The two interrelated themes of order and reclamation and preservation of the past are emphasized further with the construction of the cathedral at Santa Fe. Latour finds a rock in the New Mexico landscape to use as a cornerstone for his church because it reminds him of the churches in France. He brings an architect from France to construct the cathedral, insisting that the church reflect French and Catholic architectural traditions while also adhering to the Indian tradition of inconspicuous integration into the landscape. The bell used to sound the Angelus represents the history and traditions of the Spaniards, because it contains precious metals and alloys created by Moorish metallurgists.
The application of order through the rituals of the Catholic church and the European and Indian traditions of, respectively, art and coexistence with nature resulted in the eventual success of Latour and Vaillant in reintroducing Catholicism to New Mexico. Their success, in Cather's view, resulted in the preservation of the best aspects of civilization in the American Southwest in the nineteenth-century, namely a faith in worldly order controlled by the order of God.
