Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/166

140 exist for the Indians when their conquerors were unable to read them? What I desire to prove by this is that religion was neither taught the natives nor were they persuaded of its divine origin by proof and argument; the whole foundation of their faith was the word of their missionaries, and the reason of their belief was the bayonet of their conquerors.***** The dependence of the people was a sort of slavery, a necessary consequence of the ignorance in which they were brought up, of the terror with which the troops and authorities inspired them, of their despotism and pride, and more than all, of an inquisition sustained both by the military and by the religious superstitions of monks and clergymen whose fanaticism was equal to their ignorance.*****The catechism of Padre Ripalda, which contains the maxims of a blind obedience to the king and pope was the ground work of their religion; and their priests, parents and masters inculcated these doctrines incessantly."

Don Vincente Pazos, in his celebrated Letters on the United Provinces of South America, does not even stop at the clergy, in charging a large share of the miseries of his countrymen upon the ecclesiastical establishment, but confounds the creed with its unworthy ministers, and strikes even at the religion itself:

"Among the evils suffered by the Indians which have been a source of unhappiness to them, as well as to all South America, is the Roman Catholic religion, which was introduced among them by the Spaniards. This religion, in countries where it predominates or is connected with the government, is widely different from the same religion as it appears in the United States of North America. Instead of being employed as all religions ought to be, in directing the morals, purifying the hearts and restraining the vices of the people,—it is so prostituted in Spanish countries, that it has become nothing but a mass of superstitious ceremonies, and the instrument of avarice and oppression."

The error of the patriotic writer is so evident that it does not need exposure. The faith and the friar are different things. Yet how deep must be the corruption of a class whose vices force an intelligent man, born and educated in the bosom of the church, to denounce his religion for the sake of its worthless teachers.

We have dwelt upon this subject because the religion—and especially the protected state religion of a country—is always of deep interest when we estimate the resources and character of a nation. Priests of all creeds obtain a sacred character in the opinion