Manila was not without its frivolous element; but there was one period of the year when all frivolities were suspended, and religious observances monopolised the people’s time. That was in Lent, and the ceremonies culminated on Good Friday.
The Very Noble and always Loyal City of Manila celebrates the greatest day of the Christian year very devoutly. On foot, and robed in black, its inhabitants high and low throng the churches and attend the procession.
All shops are closed, vehicular traffic is suspended, the ensigns hang at half-mast, the yards of ships are crossed in saltire; not a sound is heard.
The capital and the whole of the civilised Philippines mark the crucifixion of our Saviour by two days of devotion, of solemn calm. Under Spanish rule a stately procession, attended by the highest and the humblest, filed slowly through the silent streets, the Civil Government, the Law, the Army, the Navy, the Municipality and the Religious Orders, being represented by deputations in full dress, who followed bare-headed the emblems of the faith in the presence of an immense crowd of natives, who bent the knee and bowed the head in homage to the crucified Saviour.
I never failed to witness this imposing spectacle when in Manila, and it was mortifying to me to remember that Good Friday in London is nothing but a vulgar holiday, and that probably not one person out of a hundred in its vast population realises in the least degree the event that solemn fast is intended to commemorate.
The death-like stillness of Good Friday remained unbroken till High Mass was over on Saturday morning, when the cathedral bells rang out a joyous peal, soon taken up by the bells of the numerous churches in the city and all over the provinces.
The ensigns were run up to the staff or peak, the yards were squared, and royal salutes thundered out over land and sea, whilst clouds of white smoke enveloped the moss-grown ramparts of the saluting battery, and the useless, lumbering masts and spars of the flagship. Then steam-whistles and sirens commenced their hideous din, the great doors of the houses were thrown open, and hundreds of bare-backed ponies, with half-naked grooms, issued at full gallop to the sea or river.
Then Manila resumed its every-day life till the next Holy Thursday came round.