HOLY THURSDAY. 151 
After the ceremony was over, no one omitted going to the basins and 
sprinkling with holy water. The Indians, as usual, enjoyed this privi- 
lege greedily ; and after devoutly crossing themselves, spirted a quantity 
of the fluid in their eyes, and last of all, put a handfuU over their hair 
and faces. The infants, especially, came in for a wholesome ablution. 
2Srd. I went to the Cathedral this afternoon to hear the Miserire. It 
was a different affair from that of the Sistine Chapel, where the agonizing 
music is wailed out by the Pope's eunuchs. I only remained until four or 
five candles had been extinguished on the great candlestick of ebony, 
inlaid with silver. The music was execrable. 
24:th. This day, which is elsewhere perhaps the saddest and holiest 
to the spiritual-minded of Christ's Church — preparing the soul for the 
dreadful trials of to-morrow — is in Mexico one of the gayest of the season. 
From 10 o'clock in the morning, not a horse or vehicle of any sort is 
permitted to appear on the street, and all who venture abroad must do so 
on foot. In the olden time, this was no doubt intended to mark the day 
with peculiar solemnity ; both by dispensing with one of the most needful 
luxuries of the upper classes, and detaining the gay and fashionable at 
tiome, or inducing them to go on humble and prayerful pilgrimage to the 
churches. It is now, however, but an excuse for ostentation ; and as at all 
other seasons of the year fashion has made it imperative for no lady to 
walk the streets, so has fashion made it the rule for the sex to appear on this 
day, apparelled in all the splendor their purses will admit. Silks, satins, 
velvets, embroidery, lace, jewels, diamonds, ball-dresses, dinner-dresses 
— every species of vesture to attract attention and envy, and these again 
are changed several times in the course of the day ! For weeks previous 
the mantuamakers are all bought up — not a stitch is to be had for love 
or money — and, on Holy Thursday, the cunning of their needles is dis- 
played for once in the year to the rude and open air. 
The professed purpose of this display is to visit, on foot, seven of the 
churches— which are adorned with all their plate, jewels, flowers, and 
finery, for the occasion, while their floors are spread with the richest 
carpets. 
Although there is much that is singular to Protestants who are accus- 
tomed to a simple ritual, in the splendor of the Roman Church in Italy 
and France, yet there is always a picturesque fitness of the ceremony 
to the season, and there is an evident meaning in its dramatic effect, illus- 
trating the incidents of the time. In those countries, we can never free 
ourselves from the associations of the place and the ceremony upon which 
there are no corrupt grafts of heathenism. The rites at the altar are 
gorgeous, but chaste and beautiful ; the music is select, and suitable to 
the moment ; the temple in which you kneel, is hallowed by historical 
memorials ; the dead of hundreds of years — illustrious through all time — 
