Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/454

442 friar, Manuel Aguas, read the pamphlets, was convinced, withdrew from his pulpit and from the mass. He read the Bible, distrusted his former teachings, visited the "Church of Jesus," as the new church called itself, and at last confessed unto salvation.

It made a great stir. He became very bold in his preaching, and aggravated his former associates by his ability and enthusiasm and popularity. The archbishop ex-communicated him in the cathedral in the presence of an immense crowd. But the deposed priest did not fear the anathemas. He stood in the audience, and even sought debate while the terrible curses were being solemnly recited—anathemas that a few years before would have been instantly attended with burnings on the plaza of his own convent, and in which also, a few years before, had it been another of his brethren who was being thus accursed, he would himself have taken part joyfully in the burning. He waxed bolder, and wrote to the archbishop a powerful paper, in reply to his excommunication, showing up the follies and falsehoods of the Romish Church.

It is worthy of being scattered over our own land. It professes to give a conversation between Paul and the archbishop. The former visits the cathedral, witnesses the performances, condemns the heathen idolatries, and learns, to his surprise, that he is finding fault with what some assert to be the most ancient Christian ordinances. He inquires farther, and finds no Bible permitted to be read, marriage of the clergy forbidden, idolatry observed in the worship of