196 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



Church, and, in the first enthusiasm of emancipated 

 minds, tore away at once the black mantle of supersti- 

 tion, thrown, like a funeral pall, over the genius of the 

 people. The Centralists wished to preserve the usages 

 of the colonial system, and resisted every innovation and 

 every attack, direct or indirect, upon the privileges of 

 the Church, and their own prejudices or interests. The 

 Liberals, ardent, and cherishing brilliant schemes of 

 reform, aimed at an instantaneous change in popular 

 feelings and customs, and considered every moment 

 lost that did not establish some new theory or sweep 

 away some old abuse. The Centralists forgot that civ- 

 ilization is a jealous divinity, which does not admit of 

 partition, and cannot remain stationary. The Liberals 

 forgot that civilization requires a harmony of intelli- 

 gence, of customs, and of laws. The example of the 

 United States and of their free institutions was held up 

 by the Liberals ; and the Centralists contended that, 

 with their ignorant and heterogeneous population, scat- 

 tered over a vast territory, without facilities of commu- 

 nication, it was a hallucination to take our country as a 

 model. At the third session of Congress the parties 

 came to an open rupture, and the deputies of San Sal- 

 vador, always the most Liberal state in the confedera- 

 cy, withdrew. 



Flores, the vice-chief of the State of Guatimala, a 

 Liberal, had made himself odious to the priests and fri- 

 ars by laying a contribution upon the convent at Quez- 

 altenango ; and while on a visit to that place the fri- 

 ars of the convent excited the populace against him, as 

 an enemy to religion. A mob gathered before his house, 

 with cries of " Death to the heretic !" Flores fled to 

 the church ; but as he was entering the door a mob of 

 women seized him, wrested a stick from his hands, beat 



