mself to Heaven.

Within sight of the Mediterranean and of the Pyrenees, towering above the
brown plains of Catalonia, this shrine is the greatest in Christendom
that bases its greatness on nothing but tradition. Thousands of pilgrims
flock here every year. Should they ask for history, they are given a
legend. Do they demand a fact, they are told a miracle. On payment of a
sufficient fee they are shown a small, ill-carved figure in wood. The
monastery is not without its story; for the French occupied it and burnt
it to the ground. For the rest, its story is that of Spain, torn hither
and thither in the hopeless struggle of a Church no longer able to meet
the demands of an enlightened religious comprehension, and endeavouring
to hold back the inevitable advance of the human understanding.

To-day a few monks are permitted to live in the great houses teaching
music and providing for the wants of the devout pilgrims. Without the
monastery gate, there is a good and exceedingly prosperous restaurant
where the traveler may feed. In the vast houses, is accommodation for
rich and poor; a cell and clean linen, a bed and a monastic basin. The
monks keep a small store, where candles may be bought and matches, and
even soap, which is in small demand.

Evasio Mon arrived at Montserrat in the evening, having driven in open
carriage from the small town of Monistrol in the valley below. It was the
hour of the table d'hote, and the still evening air was ambient with
culinary odours. Mon went at once to the office of the monastery, and
there received his sheets and pillow-case, his towel, his candle, and the
key of his cell in the long corridor of the house of Santa Maria de Jesu.
He knew his way about these holy houses, and exchanged a nod of
recognition with the lay brother on duty in the office.

Then this traveler hurried across the courtyard and out of the great gate
to join the pilgrims of the richer sort at table in the dining-room of
the restaurant. There were four who looked up from their plates and bowed
in the grave Spanish way when he entered the room. Then all fell to their
fish again in silence; for Spain is a silent country, and only babbles in
that home of fervid eloquence and fatal verbosity, the Cortes. It is
always dangerous to enter into conversation with a stranger in Spain, for
there is practically no subject upon which the various nationalities are
unable to quarrel. A Frenchman is a Frenchman all the world over,