Such is the system of religion of all countries which bear the Christian name, but where freedom does not exist, and where liberty can not thrive. There is a trifling difference in its phases as exhibited in the Greek and the Latin Churches, but the difference is too slight for us outsiders to notice. In Mexico it exists in its most unadulterated state, less contaminated than elsewhere with Protestantism or other foreign substances.
PENANCES.
The old farce of self-castigation is here still enacted, as it has been for three hundred years, but in the dark, of course; and blood, or some substitute for it, is heard to fall upon the floor by the few selected witnesses; but a party of boys, report says, being somewhat skeptical about the quality of this blood, concealed themselves in the church, and when the pious farce began, took so active a part in the sport upon the naked backs of the fathers, as to inflict bodily injury, and break up the bloody entertainment.
Still Protestantism has been felt in Mexico, if not embraced, and the common people look back to the happy time when the soldiers of their Protestant conquerors made money plenty among them, and when even-handed justice was dealt out alike to rich and poor, high and low.
Though the foreigners laughed at the fables of the priests and ridiculed the monks, they yet were honest in their dealings with the people instead of taking by violence.
As there are no people so besotted that they do not admire courage and honesty, so the Paisano looks upon the heretic as a man of a superior race to himself.