SOME HAVANA CHURCHES; 
Under Spanish rule the Roman Catholic Church was the established 
church of Cuba; public services of any other church were prohibited. In 
a circular issued by the Spanish Governor to induce immigration, it was 
provided, “no others but Roman Catholics can be inhabitants of the Island.” 
The Protestant Bible was interdicted in the Custom House. The British 
Government made repeated but futile efforts to secure for its subjects living 
in Havana permission to build a chapel for Protestant worship. So late 
as 1898, when the funeral of the Maine victims was held by the city 
authorities in the Governor’s Palace, and Captain Sigsbee requested of the 
Bishop of Havana that the Protestant burial service might be read over 
the Protestant dead, the request was politely declined, the Bishop express¬ 
ing regret for his inability to comply with it. All that Capt. Sigsbee could 
do was to “read the service a part at a time as opportunity offered, chiefly 
in the carriage on the way to the cemetery and afterward in my room at 
the hotel.” The Spanish-American war changed all that. There are now 
in Havana various Protestant denominations. (For information as to 
Protestant church services see “Churches, Protestant,” in index.) 
The churches and religious orders were formerly very rich, possessing 
sugar plantations and coffee estates which had been bequeathed to them, 
md drawing vast revenues from lands on which mortgages had been laid 
in their favor; the French Encyclopaedia once reviled the churches of 
Cuba because they were “so revoltingly rich.” In many instances the 
estates of the monks were long ago confiscated and expropriated to the 
use of the State; the monasteries of San Agustin and Santo Domingo 
were converted into Government storehouses. 
Church festivals were observed with much pomp. At one period, it 
is recorded, 525 festivals were celebrated annually in the twenty-nine 
establishments the city then possessed, besides vespers, Ave Marias, 
masses and sermons. The Spanish historian Arrette affirms that in pomp 
and solemnity the functions of the church were unrivalled by any in 
Europe, and he tells us that more wax was consumed in candles for the 
churches of Havana in one month than in other cities for the whole year. 
Feast days were marked in the calendar as half cross days to be observed 
with special religious services, and whole cross days, on which business 
was wholly laid aside. In no other country than this land of manana— 
to-morrow, by-and-by—could such a system have obtained. An America." 
in Cuba once recorded his complaint, “This is St. Joseph’s Day, the patron 
saint of the collector of the port, so he refuses any goods to be landed on 
this day.” 
The public ceremonies of Holy Week were elaborate; religious proces- 
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