William E. Curtis, United States Commissioner to South
America, wrote: "One-fourth of all the property belongs to the
bishop. There is a Catholic church for every 150 inhabitants. Ten per
cent. of the population are priests, monks or nuns, and 272 out of
the 365 days of the year are observed as fast or feast days. The
priests control the government and rule the country as absolutely as
if the Pope were its king. As a result, 75 per cent. of the children
born are illegitimate, and the social and political condition
presents a picture of the dark ages." It is said that, in one town,
every fourth person you meet is a priest or a nun, or an ecclesiastic
of some sort.
Yet, with all this to battle against, the Christian missionary is
making his influence felt.
La Razon, an important newspaper of Trujillo, in a recent issue
says: "In homage to truth, we make known with pleasure that the
ministers of Protestantism have benefited this town more in one year
than all the priests and friars of the Papal sect have done in three
centuries."
"Last year," writes Mr. Milne, of the American Bible Society, "one of
our colporteurs in Ayacucho had to make his escape by the roof of a
house where he was staying, from a mob of half-castes, led on by a
friar. Finding their prey had escaped, they took his clothes and
several boxes of Bibles to the plaza of the city and burnt them."
It was not such a going-back as the outside world thought, but, oh,
it was a deeply significant one, when recently the leading men of the
Republic of Guatemala met together and solemnly threw over the
religion of their fathers, which, during 400 years of practice, had
failed to uplift, and re-established the old paganism of cultured
Rome.
![Through Five Republics On Horseback Being An Account Of Many Wanderings In South America By G. Whitfield Ray
- Guiness's Romanism and
Reformation.]
Prelates and priests, monks and nuns exert an influence that is all-
pervading. William E. Curtis - Page 10](../images/travel.jpg)
