322 



THREE YEARS IN THE PACIFIC. 



and the duenas, to make themselves rulers of families of wealth, 

 and even," in some degree, governed their domestic regime. If 

 a servant made himself obnoxious to the confessor, he was 

 soon dismissed, and his place filled by a person of the padre's 

 own selection. Though this influence has worn away before 

 the improvement of Lima in knowledge, there are still many 

 powerful families completely ruled by the ministers of the 

 church. It is through the confessional, that powerful engine of 

 mental despotism, that the priests have maintained that sway 

 which has been so fatal to the advancement of civil liberty and 

 true knowledge. Children, who are scarcely able to compre- 

 hend the meaning of purgatory, or heaven, are sent to the 

 family confessor to recount their infant sins. A lady, who is 

 in the habit of expressing more independent views than is ge- 

 nerally done by the inhabitants of the ^^City of the Free," 

 told me that her parents sent her to confess, when she was so 

 young that she had no idea of the meaning of sin. Her objec- 

 tions and protestations were in vain. She at last used to tell 

 the confessor a story inpromptu, often as extravagant as it was 

 false, and perform the penance to which he condemned her, 

 in order to be free from the chiding of her parents. A young 

 friend of this same lady, committed to memory the catalogue 

 of sins contained in the confessional guide book, and acknow- 

 ledged herself guilty of the whole ! The pious father was 

 curious to see a person of a character so abandoned as the 

 little girl represented herself to be, and looking forth from 

 the confessional, he beheld a child scarcely seven years of age ! 



The pious confess weekly, and some even daily, but all are 

 compelled, under the peril of excommunication, to lay their 

 sins before the padre, and ask forgiveness at least once a year. 

 Just before, and during the early part of Lent, is the season that 

 all endeavor to remember the sins of the past year, and make 

 a humble and contrite confession, and, under a promise of doing 

 better for the future, obtain absolution. 



The penances imposed, consist sometimes in wearing a lea- 

 ther girdle; sometimes pecuniary fines or religious ofierings 

 are required. In 1828, an order was issued to the reverend 

 bishops and ecclesiastic governors of the several dioceses in the 



