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Show CELTO-SPANISH IBERIAN ! V I Prehistoric American Races Best Place to 1 f Study Different Races What Was Seen '.; at High Mass Sons of Shem, Daughters " j ' j of Ham Unity of Human Race Tran3- , j formation to Son of Justice. 1 Before bidding good-bye forever to Nicaragua I and its beautiful capital, Leon, which was my home f during my wanderings in the republic. I ought to ' f say something of the people, of the mixing of the blood of strange races, of the blending and fusing of , 1 the mysterious African and prehistoric American 1 races with tho Celto-Spanish and Iberian sf-tK'k which has occurred and is occurring in this extraordinary f land. Nowhere could I view to better advantage the outward results of the fusion of race- with I race, or see more satisfactory effects of the llametic ' and Semitic graftings on the Japhetic treo than . ? at High Mass at the eathedral on Sunday. I had - attended an early Mass at tho Church of tho Mer- j cedes, and as a student interested in my fellow-- men, I was free to be present in the cathedral dur-' j ing the great Sacrificial Act, the Mass. .1 In the cathedrals of Latin America, as fn many j parts of Europe, there are no pews. From tho ri?- ( I ing of the sun until the beginning of tho High Mass, at some one of the many side altars Hast is being offered up, and the worshipers arc al- j ways streaming in or out of the building. The I Protestant tourist and tho traveled Catholic not . i . understanding this custom, often make the mis- take of assuming that tho congregation which is present in the church, when they enter on Sunday, ; make up all who attend divino service and return t home with a very low opinion of the devotion of f ; the people. Tho fact is, from early morning in ' J some part of the sacred edifice the Holy Sacrifice i is taking place; the people are coming in and go- l ing out, and because they are coming in and go- s ing out, pews and chairs would be a nuisance. When f I entered the cathedral Mass had already begun. t The splendid choir, carried forward and upward - I by the support of a great organ whose tones wero mellowed with age, were singing the "Kyrie," tho : ' officiating priest was seated on the epistle side of the altar, to his right and left the deacon and '. I sub-deacon of the Mass. Occupying his throne and ' i supported by his episcopal entourage, the Arch- j bishop of Nicaragua offered to the eye an imposing impos-ing and venerable personality. His crosier, ring and pectoral cross were the insignia of his high and holy office, and stood for his unquestioned spiritual authority over those within his canonical jurisdiction. Beginning with Antonio de Valdi-vieso, Valdi-vieso, who in 1544 was murdered by Hernandez de Contreras, the venerable figure before me represents, repre-sents, in unbroken continuity, a line of forty-four prelates that stood for the conversion and civilization civiliza-tion of the Nicaraguan Indians and the perma- i nency of Christianity in Central America. Fully sixteen hundred people, representing all grades of society, were present at the Adorable Sacrifice, and yet so vast was the building that the congregation seemed small. I saw around me, assembled in the unity of the faith, Spaniards of the all-conquering Aryan stock; descendants of the mysterious African or Ethiopian race which probably prob-ably antedates the deluge, the sons and daughters 1 ' of the aboriginal American whose origin is lost in the darkness of a very remote past. Here also, and constituting the numerical strength of the congregation, con-gregation, were zambas; 'offspring of Indian and ncgroe parentage; mulattoes. meztizos, quadroons, tercerons and octoroons multitudinous shades of black and white, yellow and brown "devout men out of every nation under Heaven." According to the law that "like begetteth like" and "no one give3 what he has not got." each parent must have given to every one of those around mo something of himseli o- herself. To the conservatism conserva-tism of the sons of Shem and the emotionalism of the daughters of Ham were added the aggressiveness aggress-iveness and recuperative powers of the sons of ' Japheth, so conspicuously wanting to the descendants descend-ants of Shem and Ham. Structurally, all these around me are the same, yet anatomically, pathologically patho-logically and physiologically they differ. Yet in spite of all differences, they are of one species, of one common origin, which, biologically, means they sprang from one primitive pair. ?t. Paul two thousand years ago, addressing the Athenians ; - ' ' on "the unknown God," long before anthropology became a science, taught the principals of the . . ; unity of the human race when he said: "God hath made of one all mankind, to dwell upon the face : ; ' ; of the earth, determining the limits of their habi- ' ; tation." , ; ' The mysterious past was dissolving before me ' ' j into the present, the historic into the prehistoric, i ' and an entirely new type of the old races was in process of formation which the world never before saw and may never see again. Here today, and . ' around me, are the descendants of those who but a few hundred years back, on the west coast, in ' .' the gloomy forests of equatorial Africa, or on the blood-soaked altars of Nicaragua, sacrificed their children and their prisoners of war to demons, , drank the blood and feasted on the flesh of their human victims. We have only to go back four hundred years, ' less than six lives, when we reach the prehistoric ,' ' ' line and cross it into the savagery of African or : : the barbarism of ancient America. And now I ; gazed upon these human variants with face and ; form, color and brain, altered, with new life, hopes and aspirations ; everything of the old gone except the specific sum of character by which a man is a man all over the world. ! I looked down the avenue and vista of human history, down through the ages off time, to the dispersing of my race and its segregation into : national units, and I recalled my vision and fixed it on these devout worshipers around me, that typed once again the reunion of the scattered frag-: ments. It was a notable portend of a converging; towards a final Teunion of the human family, of a return to a lost civilization, to a unity of adoration, adora-tion, when God's designs shall have received their '. ; entire accomplishment over the children of men. Continued en Pajre 5. j CELTO-SPANISH IBERIAN. Continued from Page 1. V They had dropped their old brutality, their old savagery as moth-eaten garments fall away from the shoulders, and come here into the house of their Master as friends, each one arrayed in his "wedding garment." From the valley of the shadow of death they came out at last, from monstrous mon-strous cruelties, cannibalism, human sacrifices, from serpent adoration, from Vaudaux worship with its obsence rites, its sacrifice of children, its human blood drinking, its human flesh banquets,-its banquets,-its violation of the rights of infancy, its degradation degra-dation and prostitution of the sanctity of womanhood, woman-hood, from an awful night of darkness they came, and now stand in the bright light flooding them from the "orient Son of Justice." Here and today, I thought, age is reverenced, infancy loved, manhood respected, womanhood honored, hon-ored, and human life held sacred. Christianity, following the matchless teaching of its Christ, took the children of the man-eat ers and those of the sacrifices sac-rifices of human life, and tamed the beastliness and ferocity of their savage natures. It invested the home with purity, redeemed the captive re served for sacrifice, lifted the curse of slavery, put a 6top to infanticide, preached the unity and sanctity sanc-tity of all mankind, and brought marriage once-again once-again within the sacred domain of God. its founder. found-er. On these children it imposed a new law of conduct, new habits, new conceptions of life and society. The sanctuary bell, intimating the beginning of the cannon of the Mass, the entering upon the sacred mysteries, the "mysteria divina" of the early church, awoke me to myself. I heard the music of the great organ mingling with the voices of the descendants of the worshipers of the sun, I saw the Ethiopians, the Indians, the Spaniards, their commingled blood alive, in the veins and arteries of those around them, sway forward and sink to their knees, and over all over the prostrate multitude, over the spiritual chief and sacrificing priest filling and flooding the mighty temple with its proclamation, I heard the voice of the angel of God singing, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God" of the Sabbath, the heavens and earth are full of tliy glory. We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we adore Thee." I, too, fell upon my knees. From the snow-capped hills of the north, crossing mountain, sea and plain, I came, the son of a Norman-Celt, and knelt, alone of my race, at home in my Father's Fath-er's and their Father's bouse, claiming by our common com-mon humanity and our common faith my right to a seat at the banquet and my kinship to those who. with me. belonged to mv species and to the "Household of the Faith." After Mass I joined the procession moving to the plaza, where the Sapadores' band every Sunday, from 11 to 1, gives a concert of Spanish, classical and Nicaraguan airs. The variety of the costumes cos-tumes of the people, and of the soldiers and officers of the army, was bewildering. Never did I see a cleaner, a more deferential, or an apparently happier people. The plaza seats were occupied by rich and poor indiscriminately. There was no crowding, no rowdyism or horse-play among the young. The promenades were alive with movement move-ment and animation, a kaleidoscope of flesh tints, bright colors and flashing uniforms. The music was superb, for, say what Ave will, these Latin-Americans Latin-Americans have the artistic instinct as a birth-gift. birth-gift. As I returned to my hotel I pondered over my experience and my association with these warmhearted warm-hearted people, and from my inmost heart I deplored de-plored V political feuds, their internecine wars, and reg -d they had not a more permanent and stable government than a bastard republic. |