250 THE rHOFANE STOKY. 



As a ftullier confirmation of the miracle, it is 

 also told, that when Juan Diego returned to 

 his home, he found his relative in good health 



that he had suddenly risen from the last 

 extremity about the time of the former's 

 meeting with the Virgin. 



Now comes the profane version of the 

 story, which the skeptical have set afloat, as 

 the most reasonable one ; but against which, 

 in the name of orthodoxy, I feel bound to 

 enter my protest To the Jbetter understand- 

 ing of this ' explanatory tradition,' it may be 

 necessary to premise that the jiame of Gua- 

 dalupe was already famihar to the Spaniards, 

 the Virgin Mary having, it is said, long before 

 appeared in Spain, under the same title ; on 

 which occasion an order of monks, stjded 

 Frailes Guadalupanos, had been instituted. 

 One of these worthy fathers who had been 

 ^ent as a missionary to Mexico, finding the 

 Indians rather stubborn and unyielding, con- 

 ceived the plan of flattering their national 

 vanity by fabricating a saint suited for the 

 occasion. The Guadalunano had a poor friend 



wh 



an 



he 



said, one day, « Take this til ma"— presenting 

 him one of the coarsest and most slazy tex- 



spangled robe, supported ly a cherub and the moon under her 

 feet: a desiga, which, it has been suggested, was most probably 

 drawn from Revelation xii. 1. The date, "A. 1805/' is that per- 

 haps of some one of the innumerable miracle?, which, according 

 ^fame in Mexico, have been wrought by the Virgin Guadalupe. 

 The motto, « Non fecit tditer omni vationi'^ (She " hath not dea^t 

 BO With any nation") which is found on the reverse of the medal, 

 15 extracted from Psalm cxlvii. 20. 



..-j» 



