Mexico and its Religion Part 14

There was nothing to detain me longer at Tacubaya; but a ride upon the Tacubaya road is not well finished without being extended to the _Desierto_, a place now as attractive in its ruins as it was in its prosperity.

A description of what it once was I copy from old Thomas Gage: "But more north [south] westward, three leagues from Mexico, is the pleasantest place of all that are about Mexico, called the _Solidad_, or _Desierto_, 'the Solitary Place' or 'Wilderness.' Were all wildernesses like it, to live in a wilderness would be better than to live in a city. This hath been a device of bare-footed Carmelites, to make show of their apparent G.o.dliness, and who would be thought to live like hermits, retired from the world, that they may draw the world unto them. They have built them a stately cloister, which, being upon a hill and among rocks, makes it to be most admired. About the cloister they have fashioned out many holes and caves, in, under, and among the rocks, like hermits' lodgings, with a room to lie in, and an oratory to pray in, with pictures, and images, and rare devices for self-mortification, as scourges of wire, rods of iron, haircloth girdles with sharp wire points, to gird about their bare flesh, and many such like toys, which hang about their oratories, to make people admire their mortified and holy lives.

"All these hermits' holes and caves, which are some ten in all, are within the bounds and compa.s.s of the cloister, and among orchards and gardens, which are full of fruits and flowers, which may take two miles in compa.s.s; and here among the rocks are many springs of water, which, with the shade of the plantain and other trees, are most cool and pleasant to the hermits. They have also the sweet smell of the rose and the jessamine, which is a little flower, but the sweetest of all others; and there is not any flower to be found that is rare and exquisite in that country which is not in that wilderness, to delight the senses of those mortified hermits.

"They are weekly changed from the cloister, and when their week is ended others are sent, and they return into their cloisters; they carry with them their bottles of wine, sweetmeats, and other provisions. As for fruits, the trees do drop them into their mouths. It is wonderful to see the strange devices of fountains of water which are about the gardens; but much more strange and wonderful to see the resort thither of coaches, and gallants, and ladies, and citizens from Mexico, to walk and make merry in those desert pleasures, and to see those hypocrites, whom they look upon as living saints, and so think nothing too good for them to cherish them in their desert conflicts with Satan.

"None goes to them but carries some sweetmeats or some other dainty dish to nourish and feed them withal, whose prayers they likewise earnestly solicit, leaving them great alms of money for their ma.s.ses; and, above all, offering to a picture in their church, called our Lady of Carmel, treasures of diamonds, pearls, golden chains, and crowns, and gowns of cloth of gold and silver. Before this picture did hang, in my time, twenty lamps of silver, the poorest of them being worth a hundred pounds. Truly Satan hath given them what he offered unto Christ in the desert.

"All the dainties and all the riches of America hath he given unto them in that desert, because they daily fall down and worship him. In the way to this place is another town, called Tacubaya, where is a rich cloister of Franciscans, and also many gardens and orchards; but it is, above all, much resorted to for the music in that church, wherein the friars have made the Indians so skillful that they dare compare with the Cathedral Church of Mexico."

[38] "The Toltecs appeared first in the year 648, the Chicimecs in 1170, the Nahualtecs 1178, the Atolhues and Aztecs in 1196.

The Toltecs introduced the cultivation of maize and cotton; they built cities, made roads, and constructed those great pyramids which are yet admired, and of which the faces are very accurately laid out. They knew the use of hieroglyphical paintings; they could work metals, and cut the hardest stones; and they had a solar year more perfect than that of the Greeks and Romans. The form of their government indicated that they were the descendants of a people who had experienced great vicissitudes in their social state. But where is the source of that cultivation? Where is the country from which the Toltecs and Mexicans issued?"--HUMBOLDT, _Essay Politique_, vol. i. p. 100.

CHAPTER XXI.

Walk to Guadalupe.--Our Emba.s.sador kneeling to the Host.--An Emba.s.sador 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 a.s.signed 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 mult.i.tude 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 G.o.ddess 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 emba.s.sador, 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 ent.i.tled to his position, for he was, by all odds, the most imposing in appearance of any person in that a.s.semblage, or any other I have yet seen in Mexico. His part in the performance was that of G.o.dfather 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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, p.r.o.nounced a d.a.m.nable heresy. I have in my possession a copy of this precious doc.u.ment, 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 G.o.d 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 ma.s.s 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 a.s.sembled for that purpose, it was found that the roses had imprinted themselves around a very coa.r.s.e picture of the Virgin. This is the story of the miraculous appearance of our Lady of Guadalupe.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 mult.i.tude that resort to this spring of the Virgin.

The Collegiate Church--for there can not be two Cathedrals in one diocese--is the princ.i.p.al building in the picture. It is not large, but it surpa.s.ses any thing I have yet seen for its immense acc.u.mulation 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 pa.s.sageway, 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 h.o.a.rds of wealth and the extreme poverty of the mult.i.tude 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 b.u.t.t 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 ma.s.ses are said; no prayers are used; no preaching permitted; no meetings allowed for any public devotion; no calling upon G.o.d. 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 ma.s.ses they say, and in a cloister where thirty or forty priests say ma.s.s, 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 ma.s.ses 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 G.o.d [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 ma.s.ses 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 _G.o.d_, 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d's house, from whose altar I am resolved not to depart; take heed G.o.d 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 p.r.o.nounced the words of consecration. They call it both G.o.d and Jesus Christ, and claim for it divine worship.

CHAPTER XXII.

The old Indian City of Mexico.--The Mosques.--Probable Extent of Civilization.--Aztecs acquired Arts of the Toltecs.--Toltec Civilization, ancient and original.--The Pyramid of Papantla.--The Plunder of Civilization.--Mexico as described by Cortez.--Montezuma's Court.--The eight Months that Cortez held Montezuma.--What happened for the next ten Months.--The Siege of Mexico by Cortez.--Aztecs conquered by Famine and Thirst.--Heroes on Paper and Victories without Bloodshed.--Cortez and Morgan.

As we have carefully surveyed the suburbs, and all the valley of Mexico, it is time to take a survey of the city itself, and examine its condition at different periods of its history.

THE MEXICO OF THE AZTECS.