The room of coarsely-carved statues, formerly used in the Holy Week processions, should be passed with a glance, but the collection of smaller works deserves long study. The most beautiful group I thought was the Baptism in the Jordan by a later carver, Gregorio Hernández, of Galicia, who died in Valladolid in 1636. His art is not classic, indeed most Spanish sculptors cared little for the ideal perfection of the human body, their strength lay in the individual portrait, not in rendering a type. Hernández softened the crudity or the realist school to which he belonged by depicting nobility of face and bearing. The scene of the Jordan is a panel with the two chief figures life-sized in full relief. The Baptist, his well-modeled limbs strong from life in the desert, leans forward to pour the river water on the head of his Lord, with an expression of such vivid rapture and awe that it holds you spellbound. There is little in art that can surpass this in emotional sincerity. The story of the Gospel is told to its fullest possibility. What the sculptor felt in every fiber he has succeeded in making others feel, and though an expression so poignant may not be highest art, it justifies itself by its direct appeal to the human heart. It is told of Hernández that he never undertook a work till he had first prayed. He has here also a statue of St. Teresa, spoiled by the heavy paint, and a bust of St. Anne, successfully colored. Even if you are prepared to find the wood carvings painted it frets you; it almost spoils the statues, but it was the custom and must be accepted. "_Es la costumbre_" is a closing argument in a country whose link with the past has never been rudely broken.
If her remarkable wood carvings come as a surprise, so will some of the practical developments of this small progressive city. The hospital that looks out on the leafy park of the Magdalena is run in approved modern fashion. A brisk young doctor who spoke English, having learned from a friend in the English College here, showed us over the wards with legitimate pride. They radiated from a big central rotunda; on both sides of each ward were large windows and at the end of each a pretty altar. There were five hundred public beds, and private rooms were to be had for the sum of two dollars a week! The greeting between doctor and patients was a pleasant thing to see,--he chatted and joked with the children, and, as we left, stopped at the door to lift with real kindness an ill man who had just arrived in a gayly-painted country cart. The newcomer was a gentle-faced Castilian, whose sons had brought him in from the plains; as the stalwart boys carried the trembling old man I thought of another touching hospital scene. Perhaps Rab and his friends came to my mind because bounding round us on our visit to the hospital was a beautiful Scotch collie. "Laddie" was an unfamiliar sight on a Spanish street; he belonged to the English College and is a great pet of the seminarians.