TEMPLE OF THE VIRGIN OF GUADALUPE.
The bishop was hard to convince at first, but when he considered that the Indian could not himself paint, and had no money with which to pay an artist, and, above all, as there was a fair chance of making money by the transaction, he finally yielded to conviction. His example was soon followed by the whole nation; and then the several buildings, one after another, began to make their appearance. There was some difficulty at first in identifying the place of the first appearance of the Virgin, but this difficulty was removed by the Virgin herself, for she again appeared and stamped her foot upon the spot, whereupon there gushed forth a spring of mineral water.[39] ] This has proved an infallible cure for all diseases of body and mind, and to it the Indians resort to drink, and wash, and drink again, until it would seem that they must soon exhaust the fountain, so great is the multitude that resort to this spring of the Virgin.
The Collegiate Church—for there can not be two Cathedrals in one diocese—is the principal building in the picture. It is not large, but it surpasses any thing I have yet seen for its immense accumulation of treasure, excepting always the Cathedral. A railing formed of plates of pure silver incloses both the choir and the altar of the Virgin. These are joined together by a passageway, which is inclosed by a portion of the same precious railing. The golden candlesticks, the golden shields, and other ornaments of gold, dazzle the eyes of the beholder, while the three rows of jewels, one of pearls, one of emeralds, and one of diamonds, encircling "the holy image," produce an impression not easily erased. The contrast that is presented between these hoards of wealth and the extreme poverty of the multitude that here congregate is most striking.
The religion of Mexico is a religion of priestly miracles, and when the ordinary rules of evidence are applied to them, they and the religion that rests upon them fall together; hence the necessity of exacting at the start a blind submission to authority, and an abnegation of the reasoning faculties the moment the subject of religion is approached. We have applied the ordinary rules of evidence to the romance of the Conquest, and we find that it will not stand the test of an examination. But if we doubt the history of the Conquest, we must doubt the history of all the miracles of the Church, for all of them rest on the like untenable grounds. I did not wonder at finding the country abounding in unbelief. Now that the fires of the Inquisition have ceased to burn, the priesthood are made the butt and laughing-stock of those who are educated. Still, the national mind does not run toward the pure Gospel, which is here unknown and prohibited, but to infidelity and socialism. A sincere Protestant can have no sympathy with either side.
AN INTERDICT.
The following is Thomas Gage's account of an affair that took place in this temple in his time:
"Don Alonzo de Zerna, the archbishop, who had always opposed Don Pedro Mexia and the Virey, to please the people, granted to them to excommunicate Don Pedro, and so sent out bills of excommunication, to be fixed upon all the church doors, against Don Pedro, who, not regarding the excommunication, and keeping close at home, and still selling his wheat at a higher price than before, the archbishop raised his censure higher against him, by adding to it a bill of cessatio a divinis, that is, a cessation of all divine service. This censure is so great with them that it is never used except for some great man's sake, who is contumacious and stubborn in his ways, contemning the power of the Church. Then are all the church doors shut up, let the city be never so great; no masses are said; no prayers are used; no preaching permitted; no meetings allowed for any public devotion; no calling upon God. The Church mourns, as it were, and makes no show of spiritual joy and comfort, nor of any communion of prayers one with another, so long as the party remains stubborn and rebellious in his sin and scandal, and in not yielding to the Church's censure.
"And whereas, by this cessation a divinis, many churches, especially cloisters, suffer in the means of their livelihood, who live upon what is daily given for the masses they say, and in a cloister where thirty or forty priests say mass, so many pieces of eight [dollars] do daily come in, therefore this censure is inflicted upon the whole Church, that the party offending or scandalizing, for whose sake this curse is laid upon all, is bound to satisfy all priests and cloisters, which, in the way aforesaid, suffer, and to allow them so much out of his means as they might have daily got by selling away their masses for so many dollars for their daily livelihood. To this would the archbishop have brought Don Pedro, to have emptied out his purse, nearly a thousand dollars daily, toward the maintenance of about a thousand priests, so many there may be in Mexico, who from the altar sell away their bread god [sacrament][40] ] to satisfy with bread and food their hungry stomachs. And secondly, by the people suffering in their spiritual comfort, and in their communion of prayers and worship, thought to make Don Pedro odious to the people. Don Pedro, perceiving the spiteful intent of the archbishop, and hearing the outcries of the people against him, and their cries for the use of their churches, secretly retired to the palace of the Virey, begging his favor and protection, for whose sake he suffered.
"The viceroy immediately sent out his orders commanding the bills of excommunication and cessatio a divinis to be pulled down from the church doors; and to all the superiors of the cloisters to set open their churches, and to celebrate their services and masses as formerly they had done. But they disobeyed the vice-king through blind obedience to their archbishop. The viceroy commanded the arch-prelate to revoke his censures; but his answer was, that what he had done had been justly done against a public offender and great oppressor of the poor, whose cries had moved him to commiserate their suffering condition, and that the offender's contempt of his first excommunication had deserved the rigor of the second censure, neither of which he would nor could revoke until Don Pedro Mexia had submitted himself to the Church and to a public absolution, and had satisfied the priests and the cloisters who suffered for him, and had disclaimed that unlawful and unconscionable monopoly wherewith he wronged the whole commonwealth, and especially the poorer sort therein.
ARREST OF AN ARCHBISHOP.