MONKS RURAL CLERGY THEIR CHARACTER. 135 



dowed all over Mexico, as much for the comfort of these drones 

 of the social hive, as for the worship and glory of God. Most of 

 the lucrative benefices came in this manner into the hands of the 

 Spaniards and their descendants ; and by far the greater portion of 

 the higher ecclesiastics were, either influentially allied, or were 

 persons of elevated social rank. Thus it is that even at the pre- 

 sent day so many men of distinguished manners and monarchical 

 tendencies, are found among the " high clergy " of Mexico ; for 

 the epoch of the revolution is not so distant that the old ecclesias- 

 tical stock has entirely departed from earth. 



But since the laws of primogeniture have been abolished, — and, 

 with them, the ecclesiastical privilege of enforcing the payment of 

 tithes to the clergy, — the church has been no longer regarded by 

 the best classes as a favorite resort or refuge for their children. 

 The revolution, as we have said, disorganized the establishment 

 and infused inferior men into the sacred ranks. The material of 

 the several brotherhoods degenerated in quality if not in quantity. 

 The irregularities of the friars became proverbial throughout the 

 republic, and respectable families regarded it as a calamity, or, 

 even sometimes, as a degradation, to hear their members pronounce 

 a monastic vow. Thus, whilst the church became unpopular 

 among the upper classes as a means of subsistence, — its numbers 

 were gradually filled and maintained from the humbler ranks, whose 

 ignorance and disorderly habits tend more and more to widen the 

 difference between the secular and the regular clergy of the repub- 

 lic. It is needless to dwell on the baleful influence which such 

 debased and pretended ministers of religion, must exercise among 

 the common classes of a society over which their ecclesiastical 

 authority and the sanctity of their profession gives them control in 

 such a country as Mexico. 



We deem it proper to sustain the allegations made especially 

 against a large number of the Mexican clergy by citations from 

 American, English and Spanish authors upon the country, in 

 addition to the quotation already given from Rivero's " Mexico 

 in 1842." 



Mr. Norman, in his Rambles in Yucatan, whilst graphically de- 

 scribing certain festivals, and among them those of Christmas and 

 the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, says : — " The people tes- 

 tify their respect for those festal days, — for so they are denomi- 

 nated, — by processions and such amusements as are suited. Not- 

 withstanding the acknowledged debasing effects of their sports and 



