Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/305

 had already been abolished by one of the kings of the valley of Mexico."

Without denying that the Catholic Church has the ability to institute a reform, and has within its folds upright and pure minded men enough among its clergy to carry it out, yet up to the present time it has not chosen so to do. Upon the institution of the Laws of Reform the people were released from the grasp of the ecclesiastical courts, and the vast majority, though nominally Catholics, were in danger of lapsing into infidelity. It is not my wish to criticise or condemn, for I look upon the Church of Mexico of to-day as the victim, to a great extent, of the past, chained and shackled by the enactments and superstitious ignorance of its founders. But if that Church ever cherished the wish to elevate and regenerate itself and its worshippers, it neglected the occasion when, the French usurpers banished and internal rebellions quelled, peace finally settled down upon the distracted country. Then was the golden opportunity, which, had it been embraced, would have carried Mexico farther onward towards its goal in the path of progress and enlightenment than electricity or steam.

The three great civilizing forces of Mexico, the railroads, telegraphs, and an active religion, are extraneous,—from without the borders of the country. God and Liberty, Dios y Libertad, was the watchword of the republic in those times that tried the souls of Mexico's bravest sons; but liberty to worship God, except after the manner prescribed by the mother Church, was not for a moment entertained.

The first copies of the Scriptures, it is said, entered Mexico with the invading American army, in 1846; but the example of