At Such
Times The "Mother Of Heaven" Is Clothed In Her Best, And The Jewels
In Her Costume Sparkle In The Tropical Sun.
What the Nile is to Egypt, the Paraguay River is to these interior
lands, and what Isis was to the Egyptians, so is the Virgin to these
people.
Once, when the waters were low, it is related the Virgin came
down from heaven and stood upon some rocks in the river bed. To this
day the pilot tells you how her footprints are to be clearly seen,
impressed in the stone, when the water is shallow. Strange that
Mahomet does not rise from his tomb and protest, for that miracle we
must concede to him, because his footprints have been on the sacred
rocks at Mecca for a thousand years. Does he pass it over, believing,
with many, that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?
Whatever Roman Catholicism is in other parts of the world, in South
America it is pure Mariolatry. The creed, as we have seen, reads:
"Mary must be our first object of worship, Saint Joseph the second."
Along with these, saints, living and dead, are numberless.
A traveller in South Brazil thus writes of a famous monk: "There, in
a shed at the back of a small farm, half sitting, half reclining on a
mat and a skin of some wild animal, was a man of about seventy years
of age, in a state of nudity. A small piece of red blanket was thrown
over his shoulders, barely covering them.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 255 of 313
Words from 67847 to 68104
of 83353
