Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/189

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PUEBLA FAITHFUL TO THE CHURCH.
179

RUINS OF THE COVERED WAY TO THE INQUISITION.

Such a city, so built, so owned, so occupied, would naturally be faithful to the Church. It could not well be otherwise. All its people get their living, as did Demetrius of Ephesus, by making silver shrines and such like for their goddess Maria. Their devotion was as great as their interests were close. They must approve and defend the Church in which they lived and moved and had their daily being. They must oppose all beginnings of opposition to her, whether local or national. So they cast themselves into the breach, and in the war upon the Church have always been found in the front rank of her defenders. This city has been the seat of her power. Mexico, a political capital far more than a religious, has been indifferent to the fate of Romanism. Puebla, which is nothing if not religious, has been indifferent to everything but Romanism.

Of course such a stronghold of that order was not considered fruitful soil for anti-Romanism. "Very fanatical," every body