j GREAT CATHEDRAL OF THE CITY OF MEXICO. (Written for The Intermountain Catholic Catho-lic by a Non-Catholic.) ' The largest, most elegant, most costly cost-ly and in every way the finest church building on the American' continent is the Cathedral of the City of Mexico. It' is 300 years since this immense building build-ing was begun, and more than 200 years since it was finished, yet it does not bear the appearance of great age, al- though nearly all the materials in it, except the imported metals and precious pre-cious stones w.ere centuries old when Columbus first sailed across the At lantic, for it was largely built of the stones of the Aztec Temple that stood upon precisely the same site and that was destroyed by Cortez. The cathedral is so long and broad and high that there is no church familiar to most of the readers of The Intermountain Catholic to which it can be compared so as to give any idea of its appearance. It stands at one end of the plaza or public pub-lic square, and one .of its corners is diagonally across the street', from one of the corners of the national palace. It is surrounded by a fence of chains large enough and heavy enough to anchor an-chor a man-of-war, each of the stone lois being surmounted by a huge stone skull, to remind the passer-by, so it is said, of death. The building stands on a piece of land as large as a city block, and fills naerly the whole of it. It is adjoined to another an-other sacred building, the ordinary par- j ish church, and this makes it look even larger than it is. It does not, however, present either a remarkable or handsome hand-some appearance from the outside, but it looks neglected, dirty and commonplace. common-place. On the side furtherest from the palace the old stone "calendar of the Aztecs is set in the wall. This, at least, is what it is called, but it is not "certain "cer-tain by any means that the Aztecs had SUfb a ibiri!?- as a rr i ....... l u-viiuai . il iue had and this was it, it was a very much mixed-up one, and must have set them making hay at Christmas and planting corn in the fall. It serves a more useful purpose now, very likely, than, it ever did before, as part of the Cathedral wall, though it is no doubt very old, and is something of a curiosity. curios-ity. It is an immense black stone, ba--salt, weighing twenty-five tons, and is eleven feet in diameter. It has been in j the wall for about 100 years, and is sup-posed sup-posed to have been made in the thirteenth thir-teenth century. It is divided into 365 days, and in some other respects resembles re-sembles our own calendar. To enter the Cathedral it is necessary neces-sary to make your way through a scon ' of beggars, who are- always kneeling and lying and standing about the entrance. en-trance. These people : exhibit their pleasant littl deformities.to you as, you go in, such'.' as stumps of arms andlegs tied up In knots and heads twisted around sideways and beg for charity. The Mexicans have a remarkable way of keeping everything about the building build-ing in gorgeous style, except in one place, some doorway or a little room fenced off, which they are satisfied to have in the roughest style ; possible, sometimes .eveii of unplaned-boards. But once through the beggars . and the shabby vestibule, the -visitor finds himself in church, such as he ha? never seen before in America. It is so divided into comparatively , small spaces,' by the numerous altars, ' and organs and other paraphernalia, that its immense size is hardly, apparent on the inside. . It is a maze of gilt, painting paint-ing and statues, beautiful to pleas? the eve. The large amount of money which has recently., been spent for the altar of the Roman Catholic Cathedral in New York, adds interest to. the fact that in this Cathedral jn Mexico." there die ai.v iu (.are, . ine nrsi, largest ana most .expensive . being the altar, of Kings, under which are the tombg of the Viceroys. This altar is contained in a small chapel which is ornamented with, a crystal chasse, marble as transparent trans-parent as glass in which, on a gold plate, are the skulls of Hidalgo, AUende, Adania and JimineK. all defunct gentlemen gen-tlemen whose memory is revered n Mexico. The plaie also holds the bones of Mina and Morena. It is a large plate but still it is crowded. It is evidently not intended for such extensive bone works as it is used for. The key of this chapel is kept by, congress, and it is well that it is kept securely locked, or the recent 'American excursionists would have had some of these skulls. The second is the altar of souls, the third, the altar of good resolutions, the, fourth, the altar of St. Joseph, the fifth, the altar of St. Laurent, and the sixth, the altar of pardon, in which masses are said for the dead. It struck me at the time and it is wearing on me still, that an altar of, good resolutions would be a good thing in New York, particularly about New Year's day. The people in such a place as this, are the first thing to attract a tranger's attention. There is always someone in the Cathedral, for it is open all day long. And the stranger, provided pro-vided he be a Protestant from some civilized and Christian country, can not fail to be struck by some verv coorl I I and some very bad things. The mere fact that the Cathedral is constantly I open, in the middle of the city, where the faithful can go in and pray whenever when-ever they please, is iri itself a point in its favor. .-But the thing which must strike any visititng New Yorker as the strongest points in its favor and the one that could with srreat propriety be introduced intro-duced into two-thirds of the churches in the modern metropolis, is the fact ! that the beggar is equally at liberty j with the Don to go into the Cathedral and address himself to the Almighty. The same man. who boned you for a copper when,'- you went in, will very likely stand br. kneel by your side before be-fore you go out, and pray a little. , Beautiful young ladies come in. accompanied ac-companied often by young military cousins' and brothers as escorts: and while the young lady kneels and prays the young soldier stands guard by her side. Within a foot of her, very likely is a specimen of poverty, who would be fired out by the sexton of a fashionable fashion-able .'New York church before he had time to think what is the chief end of man. Will the luxurious Sunday morning reader kindly imagine on of these beggars, beg-gars, much dirtier and worse than any beggars wo know in the United State?, walking into one of our churches and meoting with the elegantly dressed J ushers? Yet in forlorn Mexico, when one of thes wrutches has anything to say to the Lord, he goes into the I-iuiwi auu najs u nilliuui mOteSla- tion; and not one of them has ever yet been struck by lightning for his te-"merity. te-"merity. It is impossible to realize what an impression this mingling of the high and the low classes makes on a heathen, who has been accustomed to toe the rich going to heaven out of a brown stone temple and the poor going to the devil out of New York tenement houses. Sixty-two life-size statues serve as chandeliers, and everything else is in the same grand style. A little book tells you hew rich they are. This explains ex-plains to you that the choir is surrounded sur-rounded by a balustrade of gold which was manufactured in China and weighs more than twenty tons, not all gold; that in the middle of the main altar is placed the tabernacle, supported by eight ranges of ytucco colonnades, on the first two ranges of which stand the Apostles and the Evangelists and principal prin-cipal Saints, and on the third range a group of angels, principal among whom is the Virgin Mary. Then, are enumerated these treasures: I Six gold chandeliere; a cross whose bodv and pedestal are inlaid with Dre-cious Dre-cious sitons; a cross of gold filagree; six more large chandelieis, twenty chalices; chal-ices; six gold cruets and stands; a pyx weighing 106 ounces of gold, covered with 1,678 large diamonds; a chalice ornamented or-namented with 122 diamonds,'132 rubies, 143 emeralds, the whole mounted on eighty-four ouncea of cold: Cwo irnirirn cem-rs, the principal one a yard high, ornamented with 5,000 diamonds, and the other with 2,635 emeralds, 109 amethysts, ame-thysts, fonty-four rubies and eight sapphires, sap-phires, and contains 704 ounces of gold; eleven lustres, of twenty-four branches each; two pairs of 'large chandeliers; three statues and a large numiber of silver sil-ver and gold bouquets. , The statue of the Assumption, dating from 1610, the most valuable piece in the Cathedral, is now missing, and without doubt went to pay part of the cAptuo vjv nuiua vu me countless Mexican Mex-ican wars. It was made of gold alone, counting nothing for the workmanship' It was worth $1,080,504, and it was covered cov-ered from head to foot with precious stones. The large censer and a large portion of the jewels and ornaments were given to the Cathedral by Charles V cr Snain. The Cathedral was damaged by an earthquake in 1S37. and a great gold lamp, twenty-three feat high, was sold to pay for repairs. The lamp was nine feet in diameter; had fifty-four branches, branch-es, and' cost $71,343. One of the: builders of the Cathedral said . to the architect: "Build us a church which will mdke r-asteirity believe be-lieve that we were mad." and hw did. i The actual building cost $t,S36,00G, and in a country where, labor can be had for 25 Cents a day, and stone for. the quarrying. J W. D. .. i :