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Show POLITICAL ADVENTURES Bombarding Mexican Religious Communi- i ties. Privileged Classes. Hot-Air. Adverse Ad-verse Testimony. Migne, Marshall, Rob- ' ' j i ertson, Seeman and Others Testify : j Against Lara. Church Had a Fair Field. Protected Indians. Zeal and . -Heroism Infinite. Dead to the World, The following article, from the pen of Very Rev. Dean Harris, D. D., LL.D., which appeared ia I Tuesday's Tribune, is a reply to a savage and men- dacious onslaught made by an unprincipled refugee , f in this city last Sunday. The authorities quoted ; ; are all standard authors whose opinions bear strong ' weight with unbiased readers. ; "Unity hall, this city, is a radical 'Cloea Max- ; ima,' into which the sewerage from religiously and ' . politically diseased minds flow intermittently. Every . I adventurer, atheist, political agitator, anarchist i and revolutionist that visits our city receives a hos- ; pitable invitation to the platform of Unity hall and f a 'caed mille faletha' from its hierophant, Thurston , i Brown. Last Sunday night a political adventurer - i a Mexican refugee, calling himself L. Gutierrez da Lara, held the stage at Unity hall and poured hot . I shot into the Mexican republic and into the camp of its president, Porario Diaz. "After bombarding the Mexican government, ha trained his guns on the cemeteries where repose the ashes of the friars or the priests of the religious orders. 'The religious communities,' he exclaimed,, 'where in those times the privileged class. They j ' (like soldiers, officials, lawyers and doctors) produced pro-duced nothing; they prayed, and prayed and prayed.' "So much for the Mexican. Now let us heat what greater and better men than de Lara havo to say: : - . , "The progress of religion in Mexico, by tha preaching of the Franciscan priests, was so univer- sal, that in the space of forty years eleven hundred j churches and thirty-two bishoprics were founded in J that land.' Migne Dictionaire de Com., p. 18. I " 'In Mexico, the priests of the Catholic church : ; had a fair field, and had to fight only against the-corruptions the-corruptions of the human heart and the devices of the evil one. They overcame both. All Mexico, Yucatan, Yu-catan, Chiapas. andTabasco, all Central. America,.. Guatemala. Honduras and Nicaragu, ws converted ; by them. They had done all that apostles could do. ' and they failed only where St. Paul and St. James would perhaps have equally failed.' Marshall-Christian Marshall-Christian missions, p. 235. " 'The Roman Catholic priests in Mexico, and, indeed, in all Central and South America, uniformly uniform-ly exerted their influence to protect the Indians : j : i and moderate the ferocity of their countrymen.' ; Robertson Charles V., vol. x, p. 400. " We must express our admiration for the ex- ; , alted piety of the Roman Catholic missionaries, who, ' ' : in these lands, inhabited by human beings in the lowest state of degredation, endured poverty and misery in all forms, to win the Indians to better habits and a purer faith.' Berthold Seeman Nar- ' ' rative of Travel, vol. ii, p. 153. " 'The viceroy replied that towers with soldiers were dens of thieves, but that monasteries with priests were as good as walls and castles for keep- - t ing the Indians in subjection.' Arthur Helps- Mexico, p. 200. : : . " 'Already the Indian had learned to regard th& priests, first with astonishment, and then with ad- ' miration. Their poverty, their temperance, their simplicity of life recommended them at once to tha Indian.' Helps p. 313. " 'The missionary priests had covered the sterile rocks of Lower California with the monuments, agricultural, ag-ricultural, architectural, and economical, of their ; patience and aptitude.' Sir G. Simpson Narrative of his journey, p. 73. ; ; "With one exception all these e xtracts are from. non-Catholic authorities. We might multiply these, expressions of admiration indefinitely Adolph Ban-delier, Ban-delier, Elliott Coues, John Russell Bartlett, George ; , Bancroft, Charles F. Lummis, Thomas A. Janiver and other honest and distinguished students of Spanish-American history are unanimous in their appreciation of the disinterested and daring labors I : and efforts of the priests of the Catholic church for the reclamation and uplifting of the American sav- age. " Their zeal and their heroism were infinite writes Mr. Lummins in his 'Spanish Pioneers'; no desert was too frightful for them, no danger too appalling. Alone, unarmed, they traveled the most - ' forbidding lands, braved the most deadly savages, and left upon the minds of the Indians such a proud monument as mailed explorers or conquering armies never made.' " Away from the amenities of life, away from ,: .' the opportunities of vainglory,' says Bancroft, 'they became dead to the world and possessed their souls in unalterable peace. The history of their labors is connected with the origin of every celebrated town in Spanish America; not a cape was turned, not a river entered, but a Catholic missionary led the way.' "And now let ur. 'ill further stamp thi3 Mexican , refugee as an irremediable falsifier of his own national na-tional flesh and blood. 'As the religious orders came ' ' ' to the Spanish colony (Mexico), churches, monasteries, monas-teries, convents, schools, hospitals were built by them, and throughout Mexico their work today survives sur-vives everywhere; visibly in the buildings which they . ; erected and in the street nomenclature, and morally in the impress they have left upon the life of the nation.' Thomas A. Janiver The Mexican Guide, p. 23. " The peasantry,' de Lara tells his audience, had to pay 10 per cent tithing.' What peasantry ? Half-naked Half-naked savages ? There never was, and there i3 not now, a peasantry in Mexico.. W. R. HARRIS." |