antage, marks him as a man
of more than usually keen and resourceful mentality. He was a
native son, born of prosperous parents in the riverine town of
Mompox, which, until the erratic Magdalena sought for itself a new
channel, was the chief port between Barranquilla and the distant
Honda. There had been neither family custom nor parental hopes
to consider among the motives which had directed him into the
Church. He was a born worldling, but with unmistakable talents for
and keen appreciation of the art of politics. His love of money was
subordinate only to his love of power. To both, his talents made
access easy. In the contemplation of a career in his early years
he had hesitated long between the Church and the Army; but had
finally thrown his lot with the former, as offering not only
equal possibilities of worldly preferment and riches, but far
greater stability in those periodic revolutions to which his
country was so addicted. The Army was frequently overthrown; the
Church, never. The Government changed with every successful
political revolution; the Church remained immovable. And so with
the art of a trained politician he cultivated his chosen field with
such intensity that even the Holy See felt the glow of his ardor,
and in recognition of his marked abilities, his pious fervor and
great influence, was constrained to place him just where he wished
to be, at the right hand of the Bishop of Cartagena, and probable
successor to that aged incumbent, who had grown to lean heavily
and confidingly upon him.

As coadjutor, or suffragan to the Bishop of Cartagena, Wenceslas Ortiz
had at length gathered unto himself sufficient influence of divers
nature as, in his opinion, to ensure him the See in case the bishopric
should, as was contemplated, be raised eventually to the status of a
Metropolitan. It was he, rather than the Bishop, who distributed
parishes to ambitious pastors and emoluments to greedy politicians.
His irons in ecclesiastical, political, social and commercial fires
were innumerable. The doctrine of the indivisibility of Church and
State had in him an able champion--but only because he thereby found a
sure means of increasing his prestige and augmenting his power and
wealth. His methods of work manifested keenness, subtlety, shrewdness
and skill. His rewards were lavish. His punishments, terrible. The
latter smacked of the Inquisition: he preferred torture to quick
despatch.

It had not taken Wenceslas l