Walk to Guadalupe.--Our Embassador kneeling to the Host.--An
Embassador with, and one without Lace.--First sight of Santa
Anna.--Indian Dance in Church.--Juan Diego not Saint Thomas.--The
Miracle proved at Rome.--The Story of Juan Diego.--The holy Well of
Guadalupe.--The Temple of the Virgin.--Public Worship interdicted
by the Archbishop.--Refuses to revoke his Interdict.--He fled to
Guadalupe and took Sanctuary.--Refused to leave the Altar.--The
Arrest at the Altar.
"_Placuit pinturas in ecclesia esse non debere, ne quod colitur vel
adoratur, in parietibus pingatur_--Pictures ought not to be in the
churches, nor should any that are reverenced or adored be painted upon
the walls." So say the canons of the Council of Toledo.
I was one of a vast crowd that, on a Sunday of December, 1853, were
hurrying out of the city by the old gate and causeway of Tepeac to the
suburban village of Guadalupe Hidalgo, once Tepeac, but now consecrated
to the Virgin Mary, who, tradition says, appeared there in a bodily
form to an Indian _peon_. Juan Diego was the name of the Indian, and
1531 is the date assigned to the incident. I shall hereafter take
occasion to relate the story as given by the veracious Juan, and duly
attested by authority which ought to be competent to settle the
question, if any thing can do so. I hope that my readers will do their
best to believe it. If they honestly endeavor to do so, and do not
succeed, I trust they will not suffer on account of their lack of
faith.
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.
[Illustration: 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.
"The viceroy, not brooking this saucy answer from a priest, commanded
him presently to be apprehended, and to be taken under guard to San
Juan de Ulua, and then to be shipped to Spain. The archbishop, having
notice of this resolution of the viceroy, retired to Guadalupe, with
many of his priests and prebends, leaving a bill of excommunication
against the viceroy himself upon the church doors, intending privately
to fly to Spain, there to give an account of his carriage and behavior.
But he could not escape the care and vigilance of the viceroy, who,
with his sergeant and officers, pursued him to Guadalupe, which the
archbishop understanding, he betook himself to the sanctuary of the
church, and there caused the candles to be lighted upon the altar, and
the sacrament of his bread god to be taken out of the tabernacle, and
attiring himself with his pontifical vestments, with his mitre on his
head, his crosier in one hand, in the other he took his god of bread,
and thus, with his train of priests about him at the altar, he waited
for the coming of the sergeant and officers, whom he thought, with his
god in his hand, and with a Here I am, to astonish and amaze, and to
make them, as did Christ the Jews in the garden, to fall backward, and
disable them from laying hands on him.
BANISHMENT OF THE ARCHBISHOP.
"The officers, coming into the church, went toward the altar where the
bishop stood, and, kneeling down first to worship their _god_, made
short prayers; which being ended, they propounded unto the bishop, with
courteous and fair words, the cause of their coming to that place,
requiring him to lay down the sacrament [the consecrated wafer], and to
come out of the church, and to hear the notification of what orders
they brought unto him in the king's name. To whom the archbishop
replied, that whereas their master the viceroy was excommunicated, he
looked upon him as one out of the pale of the Church, and one without
any power or authority to command him in the house of God, and so
required them, as they regarded the good of their souls, to depart
peaceably, and not to infringe the privileges and immunities of the
Church by exercising in it any legal act of secular power and command;
and that he would not go out of the church unless they durst take him
and the sacrament together. With this the head officer, named Tiroll,
stood up and notified unto him an order, in the king's name, to
apprehend his person in what place soever he should find him, and to
guard him to the port of San Juan de Ulua, and there to deliver him to
whom by farther order he should be directed thereto, to be shipped to
Spain as a traitor to the king's crown, a troubler of the common peace,
and an author and mover of sedition in the commonwealth.
"The archbishop, smiling to Tiroll, answered him, 'Thy master useth too
high terms and words, which do better agree unto himself, for I know no
mutiny or sedition like to trouble the commonwealth, unless it be by
his and Don Pedro Mexia his oppressing of the poor. And as for thy
guarding me to San Juan de Ulua, I conjure thee by Jesus Christ, whom
thou knowest I hold in my hands, not to use here any violence in God's
house, from whose altar I am resolved not to depart; take heed God
punish you not, as he did Jeroboam for stretching forth his hand at the
altar against the prophet; let his withered hand remind thee of thy
duty.' But Tiroll suffered him not to squander away the time and ravel
it out with farther preaching, but called to the altar a priest, whom
he had brought for the purpose, and commanded him, in the king's name,
to take the sacrament [wafer] out of the archbishop's hand; which the
priest doing, the archbishop, unvesting himself of his pontificals,
yielded himself unto Tiroll; and, taking his leave of all his prebends,
requiring them to be witnesses of what had been done, he went prisoner
to San Juan de Ulua, where he was delivered to the custody of the
governor of the castle, and, not many days after, was sent in a ship
prepared for that purpose to Spain, to the king in council, with a full
charge of all his carriages and misdemeanors."
[39] This water is impregnated with carbonic acid, sulphate of
lime, and soda.
[40] It is difficult to convey to Protestant readers the idea
which the Spaniards attach to the sacramental bread or wafer
after the priest has pronounced the words of consecration. They
call it both God and Jesus Christ, and claim for it divine
worship.