Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/194

120 knees, confirmed these promises; but the friars urged on the mob, who became so excited with religious frenzy, that, after kneeling before the figure of the Saviour, exclaiming, "We adore thee, Lord, we venerate thee," they rose up with the ferocious cry, "but for thy honour and glory this blasphemer, this heretic, must die!" They dragged him from the pulpit across the floor of the church, and in the cloisters threw him into the hands of the fanatic and furious horde, when the women, like unchained furies, with their fists, sticks, and stones, beat him to death. His murderers stripped his body, leaving it, disfigured and an object of horror, exposed to the insults of the populace, and then dispersed throughout the city, demanding the heads of Liberals, and crying "Viva la Religion, y mueran los heregos del Congréso." About the same time religious fanaticism swept the state, and the Liberal party was crushed in Guatimala.

But the state of San Salvador, from the beginning the leader in Liberal principles, was prompt in its efforts of vengeance, and on the 16th of March, 1827, its army appeared within the outer gates of Guatimala, threatening the destruction of the capital: but religious fanaticism was too strong; the priests ran through the streets exhorting the people to take up arms, the friars headed mobs of women, who, with drawn knives, swore destruction to all who attempted to overturn their religion; and the San Salvadoreans were defeated and driven back. For two years the parties were at open war. In 1829 the troops of San Salvador, under General Morazan, who had now become the head of the Liberal party, again marched upon Guatimala, and, after three days' fighting, entered it in triumph. All the leaders of the Central party—the Aycinenas, the Pavons, and Peñoles—were banished or fled, the convents were broken up, the institution of friars abolished, the friars themselves put on board vessels and shipped out of the country, and the archbishop, anticipating banishment, or perhaps fearing a worse fate, sought safety in flight.

In 1831 General Morazan was elected president of the republic; at the expiration of the term he was reelected; and for eight years the Liberal party had the complete ascendancy. During the latter part of his term, however, there was great discontent, particularly on account of forced loans and exactions for the support of government, or, as the Centralists said, to gratify the rapacity of unscrupulous and profligate office-holders. The Church party was always on the alert. The exiles in the United States and Mexico, and on the frontier, with their eyes always fixed upon home, kept up constant communications, and fostered the growing discontents. Some of them, in a state of penury abroad, ventured to return, and these not being molested,