148 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



" Pantheon general," which, while " consecrated," is the property of 

 the municipality. This body immediately, by municipal ordinance, au- 

 thorized the interment of the body of Dr. Vigil within its consecrated 

 grounds. When the body was brought from the house to be laid in 

 the hearse awaiting its reception, a body of students stepped forward 

 and took it upon their shoulders, bearing it reverently to the chapel of 

 the cemetery. 



But now, another surprise awaited the wondering public. As the 

 funeral cortege moved along the streets of the city, processions of Free 

 Masons in full regalia poured from the side streets and followed the 

 train. On reaching the chapel, Masons took charge and conducted 

 the burial service, in the name of human liberty; and in the chapel, 

 which had been consecrated by the church, but was owned by the 

 municipality. The same order conducted the ceremonies at the grave, 

 with the solemn earnestness of men, who understood the act to be a 

 declaration of independence against ecclesiastical tyranny. The higher 

 clergy beheld the spectacle with fear and indignation, while the priests 

 smiled solemnly to see their bishop defied in his own capital. None 

 of them had dreamed that a masonic lodge existed in their midst; 

 to-day the handsomest, best built and most modern structure in the 

 commercial city of Callao is the Masonic temple. 



Since then the city of Tacna, capital of a southern department of 

 Peru, has erected a fine marble monument to the memory of Dr. Pablo 

 Francisco De Vigil, who was a native son of that town. 



This entire episode, in its defiance of the clergy, illustrates the 

 longing for liberty in the better classes of Latin America. But, in all 

 these republics, there is more actual liberty of conscience than is al- 

 lowed by the written law, which, often angrily cited by the clergy, finds 

 itself in such antagonism to the higher law of the popular conscience, 

 that the courts of ultimate authority manage to fail of finding it in the 

 statute books, written as it is under the unwritten decrees of an ad- 

 vancing civilization. 



III. German Influence in Latin America 

 It is an interesting fact that in all the vigorous eloquence of the 

 American press and politician, touching " German influence " in these 

 continents, the real matter of German influence has not once been con- 

 sidered. European monarchism, interpreted by the Kaiser, has excited 

 the patriotic bias of the republican citizen, as if the ambition of 

 Csesarism can ever establish its order among a people who have fought 

 for and conquered their independence. German imperial power must 

 not be confounded with German influence, which has been potent on 

 this continent for more than a half century and will continue to be as 

 long as Germany occupies her present transcendent position in the uni- 

 verse of thought. 



