Power in the Constitution"; but is real power
lay in himself and in the system which he implanted.

Garcia Moreno had a varied career. He had been a student of chemistry
and other natural sciences. He had spent his youth in exile in Europe,
where he prepared himself for his subsequent career as a journalist and
a university professor. Through it all he had been an active participant
in public affairs. Grim of countenance, austere in bearing, violent of
temper, relentless in severity, he was a devoted believer in the Roman
Catholic faith and in this Church as the sole effective basis upon which
a state could be founded or social and political regeneration could be
assured. In order to render effective his concept of what a nation
ought to be, Garcia Moreno introduced and upheld in all rigidity an
administration the like of which had been known hardly anywhere since
the Middle Ages. He recalled the Jesuits, established schools of the
"Brothers of the Christian Doctrine," and made education a matter wholly
under ecclesiastical control. He forbade heretical worship, called the
country the "Republic of the Sacred Heart," and entered into a concordat
with the Pope under which the Church in Ecuador became more subject to
the will of the supreme pontiff than western Europe had been in the days
of Innocent III.

Liberals in and outside of Ecuador tried feebly to shake off this
masterful theocracy, for the friendship which Garcia Moreno displayed
toward the diplomatic representatives of the Catholic powers of Europe,
notably those of Spain and France, excited the neighboring republics.
Colombia, indeed, sent an army to liberate the "brother democrats of
Ecuador from the rule of Professor Garcia Moreno," but the mass of the
people stood loyally by their President. For this astounding obedience
to an administration apparently so unrelated to modern ideas, the
ecclesiastical domination was not solely or even chiefly responsible.
In more ways than one Garcia Moreno, the professor President, was a
statesman of vision and deed. He put down brigandage and lawlessness;
reformed the finances; erected hospitals; promoted education; and
encouraged the study of natural science. Even his salary he gave over to
public improvements. His successors in the presidential office found it
impossible to govern the country without Garcia Moreno. Elected for a
third term to carry on his curious policy of conservatism and reaction
blended with modern ad