Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/437

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THE MIRACLE OF TLAXCALA.
423

reformers, but it is their business, not mine, and if they can stand it, I can. The ceiling under the roof of this old church is a marvel of beauty. It is of cedar colored by time to the hue of mahogany, wrought with exquisite skill, gilded in places, and varnished. Tradition says that this work was done by the angels in the night, and that when the Bishop came at morning to begin it, he found to his astonishment that they had completed the church and left him nothing more to do. All over the country the same or similar work was done on the churches, the angels in most cases doing as much at night as the workmen did during the day, and so the structure was half mortal and half immortal in its origin. In this case they did the ceiling entire, and it stands unharmed by time in all its perfect beauty to this hour. If I were a doubter or scoffer—which I am not—I might be tempted to suggest that the miracle would have been more conclusive and effective, if the angels had come down in broad daylight, and performed the work in sight of the people; but my faith enables me to see that their doing it after dark, in silence, and without even a candle or lantern to attract the attention of the public, makes the miracle all the more wonderful, and the work more glorious. The job was done, that is certain, for there is the delicate fretted ceiling, as perfect to-day as it was three hundred and forty years ago, and I for one, find it cheaper and easier to believe at once, than to waste time in raising doubts and discussing questions which profit a man nothing.

After we left the church, a party of irreverent people from California, who came down by a train from Mexico, visited it, and carrying a basket of champagne