Page:Guatimala or the United Provinces of Central America in 1827-8.pdf/129

Rh A few extracts from a journal I kept while in Guatimala, will probably exhibit more vividly the true character of the rigid Catholics than any lengthened disquisition. These memoranda are therefore given in the same form in which they were noted down for my own future perusal, without any attention to order.

June 3. A young student for the church visited us. I offered him Bogue on the New Testament, and Paley's Evidences, to read. He looked at them, said they were very good, but laid them down.

June 4. Passed a convent of monks with M. who showed me the building, and asked my opinion of monastic institutions. I replied “let your light so shine before men, &c.” She said her father wished her when a girl to take the veil, but she declined, and thought it better to be useful in the world. On our return I showed her a copy of the Scriptures as the ground work of all our belief. She asked if it were our custom to read it morning and evening. I said “Yes,” “Very good,” she replied, but exhibited no wish to read it for herself.

June 8. Padre B. visited us this morning. He seems a very intelligent man, and is able to read and translate English with facility. This he has acquired solely by the assistance of an old French