Until a certain age children were not allowed to handle Christmas lamps, their parents acting for them; and attaining the prescribed age, were required by fasting and prayer to prepare themselves for the ceremony, the failure of the Holy Child to notice their lamps and leave some mark of favor being regarded as the severest of rebukes. An importance somewhat similar to the assuming of the toga by Roman youths, or to the reception by sovereigns of royal courtiers, was attached to the function. The plazas de Yslas y de Armas, adjoining San Fernando, generally crowded on afternoons with rancheros driving bargains or computing gains and losses, were filled on the Christmas Eve referred to with devout lamp-bearing worshippers wending their way to church. Padre Ignacio officiated at the Vesper service, then pronouncing the benediction retired to the Sacristy, where he laid aside his altar vestments and, returning to the Church wearing his plain priestly robe, stood outside the chancel rail and awaited the lamp-bearers desiring his blessing, who, advancing in line, knelt before him. Taking each lamp in his hand he made over it the sign of the cross, and having blessed them all said solemnly: “_Domine, ad adjuvandem vos festina_.” It was an impressive scene, deeply moving the lamp-bearers, who, returning home, lighted and hung their lamps on previously-selected poles or bushes, where shining like stars in the quiet skies they seemed to reflect the simple, trusting faith characteristic of all sincere followers of Christ. The Alcalde, deeply interested, burnished and prepared with his own hands his daughter’s lamp, she being too young to do so herself; then lighting it, hung it--ignoring his own preference for a secluded nook near her window--in an obscure angle of an unfrequented corner of the Alamo which she, as familiar with the Alamo as with her own home, had chosen. It happened to be just under the hall where Bowie, Crockett, Travis, and their brave comrades made their desperate stand some years later against Santa Anna and where, sealing with their blood their devotion to liberty and independence, they enriched human annals with that sublimest of all sublime records. THE PASTORES