Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/271

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MEXICAN HOSPITALITY.
261

SOLDIERS' MONUMENT IN THE AMERICAN CEMETERY.

erosity and gentlemanliness. At the table of the American minister I have met as devoted a Romanist (who boasts of being a papist) as ever bowed the knee to the Virgin of Guadalupe, or believed in that miraculous folly; yet there was little of the inquisition in that inquisitress.

We could feel as safe in these devout hands as in those of their own brethren. There will no doubt be trouble and conflict in the outer settlements, but the only danger at the capital is too warm a welcome. Hannibal fell at Cannæ, under the luxuries of Roman hospitality. The Church should beware lest like Roman hospitality here destroy the courage to renew this land in holiness.

For that it needs such renewal, there is proof on every hand. The people are religious, but not in the true faith, nor with the true life. General education, enterprise, the uplifting of the toiling