Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/160

134 The higher clergy of Mexico which was once the depository of science and general learning, is now only distinguished for its elegant manners and aristocratic tendencies. Notwithstanding some members of the church, in orders and belonging to this class, were engaged in the revolutionary struggle, and essentially aided in making it effective, the spirit of the remainder, as a body, was in reality, antagonistic to the movement. The course of the lower clergy, however, was different. The members of this grade threw themselves early into the rebellion, and sustained it heroically in its most dangerous epochs, until it triumphed in independence.

Although there is in Mexico great religious devotion to the church, regular observance of its feasts, fasts and ceremonies, and obedience to its commands, there prevails, nevertheless, considerable indifference towards its ministers, who, in too many cases have justly forfeited popular respect. The curas have united themselves effectually with the interests and affections of the people in the rural districts where they pass the ordinary, regular life of country folks remote from the dissipating influence of cities. They are amiable men, prudent counsellors of all classes, and the hospitable hosts of every stranger who visits their parishes. But, in many of the towns and cities large numbers of the clergy, both secular and regular, have forfeited the personal esteem of the high and low by their open participation in common social vices. "These vices have augmented in proportion as the bonds of discipline have been loosened by the distracted condition of the country. Gambling and dissipation are rooted in the clergy as well as in other classes of society; but we may specially declare that the convents of friars, with few exceptions, are in Mexico, sewers of corruption."

This frail condition of ecclesiastical discipline was satisfactorily proved by the state in which the Catholic church of the United States found the parishes of Texas at the period of annexation; and, it is likely, that many more flagrant instances of laxity will be unveiled in New Mexico and California, to whose distant regions our enlightened and pure Catholic clergymen are already directing their attention with honest and pious zeal.

The Spanish government cherished the church, for state as well as religious reasons. The mayorazos or rights of primogeniture, which bestowed the great bulk of patrimonial estates upon the eldest son, necessarily forced the younger offspring of distinguished houses either into the army or into the church; and, hence the splendid eleemosynary establishments which were erected and