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