Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/409

328, and scandalizing the cause of true faith, as has been so often proclaimed by European travellers. Although many of them are unworthy persons, and notwithstanding their rites and ceremonies are often rather accommodated to a population scarcely emerged from the forests, than to intellectual man;—yet the wealth of the church has not been at all times devoted to base and sordid purposes, or used to corrupt its possessors and the people. Throughout the Republic no persons have been more universally the agents of charity and ministers of mercy, than the rural clergy. The village curas are the advisers, the friends and protectors, of their flocks. Their houses have been the hospitable retreats of every traveller. Upon all occasions they constituted themselves the defenders of the Indians, and contributed toward the maintenance of institutions of benevolence. They have interposed in all attempts at persecution, and, wherever the people were menaced with injustice, stood forth the champions of their outraged rights. To this class, however, the wealth of the church was of small import.

These virtues and devotion have served to fix the whole priesthood deeply in the hearts of the masses, and to attach the poor to their persons and enlist them in defence of their property. The priest, the creed, the church and its revenues, seemed to be one and indivisible in the notions of the people; and, in turn, the priesthood became jealous and watchful of the power which this very affection had created. Avarice was not wanting to increase their gains from dying penitents, pious bequests, holy offerings and lavish endowments. And thus (often grossly human while humbly good,) they have contrived, upon the same altar, to serve God and Mammon.

It is now quite natural, that they should desire to preserve the property which has been collected during so many years of religious toil and avaricious saving, and they dread the advance of that intellectual march which, in the course of time, will consign their monastic establishments to the fate of those of England and Spain. The combination of large estates, both real and personal, in the hands of a united class acting by spiritual influence, under the direction of one head, must be powerful in any country, but certainly is most to be dreaded in a Republic, where secret ecclesiastical influence is added to the natural control of extraordinary wealth.

It is difficult to say with accuracy, for the reasons I have already assigned, what this wealth at present is,—but I think the number of Convents, devoted to about two thousand N in the Republic, is fifty-eight; for the support of which, (in addition to a floating capital of rather more than four millions and a half with an income therefrom of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,) they possess some seventeen hundred estates or properties, producing an annual revenue of about five hundred and sixty thousand dollars.

There are about three thousand five hundred and seventeen hundred M.