328 MEXICO. 
selves, and scandalizing the cause of true faith, as has been so often pro- 
claimed by European travellers. Although many of them are unworthy 
persons, and notwithstanding their rites and ceremonies are often rathei 
accommodated to a population scarcely emerged from the forests, than to 
intellectual man; — yet the wealth of the church has not been at all times 
devoted to base and sordid purposes, or used to corrupt its possessors and 
the people. Throughout the Republic no persons have been more univer- 
sally the agents of charity and ministers of mercy, than the rural clergy. 
The village curas are the advisers, the friends and protectors, of their 
flocks. Their houses have been the hospitable retreats of every travel- 
ler. Upon all occasions they constituted themselves the defenders of the 
Indians, and contributed toward the maintenance of institutions of benevo- 
lence. They have interposed in all attempts at persecution, and, wher- 
ever the people were menaced with injustice, stood forth the champions of 
their outraged rights. To this class, however, the wealth of the church 
was of small import. 
These virtues and devotion have served to fix the whole priesthood 
deeply in the hearts of the masses, and to attach the poor to their persons 
and enlist them in defence of their property. The priest, the creed, the 
church and its revenues, seemed to be one and indivisible in the notions of 
the people ; and, in turn, the priesthood became jealous and watchful of 
the power which this very affection had created. Avarice was not want- 
ing to increase their gains from dying penitents, pious bequests, holy oifer- 
ings and lavish endowments. And thus (often grossly human while 
humbly good,) they have contrived, upon the same altar, to serve God 
and Mammon. 
It is now quite natural, that they should desire to preserve the property 
which has been collected during so many years of religious toil and ava- 
ricious saving, and they dread the advance of that intellectual march 
which, in the course of time, will consign their monastic establishments 
to the fate of those of England and Spain. The combination of large 
estates, both real and personal, in the hands of a united class acting by 
spiritual influence, under the direction of one head, must be powerful in 
any country, but certainly is most to be dreaded in a Republic, where 
secret ecclesiastical influence is added to the natural control of extra- 
ordinary wealth. 
It is difficult to say with accuracy, for the reasons I have already 
assio-ned, what this wealth at present is, — but I think the number of Con- 
vents, devoted to about two thousand Nuns in the Republic, is fifty-eight ; 
for the support of which, (in addition to a floating capital of rather more 
than four millions and a half, with an income therefrom of two hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars,) they possess some seventeen hundred estates 
or properties, producing an annual revenue of about five hundred and 
sixty thousand dollars. 
There are about three thousand nve nunared »ecular Clergymen and 
seventeen hundred Monks. 
