Mexico and Its Religion. Robert Anderson Wilson
to be discussing the all-absorbing question of the day, the heretic marriage, and unfortunately happened to remark that a marriage by an American priest was not a lawful marriage. This was too much for our Englishman, and he answered it—as an Englishman is accustomed to answer insulting remarks in relation to the affairs of his household—not by a single blow, but by such a pommeling as never a priest had sustained since the Conquest. Yet there was no earthquake on the occasion, and Orizaba was not discomposed at witnessing such a shocking act of impiety.
Time moved on, and with it came the parish priest to validate the marriage. But our Englishman would not be validated. No, not he; and when the priest began to mutter and to move his hands, the Englishman's blood was up, and so was his foot, and this ceremony was terminated according to a formula not laid down in any prayer-book now extant. This was the end of the war. The pair had passed through many tribulations in order to consummate their union; yet both declare that the prize was worth the contest.
THE MONK AT JALAPA.
Our good monk, with whom we parted at Vera Cruz, visited the convent at Jalapa, on his journey, and thus records what he saw:
"The night of our arrival at Jalapa we were entertained at the convent of San Francisco, where we passed the day following, as it was Sunday. The income of this convent is great, notwithstanding the community is composed of only six religios, though it might well maintain more than a score of them. The guardian of Jalapa is no less vain than the prior of Vera Cruz; but he received us with much kindness, and treated us magnificently, although we were of another order.
"In this town, as in all others, we observed that the lives and customs of the clergy, both seculars and regulars (monks), were greatly relaxed, and that their conduct completely gave the lie to their vows and their professions. The order of San Francisco, besides the vows common to the other orders; that is to say, chastity and obedience, exacts that the vow of poverty shall be observed more scrupulously than the other mendicants enforce it. Their dress should be of coarse cloth, and of a color to which they have given a name [monk's gray]; their girdles, or cordons, of rope, and their shirts of wool, if they can bear them. They are to go without stockings; and, finally, it is not lawful for them to use shoes, but to wear sandals. Not only are they prohibited having money, but they ought not even to touch it; neither to possess any thing as their own. In their journeys it is forbidden them to mount a horse, although they should fall by the way from fatigue. It is necessary that they should go afoot with sorrow and fatigue; esteeming the infraction of any of these precepts a mortal sin, which merits excommunication and hell. But they neglect all the obligations which the rigorous observance of these rules imposes upon them—to the neglect of all discipline, and to the disregard of the penalties. Those that have been transported to this country live in a manner which does not in any thing show that they have made a vow to God of even trifling privations. Their lives are so free and immodest that it might be suspected, with reason, that they had renounced only that which they could not, or were unable to attain.
MONKISH GAMBLING.
"We were surprised and even scandalized at the extraordinary sight of a San Franciscan of Jalapa, riding most beautiful mule, with a groom, or rather lackey, behind him, while only going to the end of the village to confess a sick man. His reverence, as he went along, had his garments tucked up from beneath, which exhibited a stocking of orange-color; a shoe of the most exquisite morocco; small clothes of Holland linen; with knots and braids of four fingers in width. Such a spectacle made us observe with more attention the conduct of that friar, and that of others beneath whose broad sleeves were exhibited a jacket embroidered with silk. They also wore shirts of Holland; and hand-ruffs inclosed their hands. But we did not discover, either in their garments or in their table, any thing that indicated mortification; on the contrary, every thing exhibited the same vanity which was noted in the people of the world.
GAMBLING IN A CONVENT.
"After supper some of them began to speak of cards and dice, and they invited us to play, in order to contribute to the entertainment of their guests, one hand at a rubber. Almost all of our party excused themselves; some for want of money, others from not knowing the play. At length they found two of our religious that would place themselves hand to hand with other two Franciscans. The party being arranged, they commenced playing with admirable dexterity. A little was put down at first; it was doubled. The loss vexed the one, the gain stimulated the other. At the end of a quarter of an hour the convent of the Angelic Order[7] of our father of San Francisco had converted itself into a gaming house, and the poor religious (friars) into profane worldlings. We, who were simply spectators, had occasion to observe what passed in the play, and to acquire matter for reflection upon such a life. As the game went on engrossing in interest, the scandal continued to increase. The draughts of liquor were repeated with much frequency; the tongue unloosed itself; oaths mingled themselves with jests, while loud laughter made the edifice to tremble. The vow of poverty did not escape from the sacrilegious mirth. One of the San Franciscans, who had often touched money with his fingers and placed it on the table, when he gained any considerable sum, in order to divert the company, opened his broad sleeve, and with the hem he swept the table of all the stakes, amounting sometimes to more than twenty gold ounces, into his other sleeve; saying, at the same time, "Take care of it thou that canst, I have made a vow not to touch it." It was impossible for me to listen to such imprecations, and to witness such scandalous lives, without being moved; more than once I was on the point of reproving them, but I considered that I was a stranger, a passing guest, and besides, what I should say to them would be like preaching to the desert. I therefore rose up without making any noise and went to my sleeping-place, leaving the profane crowd; who continued with their diversions until the dawn. The next day the friar who had laved his part with so much facetiousness, with more of the manner of a brigand than a religious, more suitable for the school of Sardanapalus or of Epicurus than for the life of a cloister, said that he had lost more than eighty doubloons, or gold ounces—it appearing that his sleeve refused to protect that which he had made a vow of never possessing.
MORALS OF THE MONKS.
"This was the first lesson which the Franciscans gave us of the New World. It clearly appeared that the cause of so many friars and Jesuits passing from Spain to regions so distant, was libertinage rather than love of preaching the gospel, or zeal for the conversion of souls. If that love, if that zeal, were the motives of their conduct, they might offer their own depravity as an argument in favor of the truths of the gospel. Wantonness, licentiousness, avarice, and the other vices which stained their conduct, discovered their secret intentions. Their anxiety for enriching themselves, their vanity, the authority which they exercised over the poor Indians, are the motives which actuate them, and not the love of God or the propagating of the faith."
CHAPTER V.
The War of the Secret Political Societies of Mexico.—The Scotch and the York Free-Masons.—Anti-Masons.—Rival classes compose Scotch Lodges.—The Yorkinos.—Men desert from the Scotch to the York Lodges.—Law to suppress Secret Societies.—The Escocés, or Scotch Masons, take up arms.—The Battle.—Their total Defeat.
As Jalapa is a pleasant resting-place in a journey to the interior, we will stop here to discuss national affairs for a little while. The first political subject in order is the furious contest that for ten years was carried on between two political societies, known as the Escocés and Yorkinos—or, as we should call them, Scotch Free-Masons and York Free-Masons—whose secret organizations were employed for political purposes by two rival political parties.
MASONS AND ANTI-MASONS.
At the time of the restoration of the Constitutional Government of Spain in 1820, Free-Masonry was introduced into Mexico; and as it was derived from the Scotch branch of that order, it was called, after the name of the people of Scotland, Escocés. Into this institution were initiated many of the old Spaniards still remaining