dates for monastic orders, until the
old proverb--"He that can not do better, let him turn monk"--is not
unknown at Mexico. With the increase of liberty the number of nuns has
diminished, as violence can no longer be used in getting a girl into a
convent. For all these reasons the number of the _religios_ has rapidly
diminished, while the wealth and efficiency of the Church has
increased.

Having spoken of the bishops, the lords spiritual of Mexico, and the
controlling influence they exercise over a feeble government, we come
next to the second class of spiritual masters of the country--the heads
of orders, the provincials, and the heads of religious houses. These
two classes of dignitaries are usually elected for their known severity
of discipline, either by the procurement of the bishop, or through
fanaticism of the monks or nuns, who, having voluntarily made
themselves convicts and prisoners for life, now undertake to add to
their self-afflicted mortification by choosing for their head a
superior the most hateful of their number. The novice is taught that
the greatest favor with Heaven is to be obtained by implicit obedience
under most trying circumstances, and the more cruel the despotism they
unmurmuringly submit to, the greater will be the accumulation of good
works. But cursed to the lowest depths of Purgatory is that recluse who
dares to murmur even in his inmost thoughts; and if he so far forgets
his duty as to murmur aloud, then all the powers of the Church are
brought to crush his insubordination.

We have thus followed spiritual despotism through its various stages,
from the Pope to the bishops; from the bishops to the provincials of
religious orders; and then down to superiors of a community of half a
dozen monks or nuns, by whom immorality is pardonable, but who regard
disobedience or insubordination in the slightest particular "like the
sin of witchcraft and idolatry." Such is the perfect organization of
the papacy in all its parts, which, acting as one great secret,
political, social, and religious association, labors continually to
concentrate the riches of the nations at Rome as a common centre.

There is a peculiar feature in the Catholic Church in Mexico unknown in
other Catholic countries: it is the preponderance of the regular clergy
(monks) over the secular clergy. This is owing to Cortez, who wrote to
the Emperor Charles V. to send him regulars, for the conversion of the
Indians, instead of se