The largest church, where her blanket portrait hangs, is a few rods farther out on the plain. There is the chief outlay of gold and silver and precious stones. Two solid silver railings with silver banisters lead from the altar to the choir, a hundred feet at least. On its wall is an inscription to her as the Mother of God, Foundress and Savior of the Mexican People.
But the priests of the Virgin have an eye to the main chance. They turn her into lottery speculations, and make her useful to their often infirmities. At the door-way an old servant of the temple sold her pictures, beads, and other ecclesiastical knickknacks. A picture that I bought of her was wrapped up in a lottery ticket like that shown on the opposite page, with its translation.
This lottery of the Virgin is one of the most flourishing. The monthly drawings draw daily pennies to their purse. It makes the priestly pot boil. Time was when luxuries were theirs; but these are hard times now for priests, and so they have to thus turn an honest penny to a dishonest use.
But these popular orgies are fading out. True, each December witnesses multitudes from over all the land attending her annual festival. The Indian honors it with the dances of the ancient times. The rites are more Aztec than papal. Yet the Jesuit begins to say that faith in the Virgin of Guadalupe is not essential to salvation. The Bible will replace the Jesuit, and the trick by which he has held their souls captive these three centuries and a half will cease to possess them more. Christ the Liberator is coming. He is nigh—even at their doors. This old blanket, like that of Bartimeus, will be thrown away, and the people will come to Jesus and be healed.
Let us leave our Lady of Guadalupe, if you can, with all this shrewd but shallow faith and policy, and look more easterly. Here lies the vision that charmed the Toltec twelve centuries ago, the Aztec eight centuries ago, the Spaniard three centuries ago, and the French, Austrian, and American conquerors of our own day. From my post it spreads out into a plain that loses itself in a sunmist forty miles away. Across the plain threads of water stretch themselves, sometimes spreading into bayous, or lakes.
