The church was not open, but we followed a sacristan
in, and he seemed too feeble-minded to forbid. It is a pretty church,
not large nor imposing, with a look of cosy comfort about it. Through
the darkness the high altar loomed before us, dimly lighted by a few
candles where the sacristans were setting up the properties for the
grand mass of the morrow,--Our Lady of the Snows. There was much talk
and hot discussion as to the placing of the boards and the draperies,
and the image of Our Lady seemed unmoved by words unsuited to her
presence. We know that every vibration of air makes its own impression
on the world of matter. So that the curses of the sacristans at their
work, the prayers of penitents at the altar, the wailing of breaking
hearts bowed on the pavement through many years, are all recorded
mysteriously, in these rocky walls. This church is the illegible history
of the parish. But of all its ringing of bells, and swinging of censers,
and droning of psalms, and putting on and off of goodly raiment, the
only show that consecrates it for the world's pilgrimage is that humble
procession that came on the 9th day of October, in the year of Grace
1547, to baptize Roderick Cervantes's youngest child. There could not be
an humbler christening. Juan Pardo--John Gray--was the sponsor, and the
witnesses were "Baltazar Vazquez, the sacristan, and I who baptized him
and signed with my name," says Mr.
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