The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-08-30
Peruvians Celebrate Today Festival of
 Rose of Lima

The only American woman Sa1nr' who also has the distinction of be- ing the first native Of the New World to be canonized by the Catholic church, was St. Rose of Lima whose feast-day will be celebrated today in Lima and throughout Peru, Bo- nvia and Equador. Unlike Joan of Arc, Rose of Lima was not militant by nature, but was famed rather for her piety, sanctity and austerity, which led her to cut off her beautiful hair and mutilate her face and hands As a girl she was famed for. her beau ty, and many of the cdurtiers at the sulendid yiceregaI court in the City of the Kings were numbered among her admirers. To put an end to their un welcome attentions, she slashec her face and rubbed pepper into the wounds, transforming herself into an object of horror in order that she might be free to devote her entire time to the service of the Church. Her days were spent in service and her nights in self-imposed torture Human nature could not stand the strain for long, and she was only thir- ty-one when she died.
 Rose of Lima was born in 1886. nearly lIa!: a century after the death of Iai::arIo, the conqueror of the old Inca empire The City of the Kings,
  stately palaces and magnificent churches even in that distant day, and it's court rivaIed that of royalty itself. It was not amidst these scenes of spIendor that the patron saint of the Peruvians passed her brief life, however, for she was the daughter of poor and humble parents, and her youth was spent in drudgery. Devoted as she was to the Church, her tender sympathies led her to pity the unhappy victims of the Inquisition which then fiourished in Lima, and on many occasions she begged per mission to offer herself as a sacrifice in place of the condemned sinners and heretics who had fallen under the displeasure of the Holy Office.
 The old Inquisition building of Lima is now used as the Senate chamber of the republic, and the same table which was used by the Holy Office, and on which they signed warrants for autos da fe is now used by the statesmen when attaching their signatures to the meas sures passed by the Senate. The torture chamber is now a cloak room !
 Rose of Lima was a contemporary f St. Francis Solano, another of the few American saints. Francis was mill nt preacher of the Gospel, and he carried on his missionary labors prin- cipally among thsA Indians and in the vicious ql1arters Of Lima Cross in hand. he entered the shameless theatre where unelethed women sdancedz and frightened the evil-doers by his thun derous denunciat tions. He died in 161o, but was non canonized until more than century later.
 Peru has still a third saint in St. Terribus of Lima, who, like St. Fran cis Solano, was a native of Spain. He arrived in Lima in 1587. when St Rose was an infant. Lima was than a cen ter of luxury and immensely rich and the Bishop shared in the prevalent prosperity, but he lived hqInbly and devoted his large revenues to the uses of his creditors. as he called the poor. He lived Q great old age, and was scholarship
 While Peruvfans celebrate the f1estas of all three of their saints, that of St. Rose of Lima, on the 18th of August, is the most popular.