishop and in my name tell him what you have seen and heard. Tell him, too, that this is my wish, that a church be built for me here, and for so doing I will repay you with many graces.”
Juan sought the Bishop, who was Juan de Zumarraga, a Franciscan, the first and last Bishop of Mexico; for during the closing years of his life, the see was raised to the rank of archbishop. Juan Diego had some difficulty in gaining admission to the prelate’s presence, and when he succeeded in delivering his message, small attention was paid to it, as the Bishop was inclined to treat the story as an hallucination. Juan Diego returned that afternoon to his village, and passed the same spot where he had seen the vision in the morning.
The lady was again there, and asked him how he had sped. He related the slight attention the Bishop had paid him, and asked the lady to be pleased to choose another messenger. But she replied that he was not to be dejected, but to return to the episcopal residence and deliver the message the following day. The next day was Sunday and Juan rose early, came in and heard mass at the parish church of Santiago Tlalteloco, and then repaired to the house of the Bishop and repeated his errand with great earnestness. This time the prelate paid more attention to the Indian’s narrative, and told him if the lady appeared again, he was to ask her for a sign. At this Juan was dismissed and the Bishop sent two servants after him covertly, to observe what he did and whither he went. The servants did as they were bidden, following Juan along the same road that leads today from the City of Mexico to Tepeyacac, but when Juan reached the Hill, he became invisible to their eyes, and though they walked round and round the Hill they could not find him. Therefore they returned to the Bishop and told him that in their opinion Juan was an impostor and an embassador of the devil and not of the Virgin.
But while Juan was invisible to them he was once more in converse with the lady, and told her the Bishop had commanded him to ask for a sign, so she told him to return on the following morning and she would give him a sign which would win him full credit for his mission.
On reaching home Juan found his uncle, Juan Bernadino, dangerously sick. Instead of returning to the lady next day, he spent the time hunting medicine-men among his tribe, and in gathering simple remedies for a cure. But all day his uncle got steadily worse, and so the following morning, Dec. 12, 1531, he started for the Franciscan convent of Santiago Tlalteloco to fetch a confessor for his uncle. The road led by the Hill of Tepeyacac, and fearful of meeting the vision again, he determined to pass by another route. But this did not avail him, for near the place where the spring now bubbles up, he saw the vision for the fourth time. The lady did not seem at all offended at Juan for not coming on the day she had commanded, but told him not to be anxious about his uncle, as at that moment he was sound and well again. She then spoke of the sign or token for the Bishop, and told Juan to climb to the top of the hill (where the small chapel now stands) and that there he should find a quantity of roses growing; that he should gather them all, fill his tilma with them, and carry them to the Bishop.
Juan knew well that December was not the time of year for roses, and besides that bare rock never produced flowers at any time of year, but he immediately did as the lady told him, and found the spot aglow with the most beautiful roses blossoming. He gathered them one by one and immediately repaired to the Bishop’s residence. Juan told him what had happened, and opened out his tilma. The flowers fell to the ground, when it was seen that a representation of the vision had been miraculously painted on the coarse fabric of the tilma. The Bishop fell on his knees and spent some time in prayer. He then untied the tilma from the Indian’s neck, and placed it temporarily over the altar of his private oratory.
Such is the tradition, believed by the majority, though not by all Mexican Catholics. I shall not treat of the legend theologically, but as a traveler interested in all traditions and monuments so abundant in this historic land.
The apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe belongs not to that class of beliefs in the Catholic Communion which are articles of faith binding on the conscience of all Catholics, but to those pious popular traditions which have received a more or less direct sanction from the ecclesiastical authorities, and which it is considered improper in members of the Catholic Church to doubt or call in question, at least publicly. This may satisfy the curiosity of a number of people who profess no particular belief, but are anxious for impartial information.
Bishop Zumarraga at once set to work to build a hermitage or small chapel at the foot of the hill of Tepeyacac for the reception of the miraculous painting, and, as Father Florencia observes, “Bis dat qui cito dat,” the work was pushed so rapidly that the building was ready Dec. 26, 1531, fourteen days after the vision appeared on the tilma. The painting was transported to the chapel with great pomp, and the occasion forms the subject of one of the wall paintings in the present basilica, executed by Father Gonzalo Carrasco, and to which allusion will be made in the description of the edifice. For ninety years the piety of the Mexicans was displayed towards the image in this small chapel. But such was the quantity of alms deposited by the worshipers, that enough money was soon available to erect a sumptuous shrine for the reception of the venerated image. This church was dedicated by Juan de La Cerna, Archbishop of Mexico, November 1622. In this church the image was venerated 350 years, and is substantially the same as the present basilica in spite of external repairs and internal alterations.
In 1629 occurred the great inundation in Mexico City, and it was determined by the Archbishop Francisco Manso y Zuniga and the Marquis de Ceralvo, to bring the image of the Virgin to the city to procure a subsidence of the waters.
Quite a fleet of barges and gondolas, with the civil and ecclesiastical dignitaries on board, started fer the sanctuary of Guadalupe, as it was not possible to reach it on foot on account of the inundation. The image on the tilma was taken on board the barge of the archbishop, which, as evening approached was lighted, as were the gondolas, with Chinese lanterns. Musicians played sacred music as the fleet moved over the placid waters. On arriving in the city, the image was placed in the archiepiscopal mansion, whence, on the following day, it was carried to the Cathedral, where it remained four years, the inundation lasting that long. However, the Mexicans assert that it was the intercession of the Virgin that caused the subsidence of the water after all.
In 1666, the Dean of the Cathedral of Mexico, D. Francisco Siles, determined to collect the floating traditional evidence of the apparition in a clear and methodical form. Quite a number of witnesses were examined by the tribunal, composed of the following ecclesiastics:—Juan de Poblete, Juan de la Camara, Juan Deiz de la Barrera and Nicolas del Puerto.
Canons Siles and Antonio de Gama went to the village of Cuantitlan, where Juan Diego was supposed to have been born, to look up witnesses. Some of the witnesses examined were over a hundred years old. All of the witnesses testified to having, in childhood, heard the tradition from their parents. It was then attempted on the strength of the evidence thus collected, to obtain the approval of Rome for the apparition, but the attempt was then unsuccessful.
Cardinal Julio Rospillozi, who in 1667 was elected Pope under title of Clement IX., wrote in 1666 to Dr. Antonio de Peralta y Castaneda, of the Cathedral of Puebla, saying it would be impossible to obtain the countenance of Rome. He said that as the image seemed to be identical with the Immaculate Conception, it seemed superfluous to grant a special office for the festival of Guadalupe. Afterwards, being elected Pope, he granted some favors to this devotion.
In 1740, Boturini obtained the papal authority for crowning the image, but his failure and subsequent disgrace are well known. In 1751, the Jesuit priest, Juan Francisco Lopez, was sent to Rome on a special mission, both to confirm the choice of Mexico of the Virgin of Guadalupe as its special patron, and to obtain a special mass and office for the feast of the 12th of December. He took with him two copies of the image, said to have been made by the celebrated artist Miguel Cabrera. Lopez performed his mission with great energy and success. He obtained an audience with the reigning Pope, Benedict XIV., showed him the copies and gained all his requests. When, in 1756, he returned to Mexico bearing the papal briefs, he was received with immense honors and rejoicings.
To come to a later date, in 1886, the archbishops of Mexico, Michoacan and Guadalajara applied to the Pope for permission to crown the image. This privilege can be granted only by the Pope, and the crowning is theoretically done by him. Leo XIII. made favorable answer in February 1887, and in August 1894 granted some additions to the office and lessons for the day. The ceremony of the coronation took place at last, Oct. 12, 1895, in the presence of thirty-seven Mexican, American, Canadian and other prelates, and a large concourse of the clergy and the most prominent citizens of Mexico. When the crown was raised to its position above the image, the congregation broke into loud acclamations. The crown itself is a miracle of the jeweler’s art, and with its galaxy of gems—diamonds, rubies and sapphires—is worth a king’s ransom.
Early in 1887 Father Antonio Plancarte y Labastida, a nephew of the then archbishop of Mexico, prepared to carry out a long cherished design for the renovation and embellishment cf the church of Our Lady of Guadalupe. For this purpose, the image, after much opposition on the part of the Indians, was conveyed to the neighboring Church of Capuchinas, and the extensive plans were then initiated. The architect first employed was Emilio Donde, but he was soon superseded by Juan Agea. At an early hour on the morning of Sept. 30, 1895, the image was carried back to the basilica, and the restored building was consecrated Oct. 1.
The first impression on entering is an ensemble of gorgeous and harmonious coloring, and it is some time before the eye can rest on individual objects. Naturally the raised Presbyterium and High Altar claim attention. The Presbyterium is reached by four separate flights of twelve steps. It is paved with diamond slabs of white and black Carrara marble. The altar and reredos, the latter affecting the form of a frame for the painting of the Virgin, are severe and classical in design. The only material used is the finest Carrara marble known as “Bianco P.,” and exquisitely wrought gilded bronze. All the marble of the altar is monolithic, and was executed at Carrara by the sculptor Nicoli, the Mexican architects Juan Agea and Salome Pina. All the bronze work is from Brussels. On either side of the altar is a figure kneeling in adoration; that on the left, or Gospel side, is Bishop Zumarraga, that on the Epistle side is Juan Diego, who is represented as making an offering of roses. Both are of Carrara marble. At the top of the reredos are three angels, representing the archdioceses of Mexico, Michoacan and Guadalajara, which applied to Pope Leo XVI. for permission to crown the image. The central one holds out a crown of singularly pure and chaste design. Below them and immediately above the frame is a cherub in relief, holding the jeweled crown. The High Altar is double, there being slabs for the celebration of mass, both before and behind. Over the High Altar is a handsome Byzantine baldachin sustained by pillars of Scotch granite from Aberdeen, and the baldachin is surmounted by a gilded cross formed of roses. The rose occurs in all the decorations, as it is the symbol of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
On the top of the front arch of the baldachin are the arms of Pope Leo XIII. and the apices of the other three arches are filled with the arms of the Archbishops of Mexico, Michoacan and Guadalajara. On the vault of the baldachin, in Gothic letters are the Latin distiches, composed for the image by Pope Leo XIII. and which are as follows:—
Mexicus heic populus mira sub Imagine gaudet
Te colere, alma Parens, praesidioque frui
Per te sic vigeat felix, teque auspice, Christe
Immotam servet firmior usque fidem.
Leo P. P. XIII.
“The Mexican people rejoice in worshiping Thee, Holy Mother, under this miraculous image, and in looking to Thee for protection may that people through Thee, flourish in happiness, and ever, under Thy auspices, grow stronger in the faith of Christ.”
The four angels of the baldachin between the arches are occupied with allegorical bronze statues of the four cardinal virtues, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance.
Underneath the High Altar is a crypt, the vaulted iron roof of which is capable of sustaining a weight of three hundred thousand pounds. This crypt contains four altars underneath the high altar, also urns or cinerariums for the reception of the thirty persons who contributed $5000 each to $150,000 for the High Altar.
The railing around this altar is of solid silver, and weighs fifty-two thousand pounds, or twenty-six tons. Immediately in front of the High Altar, but below the Presbyterium is a kneeling marble statue of Mgr. Labastida y Davalos, late archbishop of Mexico, and underneath the statue rests the ashes of his parents. His own are soon to be removed here.
The vaults of the roof are painted blue with gold stars in relief. The stars are of cedar, gilded over and screwed into the roof. The ribs of the vaulting are beautifully decorated in the Byzantine style, and the dome is a rich mass of gilding festooned with pink roses. The several divisions of the dome are occupied alternately by frescoes of the Virgin of Guadalupe and of angels bearing scrolls. In each division is one of the poetical avocations in which the Catholics impetrate the Virgin, such as “Seat of Wisdom,” “Mirror of Justice,” “Mystical Rose,” “Ask for the Covenant,” etc. The windows of the dome, of stained glass, were given by the College of the Sacred Heart of San Cosme.
The most striking of the interior decorations are the fine large wall frescoes. The one on the right represents the conversion of the Indians through the Virgin of Guadalupe. Groups of friars are preaching and baptizing, while hovering in the air is the figure of the Virgin. This is by the artist Felipe S. Gutierrez. The next represents the image being carried to the small chapel, December 26, 1531. This is a brilliant piece of work, and reflects great credit upon the young artist, a young Jesuit priest, Fr. Gonzalo Carrasco. The image is carried beneath a canopy, and attended by gorgeously arrayed priests and prelates. Then there are the friars and Indians and Spanish cavaliers, and acolytes bearing candles, flabelli, etc. In the lower right-hand corner is represented the first miracle alleged to have been wrought by the Virgin of Guadalupe. The Indians, in honor of the procession are letting off arrows, and one of them enters the neck of an Indian. His mother begs the procession to turn back, and as it passes her son, so goes the story, he is healed.
On the western side, nearest the High Altar, is the fresco of the taking of evidence for the Apparition in 1666. This is by Ibarraran y Ponce. The next is by Felix Parra, and is called a gorgeous poem in color. It represents the period of “Matlazahuatl,” the dread pestilence which devastated the city in 1737, when the Archbishop Antonio Bizarron y Equiarreta solemnly put the city under the protection of the Virgin and immediately the plague departed. In the foreground is an Indian stricken with the plague. The last fresco represents the presentation of a copy of the image to Pope Benedict XIV. The Pontiff is in the act of exclaiming: “Non fecit taliter omni Nationi!” Between the first two frescoes is a mural inscription in Latin: “The Mexican people, in honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe, who in old time appeared on the hill of Tepeyacac to Juan Diego, erected a holy temple, and with all piety venerated the ancient image. One of the most conspicuous in its cult, was the Archbishop Pelagio Antonio de Labastida y Davalos, a most munificent restorer of the Collegiate Church. Now at length, as all had wished, and as the Chapter of the Vatican Basilica had decreed in A. D. 1740, the famous image, with the sanction of the Supreme Pontiff, Leo XIII., was crowned with a diadem of gold, on the fourth day before the Ides of October 1895, Prospero M. Alarcon being Archbishop of Mexico, to stand forever as a shield, the protection and the honor of the Mexican people.”
The apse behind the High Altar is elaborately decorated and contains many mural paintings of popes and archbishops. In the apse is the chapel and family vault of Mr. Antonio de Mier y Celis. This chapel is a perfect gem of the decorative art and is dedicated to St. Joseph. The crypt underneath is an exact reproduction of the Escorial at Madrid. The three stained glass windows are from Munich and cost $17,000. There are in all, ten altars in the church, and its total cost is nearly four million dollars. During all the revolutions and political upheavals in Mexico, the sanctity of Guadalupe has immured it from plunder; the most reckless freebooters forbearing to invade the hallowed ground of the Virgin.
You leave this place weighed down with impressions of magnificence, wealth and beauty. Outside the door of this four million dollar church you step over a hundred naked, starving beggars, holding their skeleton fingers for coppers. One cent seems to be the regulation fee expected, and if you give a beggar five cents he returns four cents change.
Near by is the government building in which the treaty of peace was signed between Mexico and the United States. Guadalupe Hidalgo is what the treaty is called in history, out of patriotism for the memory of Hidalgo. By the little chapel is a geranium plant in full bloom. Its stem is five inches in diameter, and the top is thirty feet in the air. I suppose the Virgin exercises an influence over it as with every thing else here. Across the little plazuela is another miracle attributed to the image. At the foot of the rocky hill where the vision appeared the last time, boils up a spring of water that is a veritable geyser. It is said to have appeared after the apparition had vanished. It is covered with a pavilion, Capillo del Pocito, and is about ten feet in diameter, and about the same from the curb to the water. The dangerous pit is fenced in with an iron railing, and as you gauze into its chalybeate depths surging below, an attendant draws up a basin of water and passes it to you with a wonderful narrative of its curative properties for unfruitful women, and the large number of such women who annually resort to it for relief with the Virgin’s blessing.
This is the Indian’s Mecca, and on December 12, all Indians make a pilgrimage here in honor of Juan Diego, the only Indian saint in the calendar. The encircling town of ten thousand devotees with a permanent residence here is an earnest of the strong hold it has upon them. It is said that whoever drinks from this miraculous spring is compelled to return again, no matter how far he may wander. And so I was impelled to drink of the vile smelling water with the hope that at some time it will carry me to Guadalupe again without the necessity of a yard and a half of railroad ticket which gets punched into fragments on a ninety day circular tour. I stayed the violent eruption which the medicated water threatened within, and turned to the broad stone steps that led to the top of the hill where Juan plucked the roses. The beautiful line of steps leads up the basaltic cliff to a height of a hundred and fifty feet, and where the roses grew is a little chapel, “La Capilla de Cerrita,” crowning the summit of Tepeyacac. Though nearly four hundred years old, the chapel is in good repair, and is still the holiest shrine in Mexico. The entire walls are covered with pictures of the miraculous cures by the image.
There is a picture of a man falling from a church steeple, and afterwards brought to life by the passage of the image, and a bull-fighter impaled on the horns of the enraged bull, and a hundred similar scenes where the image had asserted itself.
It was worth much to see the adoration and utter abandon lavished upon this image. Pilgrims from everywhere stretched themselves prone upon the floor, and the look of resignation said as plainly as the words could, “Now Lord lettest Thou Thy servant die in peace.”
I shook myself up to see if I could awaken a little devotion within myself, but the only feeling I had was borrowed from that little incident on Mount Carmel, when that rugged old spokesman, Elijah, the Tishbite called down fire to consume the worshipers of Baal.
The faithful looked up as I wandered among them with note-book and pencil. They did not speak, but that look would have filled three columns of close printed small pica type if translated, about the unregenerate heathen that did not bow to the sacred image nor cross himself when he passed by the holy water. The scribe was there solely in pursuit of knowledge, and when he had all the little chapel contained, he stepped over the prostrated forms on the floor and passage-way and went out to see some more miracles performed by the Virgin.
Ten steps from the door loomed up another miracle as big as life and almost as natural. This was the old stone sail and ship’s mast, and thereby hangs a tale, to wit, namely, as follows:
“Once upon a time,” as the story-books go, a very rich family owned a ship which was long over-due at Vera Cruz, so this family went to the Virgin, or to the image rather, and laid the case before it. They said the ship’s cargo was worth almost its weight in Spanish doubloons, and if she would bring that ship to port, they would make her an ex voto offering of the ship, if she would let them have the cargo. The image listened and concluded that the bargain was fair enough, so she let the ship come to port. True to their promise, the owner had the mast, sails and cordage brought across the Cordillera Mountains 265 miles to Guadalupe and set them up in front of the church and then encased the whole in stone just as you see it today, and if any one doubts that the Virgin saved the ship, why, “there stands the mast itself to prove it.” It is useless to argue against facts. A single look of interest draws a half dozen guides who want to explain all about the Virgin and the image. I give them enough money to get drunk on and die if they will leave me alone and tell me no more about the wonder. After they are gone I turn to the Campo Santo, just behind the chapel. This is the Westminster of Guadalupe, full to running over with illustrious pilgrims, bandits and all.
At the barred gate I was met by a tall pirate who claimed my camera. I told him I had passed the custom-house with that box, and that there was nothing seditious in it but a half dozen exposures of his fellow-citizens, and from the scarcity of clothes they had on they were really exposed before I found them, and besides, I had a deed and title to that camera stretching all the way to Boston. He said that was all bueno, but he did not care a hot tamale about that, but he would swear by all the saints and the Virgin herself that I and my camera would part company before I entered that gate. “Why sir, don’t you know that you stand on holy ground, right on the Hill of Tepeyacac itself, and right in that gate is the tomb of Santa Anna?” I told him that was all bueno, too, but we had Santa Anna’s wooden leg in the Smithsonian Institution, and I was not afraid of any one-legged man hurting me, especially one that had been planted twenty-six years. And besides, I told him the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed right here February 2, 1848, and if I remembered correctly the treaty acknowledged that he got licked, and we could lick him again and tie one hand behind our backs. I did not want to trouble the Virgin to bring this gate-keeper back to life, so I gave him my camera.
Among the Indians of our country one can hardly ever get an Indian’s picture; they think you can “hoodoo” them if you once get their picture. Perhaps they think the same here, for I have never found a Campo Santo unguarded, and they all draw the line between me and my camera.
I went in and saw that Santa Anna was still dead, and his grave was covered with the same wonderful roses that the Virgin ordered here four hundred years ago. Then I began to figure out what right that old brigand had to be buried here on this holy hill.
He was five times president of Mexico, four times Military Dictator, and was twice banished to the West Indies, “For his own and for his country’s good.” “Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, February 21, 1798.” So his birth-day just lacked one day of making him Father of his Country, but seven times with the reins of government in his hands, nearly qualified him to be step-father anyway. He ought to have come to the United States and entered politics.
When the War of Independence began in 1821, he joined the Mexican forces under Iturbide, but quarreled with him the next year and put himself at the head of a new party, and seeing which was the winning side, he joined Guerrera and soon became Commander-in-chief of the army. He then overthrew Guerrera in favor of Bustamente, then overthrew Bustamente in favor of Pedraza, and in 1833 he sat down on Pedraza and modestly made himself president.
Then he told the dear people that it was time to elect a new president, and that there was only one candidate, and the first two letters of his name were Santa Anna. Incidentally, he reminded the people that he had the army to back him.
They say he was elected by a large majority, (so was Cromwell.) Having settled that little matter, he went over in Texas and chased the Texas army all over the state for two years, till he got it corraled in a bend of the San Jacinto River, and then sat down to supper, but during the night the Texans broke out and to their great surprise captured Santa Anna himself. He never forgave the Texans for that.
The Texans wanted to barbecue him just as he had done the Texans at the fall of the Alamo in San Antonio, and the massacre at Galiad, but General Sam Houston saved his neck. He went back home in disgrace and was banished, but he would not stay banished. He came back and made himself president in 1846.
When Texas entered the Union he started over to chase Texans again, but at the battle of Cerro Gordo, General Scott got his wooden leg and he had to give up the chase. When the French put Maximilian on the Mexican throne in 1861, Santa Anna was an exile in the West Indies. He wrote a letter of congratulation to Maximilian, and said, “If you want a man to wipe up the earth with General Juarez’ army I am the man to do it.” Maximilian declined with thanks. Then he wrote a letter to Juarez and said, “If you want a man to wipe up the earth with that French army, I am the man.” Juarez declined with thanks. Santa Anna had his feelings hurt, so he came home, raised an army and licked both Maximilian and Juarez for snubbing him. In 1867, Mexico got too small for him, so he was asked to consider himself banished for an indefinite period.
In 1874 he asked his country to let him come home to die, and the country graciously granted him the privilege and welcome, if he would promise to die. So he came home and met all the agreement and died, and here he is.
His grave-stone had R. I. P. and the boy said it was, “Let her rip,” but a few had “perpituidad” which meant that they had paid their rent till the final resurrection. The others were, “Rest in Peace,” for five years, and if the rent is not paid, the resurrection takes place immediately.
At Saltillo, the cemetery has two heaps of grinning skulls and bones that will measure 25,000 cubic feet of dead people who did not pay rent and were evicted.
A hundred dollars will buy the little word “perpituidad” on your tombstone, which will protect you till Gabriel sounds the final reveille.
I went back to my gate-keeper and said: “Now my good fellow, laying aside all jokes, what has Santa Anna done so noble as to give him a grave on this hill?”
He said this hill was a regular boom in real estate and that all his renters paid gilt-edge prices for beds, and as S. A. had the shekels, he got the bed. “And sir, if you have got the rocks, you can get lodging here.”
I declined with thanks, and told him I always carried a Coffin with me.
The road from Mexico to Guadalupe is three miles long, and has twelve stone shrines to commemorate the stations of the cross. All the pilgrims venerate these shrines on the march to Guadalupe. When Maximilian was meeting with such cool reception by the Mexicans, he walked the whole distance barefooted, in December, to win the good will of the Mexicans by apparent conformity to their customs. The Mexicans took him down to Queretaro and shot him.
I have gone thus minutely, and perhaps tediously, into the details of this legend to “find a moral and adorn the tale;” to expose the fraudulent practices and glaring deceit which the priest-hood has foisted upon the ignorant people. Whenever their hold upon the people seems to weaken, a cock-and-bull story like the one just told will awe the superstitious people by thousands to the rescue. Think of that humbug when the water was four years falling, and then the image getting the credit for it!
As a matter of fact, Mexico City was built upon an island only two feet higher than Lake Texcoco, a salt lake with no outlet, and both lake and city are in a crater, and all the water that falls in that forty mile valley must remain until evaporated, even though it takes four years to lower the height of a broken cloud-burst. After the water has evaporated to its usual level, why, the “Virgin lowered the water.”
Every priest in Mexico knows the geography of the valley and why the lake is salt, and why inundations take place even today in the principal streets of the city. In the light of this knowledge, their duping practices seem more reprehensible. Such is their hold, however, that since the church and state have been separated by law, several revolutions have been threatened because the state has attempted to interdict some of the senseless customs of the fiestas. Even within the last six years, the state proposed to put restrictions upon some of the ceremonies of Guadalupe, and had to recall the proposition to prevent a revolution.
It is encouraging to know that you never see an intelligent Mexican making a door-mat of himself before these shrines. He knows it is not worship as well as the priest, but there are thousands who are yet in the dark and the only hope of the priest-hood is continual ignorance of the masses, but education is weakening that every year. It is said that when an Indian earns two dollars, he gives one to the priest, forty-five cents for pulque, and supports his family with the remainder. As bad as that may look in print, I can say it is not far from an actual fact. Stand in front of that four million dollar church with all its useless finery, and then gaze at the thousands of beggars that crowd its steps and overflow to the street, who have to sit down to hide their nakedness and to better support their weak stomachs, and draw your own conclusion. And who ever heard of a Mexican church supporting a charity or raising a poor fund? Not I, and I have seen all of it. If these people had one tenth of the intelligence of the French Communes, they would walk into those churches and have a grand lottery drawing with no blanks.
As I have seen it, the whole thing is a whited sepulcher. I mingled with ten thousand French on July 14 when they celebrated the fall of the Bastile, and sang with them the Marseillaise, not because I was French, but because it was an effort and a successful one of establishing individual freedom; and it pleased me, and I wondered when I might join with Mexico and help them sing La Golondrina and celebrate the Fall of Guadalupe.
Old Cato’s climax in his Roman speech-making could well be paraphrased for the nineteenth century, and when thinking of the incubus of Mexican progress, would fit well with a change of one word when we say:
“Carthago delenda est.”
