If You Open The Chest, You Will Not See It; But This Only Proves The Truth Of The Miracle, For The Chroniclers Say The Sacred Vestment Is Invisible To Mortal Eyes.

But we have another and more palpable proof of the truth of the history. The slab of marble on which the feet of the celestial visitor alighted is still preserved in the Cathedral in a tidy chapel built on the very spot where the avatar took place.

The slab is enclosed in red jasper and guarded by an iron grating, and above it these words of the Psalmist are engraved in the stone, Adorabimus in loco ubi steterunt pedes ejus.

This story is cut in marble and carved in wood and drawn upon brass and painted upon canvas, in a thousand shapes and forms all over Spain. You see in the Museum at Madrid a picture by Murillo devoted to this idle fancy of a cunning or dreaming priest. The subject was unworthy of the painter, and the result is what might have been expected, - a picture of trivial and mundane beauty, without the least suggestion of spirituality.

But there can be no doubt of the serious, solemn earnestness with which the worthy Castilians from that day to this believe the romance. They came up in groups and families, touching their fingers to the sacred slab and kissing them reverentially with muttered prayers. A father would take the first kiss himself, and pass his consecrated finger around among his awe-struck babes, who were too brief to reach to the grating. Even the aged verger who showed us the shrine, who was so frail and so old that we thought he might be a ghost escaped from some of the mediaeval tombs in the neighborhood, never passed that pretty white-and-gold chapel without sticking in his thumb and pulling out a blessing.

A few feet from this worship-worn stone, a circle drawn on one of the marble flags marks the spot where Santa Leocadia also appeared to this same favored Ildefonso and made her compliments on his pamphlet. Was ever author so happy in his subject and his gentle readers? The good bishop evidently thought the story of this second apparition might be considered rather a heavy draught on the credulity of his flock, so he whipped out a convenient knife and cut off a piece of her saint-ship's veil, which clinched the narrative and struck doubters dumb. That great king and crazy relic-hunter, Philip II., saw this rag in his time with profound emotion, - this tiger heart, who could order the murder of a thousand innocent beings without a pang.

There is another chapel in this Cathedral which preaches forever its silent condemnation of Spanish bigotry to deaf ears. This is the Mozarabic Chapel, sacred to the celebration of the early Christian rite of Spain. During the three centuries of Moorish domination the enlightened and magnanimous conquerors guaranteed to those Christians who remained within their lines the free exercise of all their rights, including perfect freedom of worship. So that side by side the mosque and the church worshipped God each in its own way without fear or wrong. But when Alonso VI. recaptured the city in the eleventh century, he wished to establish uniformity of worship, and forbade the use of the ancient liturgy in Toledo. That which the heathen had respected the Catholic outraged. The great Cardinal Ximenez restored the primitive rite and devoted this charming chapel to its service. How ill a return was made for Moorish tolerance we see in the infernal treatment they afterwards received from king and Church. They made them choose between conversion and death. They embraced Christianity to save their lives. Then the priests said, "Perhaps this conversion is not genuine! Let us send the heathen away out of our sight." One million of the best citizens of Spain were thus torn from their homes and landed starving on the wild African coast. And Te Deums were sung in the churches for this triumph of Catholic unity. From that hour Spain has never prospered. It seems as if she were lying ever since under the curse of these breaking hearts.

Passing by a world of artistic beauties which never tire the eyes, but soon would tire the chronicler and reader, stepping over the broad bronze slab in the floor which covers the dust of the haughty primate Porto Carrero, but which bears neither name nor date, only this inscription of arrogant humility, HIC JACET PULVIS CINIS ET NIHIL, we walk into the verdurous and cheerful Gothic cloisters. They occupy the site of the ancient Jewish markets, and the zealous prelate Tenorio, cousin to the great lady's man Don Juan, could think of no better way of acquiring the ground than that of stirring up the mob to burn the houses of the heretics. A fresco that adorns the gate explains the means employed, adding insult to the old injury. It is a picture of a beautiful child hanging upon a cross; a fiendish-looking Jew, on a ladder beside him, holds in his hand the child's heart, which he has just taken from his bleeding breast; he holds the dripping knife in his teeth. This brutal myth was used for centuries with great effect by the priesthood upon the mob whenever they wanted a Jew's money or his blood. Even to-day the old poison has not lost its power. This very morning I heard under my window loud and shrill voices. I looked out and saw a group of brown and ragged women, with babies in their arms, discussing the news from Madrid. The Protestants, they said, had begun to steal Catholic children. They talked themselves into a fury. Their elf-locks hung about their fierce black eyes. The sinews of their lean necks worked tensely in their voluble rage. Had they seen our mild missionary at that moment, whom all men respect and all children instinctively love, they would have torn him in pieces in their Maenad fury, and would have thought they were doing their duty as mothers and Catholics.

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