Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/211

Rh legacies of thousands of pounds to their personal heirs, while thousands from whom their tithes were wrung died unlettered and in want, — should create in Mexico an ecclesiastical class and condition of a corresponding kind. "As long as Mexico was a dependency of Spain, . . . the bishops had very handsome revenues; the largest being about a hundred and thirty thousand dollars, and the smallest about twenty-five thousand dollars." The real estate and personal property of the religious establishments accumulated, from an estimate of ninety million dollars in 1844, until, when the revolution arrived, the material wealth of the Church furnished temptations too great to be resisted.

As late as 1829 the Spanish court disputed with the Pope the right to nominate bishops for Mexico. In that year there was only one see filled in the entire country. The rival parties of the country made the most of the political factiousness which surrounded religious office; and in 1833 it was proposed to confiscate the Church property, and apply the proceeds to the payment of the national debt. This was slowly and