CHAPTER XXXI
The Sermon
Fray Damaso began slowly in a low voice: "'_Et spiritum bonum dedisti,qui doceret eos, et manna tuum non prohibuisti ab ore eorum, et aquamdedisti eis in siti_. And thou gavest thy good Spirit to teach them,and thy manna thou didst not withhold from their mouth, and thougavest them water for their thirst!' Words which the Lord spokethrough the mouth of Esdras, in the second book, the ninth chapter,and the twentieth verse." [88]
Padre Sibyla glanced in surprise at the preacher. Padre Manuel Martinturned pale and swallowed hard that was better than his! Whether PadreDamaso noticed this or whether he was still hoarse, the fact is thathe coughed several times as he placed both hands on the rail of thepulpit. The Holy Ghost was above his head, freshly painted, clean andwhite, with rose-colored beak and feet. "Most honorable sir" (to thealcalde), "most holy priests, Christians, brethren in Jesus Christ!"
Here he made a solemn pause as again he swept his gaze over thecongregation, with whose attention and concentration he seemedsatisfied.
"The first part of the sermon is to be in Spanish and the other inTagalog; _loquebantur omnes linguas_."
After the salutations and the pause he extended his right handmajestically toward the altar, at the same time fixing his gaze onthe alcalde. He slowly crossed his arms without uttering a word, thensuddenly passing from calmness to action, threw back his head andmade a sign toward the main door, sawing the air with his open handso forcibly that the sacristans interpreted the gesture as a commandand closed the doors. The alferez became uneasy, doubting whetherhe should go or stay, when the preacher began in a strong voice,full and sonorous; truly his old housekeeper was skilled in medicine.
"Radiant and resplendent is the altar, wide is the great door, theair is the vehicle of the holy and divine words that will springfrom my mouth! Hear ye then with the ears of your souls and heartsthat the words of the Lord may not fall on the stony soil where thebirds of Hell may consume them, but that ye may grow and flourishas holy seed in the field of our venerable and seraphic father,St. Francis! O ye great sinners, captives of the Moros of the soulthat infest the sea of eternal life in the powerful craft of theflesh and the world, ye who are laden with the fetters of lust andavarice, and who toil in the galleys of the infernal Satan, lookye here with reverent repentance upon him who saved souls from thecaptivity of the devil, upon the intrepid Gideon, upon the valiantDavid, upon the triumphant Roland of Christianity, upon the celestialCivil Guard, more powerful than all the Civil Guards together, nowexisting or to exist!" (The alferez frowned.) "Yes, senor alferez,more valiant and powerful, he who with no other weapon than a woodencross boldly vanquishes the eternal tulisan of the shades and allthe hosts of Lucifer, and who would have exterminated them forever,were not the spirits immortal! This marvel of divine creation, thiswonderful prodigy, is the blessed Diego of Alcala, who, if I may availmyself of a comparison, since comparisons aid in the comprehension ofincomprehensible things, as another has said, I say then that thisgreat saint is merely a private soldier, a steward in the powerfulcompany which our seraphic father, St. Francis, sends from Heaven,and to which I have the honor to belong as a corporal or sergeant,by the grace of God!"
The "rude Indians," as the correspondent would say, caught nothingmore from this paragraph than the words "Civil Guard," "tulisan,""San Diego," and "St. Francis," so, observing the wry face of thealferez and the bellicose gestures of the preacher, they deduced thatthe latter was reprehending him for not running down the tulisanes. SanDiego and St. Francis would be commissioned in this duty and justlyso, as is proved by a picture existing in the convento at Manila,representing St. Francis, by means of his girdle only, holding back theChinese invasion in the first years after the discovery. The devoutwere accordingly not a little rejoiced and thanked God for this aid,not doubting that once the tulisanes had disappeared, St. Francis wouldalso destroy the Civil Guard. With redoubled attention, therefore,they listened to Padre Damaso, as he continued:
"Most honorable sir" Great affairs are great affairs even by the sideof the small and the small are always small even by the side of thegreat. So History says, but since History hits the nail on the headonly once in a hundred times, being a thing made by men, and men makemistakes--_errarle es hominum_, [89] as Cicero said--he who opens hismouth makes mistakes, as they say in my country then the result isthat there are profound truths which History does not record. Thesetruths, most honorable sir, the divine Spirit spoke with that supremewisdom which human intelligence has not comprehended since the timesof Seneca and Aristotle, those wise priests of antiquity, even to oursinful days, and these truths are that not always are small affairssmall, but that they are great, not by the side of the little things,but by the side of the grandest of the earth and of the heavens andof the air and of the clouds and of the waters and of space and oflife and of death!"
"Amen!" exclaimed the leader of the Tertiaries, crossing himself.
With this figure of rhetoric, which he had learned from a famouspreacher in Manila, Padre Damaso wished to startle his audience,and in fact his holy ghost was so fascinated with such great truthsthat it was necessary to kick him to remind him of his business.
"Patent to your eyes--" prompted the holy ghost below.
"Patent to your eyes is the conclusive and impressive proof of thiseternal philosophical truth! Patent is that sun of virtue, and I saysun and not moon, for there is no great merit in the fact that themoon shines during the night,--in the land of the blind the one-eyedman is king; by night may shine a light, a tiny star,--so the greatestmerit is to be able to shine even in the middle of the day, as the sundoes; so shines our brother Diego even in the midst of the greatestsaints! Here you have patent to your eyes, in your impious disbelief,the masterpiece of the Highest for the confusion of the great of theearth, yes, my brethren, patent, _patent_ to all, PATENT!"
A man rose pale and trembling and hid himself in a confessional. He wasa liquor dealer who had been dozing and dreaming that the carbineerswere demanding the patent, or license, that he did not have. It maysafely be affirmed that he did not come out from his hiding-placewhile the sermon lasted.
"Humble and lowly saint, thy wooden cross" (the one that the image heldwas of silver), "thy modest gown, honors the great Francis whose sonsand imitators we are. We propagate thy holy race in the whole world,in the remote places, in the cities, in the towns, without distinctionbetween black and white" (the alcalde held his breath), "sufferinghardships and martyrdoms, thy holy race of faith and religion militant"("Ah!" breathed the alcalde) "which holds the world in balance andprevents it from falling into the depths of perdition."
His hearers, including even Capitan Tiago, yawned little bylittle. Maria Clara was not listening to the sermon, for she knewthat Ibarra was near and was thinking about him while she fannedherself and gazed at an evangelical bull that had all the outlinesof a small carabao.
"All should know by heart the Holy Scriptures and the lives of thesaints and then I should not have to preach to you, O sinners! Youshould know such important and necessary things as the Lord'sPrayer, although many of you have forgotten it, living now as dothe Protestants or heretics, who, like the Chinese, respect not theministers of God. But the worse for you, O ye accursed, moving asyou are toward damnation!"
"_Aba_, Pale Lamaso, what!" [90] muttered Carlos, the Chinese,looking angrily at the preacher, who continued to extemporize,emitting a series of apostrophes and imprecations.
"You will die in final unrepentance, O race of heretics! God punishesyou even on this earth with jails and prisons! Women should flee fromyou, the rulers should hang all of you so that the seed of Satanbe not multiplied in the vineyard of the Lord! Jesus Christ said:'If you have an evil member that leads you to sin, cut it off, andcast it into the fire--'"
Having forgotten both his sermon and his rhetoric, Fray Damaso began tobe nervous. Ibarra became uneasy and looked about for a quiet corner,but the church was crowded. Maria Clara neither heard nor saw anythingas
she was analyzing a picture, of the blessed souls in purgatory,souls in the shape of men and women dressed in hides, with miters,hoods, and cowls, all roasting in the fire and clutching St. Francis'girdle, which did not break even with such great weight. With thatimprovisation on the preacher's part, the holy-ghost friar lost thethread of the sermon and skipped over three long paragraphs, givingthe wrong cue to the now laboriously-panting Fray Damaso.
"Who of you, O sinners, would lick the sores of a poor and raggedbeggar? Who? Let him answer by raising his hand! None! That I knew, foronly a saint like Diego de Alcala would do it. He licked all the sores,saying to an astonished brother, 'Thus is this sick one cured!' OChristian charity! O matchless example! O virtue of virtues! Oinimitable pattern! O spotless talisman!" Here he continued a longseries of exclamations, the while crossing his arms and raising andlowering them as though he wished to fly or to frighten the birds away.
"Before dying he spoke in Latin, without knowing Latin! Marvel, Osinners! You, in spite of what you study, for which blows are givento you, you do not speak Latin, and you will die without speakingit! To speak Latin is a gift of God and therefore the Church usesLatin! I, too, speak Latin! Was God going to deny this consolationto His beloved Diego? Could he die, could he be permitted to die,without speaking Latin? Impossible! God wouldn't be just, He Wouldn'tbe God! So he talked in Latin, and of that fact the writers of histime bear witness!"
He ended this exordium with the passage which had cost him the mosttoil and which he had plagiarized from a great writer, Sinibaldo deMas. "Therefore, I salute thee, illustrious Diego, the glory of ourOrder! Thou art the pattern of virtue, meek with honor, humble withnobility, compliant with fortitude, temperate with ambition, hostilewith loyalty, compassionate with pardon, holy with conscientiousness,full of faith with devotion, credulous with sincerity, chaste withlove, reserved with secrecy; long-suffering with patience, bravewith timidity, moderate with desire, bold with resolution, obedientwith subjection., modest with pride, zealous with disinterestedness,skilful with capability, ceremonious with politeness, astute withsagacity, merciful with piety, secretive with modesty, revengeful withvalor, poor on account of thy labors with true conformity, prodigalwith economy, active with ease, economical with liberality, innocentwith sagacity, reformer with consistency, indifferent with zeal forlearning: God created thee to feel the raptures of Platonic love! Aidme in singing thy greatness and thy name higher than the stars andclearer than the sun itself that circles about thy feet! Aid me, allof you, as you appeal to God for sufficient inspiration by recitingthe Ave Maria!"
All fell upon their knees and raised a murmur like the humming of athousand bees. The alcalde laboriously bent one knee and wagged hishead in a disgusted manner, while the alferez looked pale and penitent.
"To the devil with the curate!" muttered one of two youths who hadcome from Manila.
"Keep still!" admonished his companion. "His woman might hear us."
Meanwhile, Padre Damaso, instead of reciting the Ave Maria,was scolding his holy ghost for having skipped three of his bestparagraphs; at the same time he consumed a couple of cakes and aglass of Malaga, secure of encountering therein greater inspirationthan in all the holy ghosts, whether of wood in the form of a doveor of flesh in the shape of an inattentive friar.
Then he began the sermon in Tagalog. The devout old woman again gaveher granddaughter a hearty slap. The child awoke ill-naturedly andasked, "Is it time to cry now?"
"Not yet, O lost one, but don't go to sleep again!" answered thegood grandmother.
Of the second part of the sermon--that in Tagalog--we have only afew rough notes, for Padre Damaso extemporized in this language,not because he knew it better, but because, holding the provincialFilipinos ignorant of rhetoric, he was not afraid of making blundersbefore them. With Spaniards the case was different; he had heardrules of oratory spoken of, and it was possible that among his hearerssome one had been in college-halls, perhaps the alcalde, so he wroteout his sermons, corrected and polished them, and then memorized andrehearsed them for several days beforehand.
It is common knowledge that none of those present understood the driftof the sermon. They were so dull of understanding and the preacherwas so profound, as Sister Rufa said, that the audience waited invain for an opportunity to weep, and the lost grandchild of theblessed old woman went to sleep again. Nevertheless, this part hadgreater consequences than the first, at least for certain hearers,as we shall see later.
He began with a "_Mana capatir con cristiano_," [91] followed by anavalanche of untranslatable phrases. He talked of the soul, of Hell,of "_mahal na santo pintacasi_," [92] of the Indian sinners and ofthe virtuous Franciscan Fathers.
"The devil!" exclaimed one of the two irreverent Manilans to hiscompanion. "That's all Greek to me. I'm going." Seeing the doorsclosed, he went out through the sacristy, to the great scandal ofthe people and especially of the preacher, who turned pale and pausedin the midst of his sentence. Some looked for a violent apostrophe,but Padre Damaso contented himself with watching the delinquent,and then he went on with his sermon.
Then were let loose curses upon the age, against the lack of reverence,against the growing indifference to Religion. This matter seemed tobe his forte, for he appeared to be inspired and expressed himselfwith force and clearness. He talked of the sinners who did not attendconfession, who died in prisons without the sacraments, of familiesaccursed, of proud and puffed-up little half-breeds, of young sagesand little philosophers, of pettifoggers, of picayunish students,and so on. Well known is this habit that many have when they wishto ridicule their enemies; they apply to them belittling epithetsbecause their brains do not appear to furnish them any other means,and thus they are happy.
Ibarra heard it all and understood the allusions. Preserving an outwardcalm, he turned his eyes to God and the authorities, but saw nothingmore than the images of saints, and the alcalde was sleeping.
Meanwhile, the preacher's enthusiasm was rising by degrees. He spokeof the times when every Filipino upon meeting a priest took offhis hat, knelt on the ground, and kissed the priest's hand. "Butnow," he added, "you only take off your salakot or your felt hat,which you have placed on the side of your head in order not toruffle your nicely combed hair! You content yourself with saying,'good day, _among_,' and there are proud dabblers in a little Latinwho, from having studied in Manila or in Europe, believe that theyhave the right to shake a priest's hand instead of kissing it. Ah,the day of judgment will quickly come, the world will end, as manysaints have foretold; it will rain fire, stones, and ashes to chastiseyour pride!" The people were exhorted not to imitate such "savages"but to hate and shun them, since they were beyond the religious pale.
"Hear what the holy decrees say! When an Indian meets a curate in thestreet he should bow his head and offer his neck for his master tostep upon. If the curate and the Indian are both on horseback, thenthe Indian should stop and take off his hat or salakot reverently;and finally, if the Indian is on horseback and the curate on foot,the Indian should alight and not mount again until the curate hastold him to go on, or is far away. This is what the holy decrees sayand he who does not obey will be excommunicated."
"And when one is riding a carabao?" asked a scrupulous countryman ofhis neighbor.
"Then--keep on going!" answered the latter, who was a casuist.
But in spite of the cries and gestures of the preacher many fellasleep or wandered in their attention, since these sermons wereever the same. In vain some devout women tried to sigh and sobover the sins of the wicked; they had to desist in the attempt fromlack of supporters. Even Sister Pute was thinking of something quitedifferent. A man beside her had dropped off to sleep in such a way thathe had fallen over and crushed her habit, so the good woman caughtup one of her clogs and with blows began to wake him, crying out,"Get away, savage, brute, devil, carabao, cur, accursed!"
Naturally, this caused somewhat of a stir. The preacher paused andarched his eyebrows, surprised at so great a scandal. Indignatio
nchoked the words in his throat and he was able only to bellow, whilehe pounded the pulpit with his fists. This had the desired effect,however, for the old woman, though still grumbling, dropped her clogand, crossing herself repeatedly, fell devoutly upon her knees.
"Aaah! Aaah!" the indignant priest was at last able to roar out ashe crossed his arms and shook his head. "For this do I preach toyou the whole morning, savages! Here in the house of God you quarreland curse, shameless ones! Aaaah! You respect nothing! This is theresult of the luxury and the looseness of the age! That's just whatI've told you, aah!"
Upon this theme he continued to preach for half an hour. The alcaldesnored, and Maria Clara nodded, for the poor child could no longer keepfrom sleeping, since she had no more paintings or images to study,nor anything else to amuse her. On Ibarra the words and allusionsmade no more impression, for he was thinking of a cottage on the topof a mountain and saw Maria Clara in the garden; let men crawl aboutin their miserable towns in the depths of the valley!
Padre Salvi had caused the altar bell to be rung twice, but this wasonly adding fuel to the flame, for Padre Damaso became stubborn andprolonged the sermon. Fray Sibyla gnawed at his lips and repeatedlyadjusted his gold-mounted eye-glasses. Fray Manuel Martin was theonly one who appeared to listen with pleasure, for he was smiling.
But at last God said "Enough"; the orator became weary and descendedfrom the pulpit. All knelt to render thanks to God. The alcalde rubbedhis eyes, stretched out one arm as if to waken himself, and yawnedwith a deep _aah_. The mass continued.
When all were kneeling and the priests had lowered their heads whilethe _Incarnatus est_ was being sung, a man murmured in Ibarra's ear,"At the laying of the cornerstone, don't move away from the curate,don't go down into the trench, don't go near the stone--your lifedepends upon it!"
Ibarra turned to see Elias, who, as soon as he had said this,disappeared in the crowd.