[60] An attempt was made to explain away the story of Cortéz getting drowned out at Iztapalapan, a point above the level of the city of Mexico, by suggesting that _perhaps_ an earthquake may have changed the face of the valley. But, unfortunately, Iztapalapan was the southern support of the old Indian levee (_calzado_), built to keep the water off of the city of Mexico in seasons of heavy rains.
[61] Though the richest ecclesiastical quasi-corporation in the world, your ears are constantly saluted with solicitations for contributions to the impoverished Church.
The Church of Mexico.--Its present Condition and Power.--The Number of the "Religios."--The Wealth of the Church.--The Money-power of the Church.--The Power of Assassination.--Educating the People robs the Priest.--Making and adoring Images.--The Progress downward.
The Catholic Church of Mexico is a peculiar institution. Its historical antecedents have been considered in previous chapters in connection with other subjects. Men no longer whisper their unbelief with trembling, nor have they any longer to dread inquisitorial fires if they refuse to pay tithes to the bishop, or if they neglect to bestow rich gifts upon the priests. Still the Church survives the losses of this important engine of piety, and continues unmodified by passing events. In the midst of revolutions it stands unchanged, a relic of the last century. It stands like a great showman's wagon from which the horses have been detached, and children, great and small, are collected around to look at its images. Unfortunately, there is an abundance of full-grown children in a country where, for centuries, a combination of spiritual and temporal despotisms have dwarfed the intellects of men down to the standard of a toy-shop religion, which had long rejoiced in crushing the human intellect, while it disdained to enlighten the humblest understanding.
[Illustration: MEXICAN PRIESTS TRAVELING.]
Mexico is the only Catholic country in which the Church has remained unchanged during all the revolutions of the last half century. The French infidel armies, and the wars and revolutions that followed the French invasions, overturned the Church of Spain and Italy, so that the Church organization that now exists in those peninsulas is a new creation. Not so in Mexico. Its revolution was for the purpose of saving the privileges of the Church from the too sweeping reforms of the Cortes of Spain. And there it now stands, with all the properties and annuities which it enjoyed in the time of the idiot kings. The Inquisition no longer enforces with fire the censures of the Church, and men are no longer compelled by legal process to pay tithes. But for these losses the Church has received a heavy compensation. The priests and inquisitors who ruled the childish court of Spain would allow no independence to the Mexican Church, but supplied, by royal appointment, all the candidates for vacant bishoprics and chapters, while the Vice-king was allowed to fill the inferior offices of the Church.