Glories of Spain

by Charles W. Wood

What was this monk in the strange garb? Who was he? What brought him apparently at home amidst the Jesuits, he who evidently belonged to another order? Had he thrown in his lot amongst them? Or did he live, a solitary being, in one of the surrounding hermitages?

Whilst we looked he slowly turned, and, with bent head and lingering steps, as though in deep contemplation, passed out of sight. Nothing remained but the empty doorway with a vision of arches beyond; a few ruined walls stained with the marks of centuries, to which patches of moss and drooping creepers and hardy ferns added grace and charm. We were alone, surrounded by intense quiet and repose. Sunshine was over all, casting deep shadows. No sound disturbed the stillness, not even the echo of the monk's receding footsteps. So silent and motionless had been his coming and going, we asked ourselves whether he was in truth flesh and blood or a mid-day visitor from the land of shadows. How remote, how out of the world it all was!

Suddenly, as we looked upwards, an eagle took majestic flight from one of the mountain peaks, and, hovering in the blue ether, seemed seeking for prey. But it was not the time of the lambs, and with a long, sweeping wing, it passed across the valley to an opposite range of hills.

The great church was before us with its dome, of Roman design and sufficiently common-place. But, after all, what mattered? Its effects and those of the hideous Hospederia were lost in their wonderful surroundings, just as a drop of water is lost in the ocean.

On entering the church this comparison disappeared. There was an expanse about its aisles, largeness and breadth in the high-domed roof, that produced a certain dignity, yet without grace and refinement. No magic and mystery surrounded them, and the dim religious light was the result, not of rich stained glass admitting prismatic streams, but of an obscurity cast by the shadows of Mons Serratus. For great effects one had to go back in imagination to the days when the monks were many and assembled at night for service. It is easy to picture the impressive scene. Beyond the ever-closed screen, within the great choir, a thousand kneeling, penitential figures chanting the midnight mass, their voices swelling upward in mighty volume; the church just sufficiently lighted to lend the utmost mystery to the occasion; a ghostly hour and a ghostly assemblage of men whose lives have become mere shadows. On great days countless candles lighted up the aisles and faintly outlined the more distant recesses. The fine-toned organ pealed forth its harmony, shaking the building with its diapasons and awakening wonderful echoes in the far-off dome.

All this may still be seen and heard now and then, but with the number of monks sadly curtailed. It is said that they now never exceed twenty. When their day of persecution came they escaped to their mountain fastness, climbing higher and ever higher like hunted deer, hiding in the cracks and crevices of the rocks; fear giving them strength to reach parts never yet trodden by the foot of man, whilst many a less active monk slipped and fell into the bottomless abyss, his last resting place, like that of Moses, remaining for ever unknown. The troops of Suchet followed the refugees, found them out, and put an end to many a life that, if useless, was also harmless. Not a few of the survivors became hermits, and on many a crag may be found the ruins of a hermitage, once, perhaps, inhabited by a modern St. Jerome, though the St. Jeromes of the world have been few and far between.

Some sort of religious institution existed here in the early centuries, long ages before Ignatius Loyola founded the order of the Jesuits. In the eighth century the famous black image was hidden away in a cave under a hill to save it from the Moors. Here it miraculously disclosed itself a hundred years later to some simple shepherds. These hastened to the good Bishop, who took mules, crook and mitre, and came down with all the lights of the church and all the pomp of office to remove the treasure to Manresa.

Apparently the image preferred the fresh mountain air to the close, torrent-washed town with its turbid waters, for having reached a certain lovely spot overlooking the vast plain, it refused to go any farther. As it could not speak—being a wooden image—it made itself so heavy that mortal power could not lift it. This was the first of a long succession of miracles. On the spot where the image rested, the Bishop with crook and mitre, and bell and book, and Dean and Chapter, held solemn conclave and there and then went through a service of Consecration. A chapel was built, and the image became the object of devoted pilgrimages.

All traces of the chapel have disappeared long since. Nothing now marks the spot but an iron cross which may be seen far and near. Approaching, you may read the inscription: Aqui sè hizo inmovil la Santa Imagen. After this a nunnery was founded, which in the tenth century became a Benedictine convent.