saint, the petitioners begged him fervently to intercede
against a dangerous shock. Presently they lifted their eyes, and were
struck dumb with amazement, for the statue had unclasped its hands,
the one pointing toward Manila, as if in warning; the other holding
the golden cross toward heaven, as if in an appeal for mercy. A
halo, so bright as to dazzle the beholders, played about the head,
the lips moved, and from the upturned eyes tears trickled down the
cheeks. Cuyapit and the priest arose and tried to stanch these tears,
but the cloth they used was soon as wet as if they had just taken it
from the river. Then the statue raised its arms high over its head,
as in a last appeal for mercy to the world, while the tears gushed
in such a stream that they made a continuous fall to the floor. A
look of horror wrung the face, as if the prayer had been refused;
and, extending its hands in benediction, the saint toppled from his
pedestal and was broken into fragments.

When these occurrences had been told by Cuyapit in the Church of San
Francisco, under an oath before the Virgin, the pieces were carried
in reverential procession to Manila, and the miracle of San Francisco
of the Tears is accepted there as history.

Suppressing Magic in Manila

Crowds of all kinds are easily swayed, but it is said that nowhere
is it so easy to rouse a panic or a revolution as in Manila. Several
times during the earlier months of the American occupation vague
fears spread through the city, people ran to their homes or locked
themselves in their shops in terror, lights were put out, armed guards
were posted; then, after a few hours, everybody asked everybody else
what the matter had been, and nobody knew.

In 1820 a strange scene was enacted in the Philippine capital. People
assembled in groups at evening and whispered mysteriously. Gowned
friars moved from group to group, but whether encouraging or
expostulating it was impossible for one to say, unless he understood
Spanish or Tagalog. The captain of an American ship that was taking
on its load of hemp reported to a neighbor captain, who sailed
under the cross of St. George, that there had been a violation of
the government order against the importing of Protestant Bibles and
pocket-pistols,--two things taboo in the country at that time. This,
however, may have been the Yankee captain's joke. As the night deepened
torches were seen flitting hither and thither, the crowds thickened,