The Roman Church has had four
centuries of trial and has made a failure of it.'"
When a person is dying, the Pai is hurriedly sent for. To this call
he will readily respond. A procession will be formed, and, preceded
by a boy ringing a bell, the Host, or, to use an everyday
expression, God, will be carried from the church down the street to
the sick one. All passers-by must kneel as this goes along, and the
police will arrest you if you do not at least take off your hat.
"Liberty of conscience is a most diabolical thing, to be stamped out
at any cost," is the maxim of Rome, and the Guarani has learned his
lesson well. "In Inquisition Square men were burned for daring to
think, therefore men stopped thinking when death was the penalty."
Wakes for the dead are always held, and in the case of a child the
little one lies in state adorned with gilded wings and tinselled
finery. All in the neighborhood are invited to the dance which takes
place that evening around the corpse. At a funeral the Pai walks
first, followed by a crowd of men, women and children bearing
candles, some of which are four and five feet long. The dead are
carried through the streets in a very shallow coffin, and the head is
much elevated. An old woman generally walks by the side, bearing the
coffin lid on her head. The dead are always buried respectfully, for
an old law reads: "No person shall ride in the dead cart except the
corpse that is carried, and, therefore, nobody shall get up and ride
behind. It is against Christian piety to bury people with irreverent
actions, or drag them in hides, or throw them into the grave without
consideration, or in a position contrary to the practice of the
Church."
All Saints Day is a special time for releasing departed ones out of
purgatory. Hundreds of people visit the cemeteries then, and pay the
waiting priests so much a prayer, If that "liberator of souls" sings
the prayer the price is doubled, but it is considered doubly
efficacious.
A good feature of Romanism in Paraguay is that the people have been
taught something of Christ, but there seems to be an utter want of
reverence toward His person, for one may see a red flag on the public
streets announcing that there are the "Auction Rooms of the child
God." In his "Letters on Paraguay," Robertson relates the following
graphic account of the celebration of His death: "I found great
preparations making at the cathedral for the sermon of 'the agony on
the cross.' A wooden figure of our Saviour crucified was affixed
against the wall, opposite the pulpit; a large bier was placed in the
centre of the cathedral, and the great altar at the eastern extremity
was hung with black; while around were disposed lighted candles and
other insignia of a great funeral. When the sermon commenced, the
cathedral was crowded to suffocation, a great proportion of the
audience being females. The discourse was interrupted alternately by
the low moans and sobbings of the congregation. These became more
audible as the preacher warmed with his discourse, which was partly
addressed to his auditory and partly to the figure before him; and
when at length he exclaimed, 'Behold! Behold! He gives up the ghost!'
the head of the figure was slowly depressed by a spring towards the
breast, and one simultaneous shriek - loud, piercing, almost
appalling - was uttered by the whole congregation. The women now all
struggled for a superiority in giving unbounded vent to apparently
the most distracting grief. Some raved like maniacs, others beat
their breasts and tore their hair. Exclamations, cries, sobs and
shrieks mingled, and united in forming one mighty tide of clamor,
uproar, noise and confusion. In the midst of the raging tempest could
be heard, ever and anon, the stentorian voice of the preacher,
reproaching in terms of indignation and wrath the apathy of his
hearers! 'Can you, oh, insensate crowd!' he would cry, 'Can you sit
in silence?' - but here his voice was drowned in an overwhelming cry
of loudest woe, from every part of the church; and for five minutes
all further effort to make himself heard was unavailing. This
singular scene continued for nearly half an hour; then, by degrees,
the vehement grief of the congregation abated, and when I left the
cathedral it had subsided once more into low sobs and silent tears.
"I now took my way, with many others, to the Church of San Francisco,
where, in an open space in front of the church, I found that the duty
of the day had advanced to the funeral service, which was about being
celebrated. There a scaffolding was erected, and the crucifixion
exactly represented by wooden figures, not only of our Lord, but of
the two thieves. A pulpit was erected in front of the scaffold; and
the whole square was covered by the devout inhabitants of the city.
The same kind of scene was being enacted here as at the cathedral,
with the difference, however, of the circumstantial funeral in place
of the death. The orator's discourse when I arrived was only here and
there interrupted by a suppressed moan, or a struggling sigh, to be
heard in the crowd. But when he commenced giving directions for the
taking down of the body from the cross, the impatience of grief began
to manifest itself on all sides, 'Mount up,' he cried, 'ye holy
ministers, mount up, and prepare for the sad duty which ye have to
perform!' Here six or eight persons, covered from head to foot with
ample black cloaks, ascended the scaffold. Now the groans of the
people became more audible; and when at length directions were given
to strike out the first nail, the cathedral scene of confusion, which
I have just described, began, and all the rest of the preacher's
oratory was dumb show.
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