Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 1.djvu/136

110 Nothing could tend more effectually towards the moral deterioration, not only of the people, but of the clergy themselves: wholly uneducated, and initiated from youth into the crooked arts of intrigue, it cannot be expected that they should prove other than they are. The vices of the priests, here, are glozed over and winked at; but such manifold and glaring indications of their iniquities are so constantly evident, that no impartial mind can be unconscious of the actual tenor of their lives.

Sensuality, arrogance, tyranny, and avarice are their prevailing characteristics; and so lost are they, for the most part, to all better feelings, that they do not care to assume in private the possession of any nobler and holier qualities.

Religious offices and observances are degraded into mere matters of bargain and sale. Licences to commit crimes are paid for in dollars and rials; and the chaffering and indecorum consequent upon such transactions are disgustingly obtrusive. The extortions and intimidations practised at the bedsides of the sick and dying, and in bargains with those who have friends in purgatory, are still more nefarious. No wonder, then, that the