Pegwaomi, I Saw, Was Quite A
Village, Its Pretty Houses Nestling Among Orange And Lime Trees, With
Luscious Bananas In The Background.
There was no Pai in Pegwaomi, so
I was able to hold a service in an open shed, with a roof but no
walls.
The chief man of the village gave me permission to use this
novel building, and twenty-three people came to hear the stranger
speak. After the service a poor woman was very desirous of confessing
her sins to me, and she thought I was a strange preacher when I told
her of One in heaven to whom she should confess.
"Paraguay, from its first settlement, never departed from 'the age of
faith' Neither doubt nor free-thinking in regard to spiritual affairs
ever perplexed the people, but in all religious matters they accepted
the words of the fathers as the unquestionable truth. Unfortunately,
the priests were, with scarcely an exception, lazy and profligate;
yet the people were so superstitious and credulous that they feared
to disobey them, or reserve anything which they might be required to
confess." [Footnote: Washburn's "History of Paraguay."]
In the front gardens of many of the rustic houses I noticed a wooden
cross draped with broad white lace. The dead are always interred in
the family garden, and these marked the site of the graves. When the
people can afford it, a priest is brought to perform the sad rite of
burial, but the Paraguayan Pai is proverbially drunken and lazy.
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