niards had brought a miraculous picture with them, Nuestra
Senora de Remedios, which is still in the country, and many pilgrims
visit it; but Our Lady of Guadalupe is a native Mexican, and decidedly
holds the first rank in the veneration of the people.

In the great church there is a picture mounted in a gold frame of great
value. Its distance from the altar-rails, and the pane of glass which
covers it, prevent one's seeing it very well. This was the more
unfortunate, as, according to my history, the picture is in itself
evidently of miraculous origin, for the best artists are agreed that no
human hand could imitate the drawing or the colour! It appears that the
Aztecs, long before the arrival of the Spaniards, had been in the habit
of worshipping--in this very place--a goddess, who was known as
_Teotenantzin_, "mother-god," or _Tonantzin_, "our mother." Ten years
after the Conquest, a certain converted Indian, Juan Diego (John James)
by name, was passing that way, and to him appeared the Virgin Mary. She
told him to go to the bishop, and tell him to build her a temple on the
place where she stood, giving him a lapful of flowers as a token. When
the flowers were poured out of the garment, in presence of the bishop,
the miraculous picture appeared underneath, painted on the apron
itself. The bishop accepted the miracle with great unction; the temple
was built, and the miraculous image duly installed in it. Its name of
"Santa Maria de Guadalupe," was not, as one might imagine, taken from
the Madonna of that name in Spain (of course not!), but was
communicated by Our Lady herself to another converted Indian. She told
him that her title was to be _Santa Maria de Tequatlanopeuh_, "Saint
Mary of the rocky hill," of which hard word the Spaniards made
"Guadalupe,"--just as they had turned Quauhnahuac into Cuernavaca, and
Quauhaxallan into Guadalajara, substituting the nearest word of Spanish
form for the unpronounceable Mexican names. This at least is the
ingenious explanation given by my author, the Bachelor Tanco, Professor
of the Aztec language, and of Astrology, in the University of Mexico,
in the year 1666. The bishop who authenticated the miracle was no less
a person than Fray Juan de Zumarraga, whose name is well known in
Mexican history, for it was he who collected together all the Aztec
picture-writings that he could find, "quite a mountain of them," say
the chroniclers, and made a solemn bonfire of them in the great sq