The occasion that was drawing the multitude together was the consecration of the bishop-elect of Michoican, which was to be celebrated with great pomp at this most sacred shrine of the patron goddess of the Republic. The State and the Church were duly represented upon the platform by the President, the nuncio, and the archbishop. Beneath the platform, and within the silver railing, were the official representatives of foreign nations, who were easily distinguished by a strip of gold or silver lace upon the collars and lapels of their coats. To this uniformity of dress there was a single exception in the person of the new American embassador, Mr. Gadsden, whose plain black dress and clerical appearance would have conveyed the impression that he was a Methodist preacher, had he not been engaged, with all the awkwardness of a novice, upon his knees, in crossing himself.
This was the first occasion on which I had ever seen Santa Anna. If looks have any weight determining a man's character, then truly he was entitled to his position, for he was, by all odds, the most imposing in appearance of any person in that assemblage, or any other I have yet seen in Mexico. His part in the performance was that of godfather to the bishop. Surrounded by kneeling aids-de-camp, he alone stood up, in the rich uniform of a general of division, seeming the perfection of military elegance and dignity. Each badge of prelatical rank, before it was put upon the new bishop, was handed to Santa Anna, who kissed it, and then returned it. He stood without apparent fatigue during the whole of that long ceremony. I have often seen Santa Anna since that time, but never have I seen him appear to such advantage as upon this occasion.
THE BIBLE IN MEXICO.
On the next Sabbath I attended the Indian celebration of the appearance of the most blessed Virgin. During the Christmas holidays in the country of the Pintos, I had seen Indians dressed up in whimsical attire, enacting plays, and singing and dancing; but this was the first time that I had ever seen, in a house dedicated to the worship of God, or, rather, in a temple consecrated to the adoration of the Virgin, fantastic dances performed by Indians under the supervision of priests and bishops. When I found out what the entertainment was, I was heartily vexed that I should be at such a place on the Sabbath day. The dancing and singing was bad enough, but the climax was reached when the priest came down from the altar, with an array of attendants having immense candles, to the side door, where the procession stopped to witness the discharge, at mid-day, of a large amount of fire-works in honor of the most blessed Virgin Mary.
I hurried home from this profanation of the Lord's day, and sat down and contemplated the old Aztec god, who had been deified for his wisdom, and could not but regret the change that had been imposed upon these imbecile Indians. The next Sabbath after this was the national anniversary of the miraculous apparition; but, having seen enough of this sort of thing, I concluded that my Sabbaths would be better spent in staying at home and reading a Spanish Testament, which had been brought into the country in violation of the law. When I was first at the city of Mexico, Governor Letcher related to me the stratagem by which he contrived to smuggle an American Bible agent out of the country when the police were after him, on an accusation of selling prohibited books! for in such a country as this, the Word of God is a prohibited book.
Juan Diego, upon whose veracity rests the story of the miraculous appearance of the Virgin, was an Indian peon; and though, like the rest of his race, he probably was an habitual liar, yet when he bears testimony to a miracle he is presumed to speak the truth. He lived in a mud hut somewhere about the barren hill now consecrated to the Virgin of Guadalupe. The attempt to make out that it was Saint Thomas, or the Wandering Jew who here had an interview with the Virgin Mary, and that the old rag on which the picture is painted is really a part of the cloak of Saint Thomas, is, by a very verbose proclamation of the Archbishop of Mexico, dated 25th March, 1795, pronounced a damnable heresy. I have in my possession a copy of this precious document, bearing the signature of Don Alonzo Nunez de Haro y Peralto.
As I learn from the said proclamation that "the adoration of this holy image" [picture] exists not only in Mexico, but in South America and Spain, and that it has propagated itself in Italy, Flanders, Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Poland, Ireland, and Transylvania, I shall be excused for giving the substance of this miraculous apparition, since it is now an article of belief of all good Catholics, having been proved before the Congregation of Rites at Rome to have been a miraculous appearance of the Mother of God upon earth, in the year and at the place aforesaid. And the proclamation farther informs us that his holiness, Benedict XIV., was so fully persuaded of the truth of the tradition, that he made "cordial devotion to our Lady of Guadalupe, and conceded the proper mass and ritual of devotion. He also made mention of it in the lesson of the second nocturnal..., declaring from the high throne of the Vatican that Mary, most holy, non fecit taliter omni nationi."
STORY OF JUAN DIEGO.
Juan Diego had a sick father, and, like a good and pious son, he started for the medicine-man. He was stopped by the Virgin at the spot where the round house on the extreme right of the picture is situated. She reproached him with the slowness of the Indians in embracing the new religion, and at the same time she announced to him the important fact that she was to be the patron of the Indians, and also charged him to go and report the same to Zumarraga, who then enjoyed the lucrative office of Bishop of Mexico. Juan obeyed the heavenly messenger, but found himself turned out of doors as a lying Indian. The second time he went for the medicine-man he took another path, but was again stopped on the way at the spot where the second round house now stands. She now required him to go a second time to the bishop, and, in order to convince him of the truth of the story, she directed the Indian to climb to the top of the rock, where he would find a bunch of roses growing out of the smooth porphyry. The Indian did as he was commanded, and finding the roses in the place named, he gathered them in his tilma, and carried them to the bishop. The spot is marked by a small chapel. On opening his tilma before the bishop and a company of gentlemen assembled for that purpose, it was found that the roses had imprinted themselves around a very coarse picture of the Virgin. This is the story of the miraculous appearance of our Lady of Guadalupe.
