Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 1.djvu/137

Rh people have little respect for a religion taught by such men: who, however, make it a powerful instrument of terror to the timid, the weak, and the credulous. Penance and other physical terrors are threatened on fitting occasions; while the bugbears of excommunication and purgatory are held forth in all their horrors besides. The priest does not scruple to represent himself as the absolute arbiter of eternal bliss or endless punishment; and the unfortunate victim quails and falls prostrate in the ecclesiastical presence, eagerly consenting to any terms of accommodation which the unbounded stomach of the priest—conscience he has none—prompts him to propose.

By the systematic sale of indulgences, however, vice stalks abroad clothed in a mantle of impunity. The commission of an enormous crime is but a small matter, providing you possess wherewithal to bribe the church for the same: how heinous soever may be the sin, the priest will wipe it clearly away for a consideration. To smooth the path of vice, indulgences are to be had ready to hand, before the crime is committed; and the indulgence once paid for, the sinner has a balance in his favour till the offence is consummated: and