I have said the saints are greatly honored among these people. My Christmas cards generally found their way to adorn their altars. Every house has its favorite, and some of these are regarded as especially clever in curing sickness. It being a very unhealthful, low-lying district where my school was, I contracted malarial fever, and went to bed very sick. Every day some of the children would come to enquire after me, but Celestino, one of the larger boys, came one morning with a very special message from his mother. This communication was to the effect that they did not wish the school-teacher to die, he being "rather a nice kind of a man and well liked." Because of this she would be pleased to let me have her favorite saint. This image I could stand at the head of my bed, and its very presence would cure me. When I refused this offer and smiled at its absurdity, the boy thought me very strange. To be so wise in some respects, and yet so ignorant as to refuse such a chance, was to him incomprehensible. The saints, I found, are there often lent out to friends that they may exercise their healing powers, or rented out to strangers at so much a day, When they are not thus on duty, but in a quiet corner of the hut, they get lonely. The woman will then go for a visit, taking her saint with her, either in her arms or tied to the saddle. This image she will place with the saint her host owns, and _they will talk together and teach one another_. A saint is supposed to know only its own particular work, although one named Santa Rita is said to be a worker of impossibilities. Some of them are only very rudely carved images, dressed in tawdry finery. I have sometimes thought that a Parisian doll of modern make, able to open and close its eyes, etc., would in their esteem be even competent to raise the dead! [Footnote: Writing of Spanish American Romanism, Everybody's Magazine says: "To the student of human nature, which means the study of evil as well as good, this religious body is of absorbing interest. One would look to find these enthusiasts righteous and virtuous in their daily life; but, apart from the annual week of penance, their religion influences them not at all, and on the whole the members of the Brotherhood constitute a desperate class, dangerous to society."]