“Scarce has she learned to lisp the name
Of martyr, yet she thinks it shame
Life should so long play with the breath
Which, spent, could buy so brave a death.”
Avila was full of the traditions of the incomparable old knights who had delivered Spain from the Moor. The chains of the Christian captives they had freed were suspended on the walls of one of the most beautiful churches in the land, and those who had fallen victims to the hate of the infidel were regarded as martyrs. The precocious imagination of the young Teresa was fired with these tales of chivalry and Christian endurance. She was barely seven years of age when she and her brother escaped from home, and took the road to Salamanca to seek martyrdom among the Moors. We took the same path when we left the convent. Leaving the city walls, and descending into the valley, we came to the Adaja, which flows along a narrow defile at the foot of Avila, over a rocky bed bordered by old mills that have been here from time immemorial, this faubourg in the middle ages having
been inhabited by dyers, millers, tanners, etc. We crossed the river by the same massive stone bridge with five arches, and went on and up a sunny slope, along the same road the would-be martyrs took, through open fields strewn with huge boulders, till we came to a tall, round granite cross between four round pillars connected by stone cross-beams that once evidently supported a dome. This marks the spot where the children were overtaken by their uncle. The cross bends over, as if from the northern blasts, and is covered with great patches of bright green and yellow moss. The best view of Avila is to be had from this point, and we sat down at the foot of the cross, among the wild thyme, to look at the picturesque old town of the middle ages clearly traced out against the clear blue sky—its gray feudal turrets; its palacios, once filled with Spanish valor and beauty, but now lonely; the strong Alcazar, with its historic memories; and the numerous towers and belfries crowned by the embattled walls of the cathedral, that seems at once to protect and bless the city. St. Teresa’s home is distinctly visible. The Adaja below goes winding leisurely through the broad, almost woodless landscape. Across the pale fields, in yonder peaceful valley, is the convent of the Incarnation, where Teresa’s aspirations for martyrdom were realized in a mystical sense. Her brother Rodriguez was afterwards killed in battle in South America, and St. Teresa always regarded him as a martyr, because he fell in defending the cause of religion.
The next morning we were awakened at an early hour by the sound of drum and bugle, and the measured tramp of soldiers
over the pebbled streets. We hurried to the window. It was not a company of phantom knights fleeing away at the dawn, but the flesh-and-blood soldiers of Alfonso XII. going to early Mass at the cathedral of San Salvador on the opposite side of the small square. We hastened to follow their example.
San Salvador, half church, half fortress, seems expressly built to honor the God of Battles. Chained granite lions guard the entrance. Stone knights keep watch and ward at the sculptured doorway. Happily, on looking up we see the blessed saints in long lines above the yawning arch, and we enter. The church is of the early pointed style, though nearly every age has left its impress. All is gray, severe, and majestic. Its cold aisles are sombre and mysterious, with tombs of bishops and knights in niches along the wall, where they lie with folded hands and something of everlasting peace on their still faces. The heart that shuts its secrets from the glare of sunlight, in these shadowy aisles unfolds them one by one, as in some mystic Presence, with vague, dreamy thoughts of something higher, more satisfying, than the outer world has yet given, or can give. The distant murmur of the priests at the altars, the twinkling lights, the tinkling bells, the bowed forms grouped here and there, the holy sculptures on the walls, all speak to the heart. The painted windows of the nave are high up in the arches, which are now empurpled with the morning sun. Below, all dimness and groping for light; above, all clearness and the radiance of heaven! Sursum corda!
The coro, as in most Spanish cathedrals, is in the body of the church, and connected with the Capilla Mayor by a railed passage.