Evening star., 1931-04-05
BY FRANK sCHooNMAKER.

IN 'Maundy Thursday"-the
Thursday before Easter-in a
vast palace that looks out over
~ the streets and squares OF one
of the great modern capitals
Of Europe, a King, who can trace his
royal lineage back some 700 years,
washes the feet of a group of beggars
picked up more or less at random from
the city streets.
The country, of course, is Spain.
And the King, Alfonso. The same
smiling, genial Alfonso who spoke, not
long ago, to the American public
through the "talkies"; the democratic,
rather sporty King of those brilliant
Summer gatherings at San Sebastian
and Santander; the ''rey caballero," as
even the republicans call him in Spain
the gentleman King"
To most Americans, familiar only
with the superficial Spain Of the ro-
mantle novelists, the Spain of manana,
of the opera Carmen" this may seem
quite incredible To the person, also,
who is aware of the vast progress the
new" Spain is making, who realizes
that this until recently backward coun-
try is now buying thousands of Ameri-
can automobiles yearly and constructing
hundreds of miles of modern roads, it
no doubt will seem strange.
study the Spaniard closely, in his home
knows welD it is not strange at all.
We Americans are merely too likely to
forget that Alfonso is still "hiS most
Catholic majesty" a descendant Of that
Ferdinand, Isabella's husband, who, as
he first set foot in the Alhambra, at
the end of that historic siege which
in a way made the voyage of Colum-
bus possible, cried, mot for ourselves,
ArI hut fa,
glory!" We are all too likely to forget
that Spain is. not at heart the land of
mantillaS and caStanets and toreadorS
but instead, in this century of agnos-
ticism, the most devout, the most pro-
foundly religious country in the world.
write these lines in Granada. Two
days ago, in the parched, brown, sun
baked city of Murcia, drifted into an
unimportant little Side-street church. 1t
was the hour of SieSta, and the church
was empty except for one old peasant
woman, who was kneeling in the half
darkness to one side, intent on a group
of carved, painted figures that repre-
sented the "Scourging of Christ" paid
no particular attention, but ten min
utes later on my way out, I passed
within a few feet of her. She was
still kneeling. My footsteps made con-
siderable noise on the stone floor, but
she did not turn. / paused for a mo-
ment behind her. She was gazing ten
derly, almost hungrily, at the bleeding,
slightly averted face of the Christ and
tears were rolling unashamed down her
cheeks. tiptoed to the door.
"Miserere" Mass Sung.
Ten days ago, in Valencia, I went to
hear Enslava's famous mass, the
'MiSerere," sung in the Church Of
Corpus Christi. At 1890 on a Friday
morning it was decidedly not service
for busy people"-yet, in addition to
women, some 80 or 40 we'll dressed and
obviously prosperous men had found
time to attend. There were no chairs
in the church, no prayer cushions, no
prie-dieus. The people fled in, some
in groups, some alone, knelt without
a word on the stone floor and remained
there for the better part of half an
hour.
OF such stuff is the everyday faith of
Spain. A faith almost childlike in its
pure, blind simplicity; a faith that is,
however, even to person of another
| creed. or none, often beautiful, often