Within a few yards of San Pedro was a still more ancient and interesting church with a most picturesque interior; yet a church no longer, for it has been turned into workshops. A low octagonal tower crowns a red-tiled roof with slightly overhanging eaves. Beneath the eaves repose small blind arcades, and here and there in the lower hall other arcades are gradually crumbling away. The wonderful roof is rounded and broken into sections to suit the plan of the building. Ancient eyelets admit faint rays of light, and a fine rounded arch points to what was once the principal doorway.
The interior is domed, vaulted and massive, black with age. Small, it seems to carry one back to the days when Christians were few and worshipped in secret. Now fitted as a carpenter's shop, it is full of the sound of hammer and plane. In one corner, men are melting glue and heating irons at a huge fireplace. The floor is uneven and below the level of the road. Light enters with difficulty. An obscure, suggestive scene worthy of Rembrandt, who would have revelled in this combination of mysterious gloom and human occupation.
The master, a stalwart Spaniard, bade us enter and gave us welcome. He was probably a man who did not trouble himself about religion, but his reverence and admiration, even affection for Father Anselmo were evident.
"You honour me with your presence and bring back a sacred atmosphere to this desecrated building," he said to the priest. "Not every day will you come upon such a scene. Yet there is a certain fitness in it after all. Was not Joseph a carpenter? and did not our Saviour work in the carpenter's shop? So that, as it seems to me, it has become noble above all other callings. And so, if this church must be turned to secular use, we have chosen for the best. To me there is no sense of desecration. You have San Pedro and the cathedral for worship, and there is room and to spare in both."
"I fear you seldom add to the number of worshippers," said Anselmo, with the mildest of rebukes. "Yet, Miguel, how often have I said there is good in you--an apprehension of the beauty of a religious life--if only you would not allow it to run to seed."
"Father," returned Miguel good-humouredly--it was curious to hear an older man thus address a younger--"all in good time. I conceive that I am living a fair life, working hard, treating my wife well, looking after my children. But somehow I can't go to confession--what have I to confess, in the name of wonder?--and I never feel a bit the better for Mass, high or low. So I just make a religion of daily life, and by-and-by, when I am old, I will try to find benefit in your set forms and ceremonies."