Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/192

Rh especially on a day such as this—the day of the Lord's Supper, that calm, unpretending, solemn day of initiation to the highest and holiest life of humanity. I called to remembrance a Maunday-Thursday in St. Jacob's Church at Stockholm; there simply called “Going to the Lord's Supper.” Whole families assemble—father, mother and children, assemble to drink together from the cup. I remembered the silence, the calm, deep devotion of all who filled that crowded church!

There is but one general voice in Cuba, among the strangers of various nations dwelling there, of the entire want of religious life on the island. The clergy live in open defiance of their vows; are respected by no one, nor deserve to be so; nor does morality stand any higher than religion.

“There is plenty of love and passion at Cuba,” said a thoughtful young man, a resident there, to me, “but it is more frequently on the side of vice than of virtue.”

The god of money is blindly worshipped. It is very seldom that a marriage takes place in which he has not been consulted before any other. Ladies who remain unmarried seldom continue blameless in their lives. Unmarried men never are so.

People come to this beautiful island, like parasites, merely to suck its life and live at its expense. But it avenges itself, flings around them its hundred-fold, oppressive, snake-like arms, drags them down, suffocates their higher life, and changes them into a corpse in its embrace.

In the evening.—I have again visited three or four churches. They are splendidly illuminated this evening, especially the choirs and around the altar-pieces. They were less crowded than at morning mass, and now principally by a lower class of people. Several seemed to be kneeling and praying with devotion. There sate, one on each side the entrance of the cathedral, two