Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/268

 258 remained so, perhaps because the ritual was not read over it a second time. That was the first time the Protestant service was ever employed in this city at a burial; this morning was the latest.

Great have been the changes in this country since that hour. The uplifted hats of all that stood in the street or passed by when the body was being brought out, and of many whom the procession passed, showed how great the change of feeling toward their brethren of other communions. May each land and all churches of Jesus Christ more and more fulfill the Divine pleasure, so that of all people it may be truly said, "Whether living or dying, we are the Lord's!"

The chief national grave-yard is in the grounds of the San Fernando Church. This church is on the Street of San Cosme, not far from the Alameda. The tombs of dead presidents, many, are here. Quite stately affairs some of them, standing in the open space, while the walls about the inclosure are filled with cells that are occupied only five short years by the dead inhabitant. Unless "Propriedad" is written over it, the slumberer is disturbed, if not awakened, at the end of that little time, taken out, turned to dustier dust by the sexton in a neighboring court, or patio, and either thrust (what is left of him) into a grave at last, or laid up on a shelf. Sometimes his skull and other bones are set off with flowers and other ghastly adornings. It is money that makes this dire necessity. The Church gets fifty dollars for a five years' lease, and several hundreds for a permanent location. Next to the utter absence of all Christian faith on these square slabs, is this horrid unchristian unburial. In a country where acres unbounded are fit only for the sexton's spade, and where churches and ceremonies abound, such parsimony and infidelity are inexcusable. Among the permanently buried of the patio are some half-dozen presidents, and generals, and cabinet officers, and grandees many.

Guerro is here, the first revolutionist, who, failing to get votes enough, took to arms, and was shot, as he deserved. A brave,