“In the old city the richest and most famed church was that of San José. Like all the churches, it received its tithe or share of all gold and riches passing through Panama, but the brothers who owned San José saw fit to use their share to fashion a huge altar of beaten gold, a marvelous, glorious structure unequalled in all the world and which became famed far and wide. Indeed it is said that it was mainly the stories of the golden altar of San José and the heavily jeweled vestments and images in the church that led Morgan to sack the town. When word of the taking of San Lorenzo reached Panama, the priests of San José church hurriedly removed the far-famed altar piecemeal and loading it onto a ship sailed away. Months later, when the new city was being built, the priests returned and busied themselves in building a new San José church near the harbor shores in the new city. But they were evidently no longer rich. The church was a tiny, obscure, unattractive affair half hidden among other buildings, as it still stands to-day, at the corner of Avenue A and 8th Street in Panama City. And within the church, in place of the wonderful altar of beaten gold, they erected a plain white altar—the poorest of all among the churches in the city. Time went on. There were slave uprisings, fires, rebellions against Spain and insurrections. The country was turbulent and unsettled, but the brothers of San José church had nothing to tempt robbers, bandits or revolutionists and they and their little stucco church were left in peace. Even the fires that swept the town and destroyed many of the larger churches spared the little affair on Avenue A. Then came the Americans and the Canal; Panama won her independence, Uncle Sam sanitized the city, established law and order, and bloody, unsettled days were a thing of the past. “Then for days the priests of San José church busied themselves with mysterious doings behind closed doors and at last, lo and behold, where the white altar had stood, once more gleamed the ancient altar of gold! Through all the years the friars had guarded their secret well. Under its coating of white paint the famed altar had been hidden with never a suspicion of its existence and now that it was safe the white paint had been cleaned off and once more the glorious altar of precious metal glowed and scintillated in the sunlight pouring upon it through the stained glass windows. It is one of the sights of Panama of to-day, but few know of its existence, still fewer know of its history and in the little church on a back street few tourists realize that there stands the most wonderful and the only real treasure salvaged from the ancient city destroyed by the buccaneers.