Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/111

Rh If you doubt this they will show you the greasy blanket with her form upon it, over the high altar at Guadalupe, in a frame of solid silver, located just where she spread it, and she filled it with herself.

I agreed to accept the miracle if they would show the flowers as fresh to-day as when they were picked. This they could also do; for flowers abound in this latitude, and beautiful enough to turn any dirty blanket into a Madonna.

That miracle settled the case for the Indians. They had a señora of their own. Our Lady of the Remedies was a Spanish mother. This was an Indian. It was a success. The Virgin of Guadalupe became the goddess of Mexico. Divine honors were paid to her. Temples went up everywhere, and shrines in every temple. Her picture on its blanket hangs in every house and hut, above the counter of the merchant and the bar of pulqui dram-shops, over the forge and over the bed, here, there, everywhere. Books by the thousand and sermons by the tens of thousands have been written and preached upon her virtues and her powers. In one of the books in the library of Vera Cruz she is gravely said to have "got around God." Undoubtedly she got around this people, and effectually took them in, or those personating her did; for the blessed Virgin is in Paradise, and has no connection with this idolatry.

The upper of these three churches, where she first appeared, is reckoned the most sacred. Here are the tombs of the chiefest dignitaries of church and state. The ascent is lined with trophies of her ability to save; one a solid mast and sail of stone, erected by a worshiper whose life was saved from shipwreck, as he believed, through her interposition.

The next is near the foot of the hill, and incloses a chalybeate fountain, which burst forth when she lit there on her foot. "The iron entered her sole," irreverently remarked an American sinner as he gazed upon the fountain. A blaze of gilding covers the chapel connected with this beautiful legend of the fountain. Its walls are