ART. VII. —THE GREAT CONVENT OF SAN FRANCISCO IN MEXICO CITY.

As is well known to many, nunneries and convents have been abolished in the whole of Mexico. By law, no nun or monk can now exist on the soil of that country. Even the order of Sisters of Charity has been suppressed. There may be in some places evasions of the legal prohibition, but such is the statute law of the land. The vast buildings once occupied by the nuns and monks have all been confiscated by the government, together with several of the large Roman Catholic churches, and are now used, some as Protestant churches, some as schools, some as libraries, some as stores, and some as private dwellings.

The great convent of San Francisco is especially interesting to two denominations of Christians, the Methodist Episcopal and the Protestant Episcopal. The former occupies the cloisters of San Francisco as its church and the headquarters of its missions in Mexico. They were purchased by the late Bishop Gilbert Haven, and came into the possession of our Church while the Rev. William Butler, D.D., and the writer were la

boring in the city of Mexico. The Protestant Episcopal Church, the Mexican branch of which is called, in Mexico, "The Church of Jesus," established there by Bishop Riley, occupies the audience-room, and some others parts of the

convent.

The accommodations for each are ample: but ample as they are, they form only a part of the original structure, as will be seen from a description we shall presently give of the convent buildings. It cannot fail to be of interest, however, to look back first, and learn when, and how, and by whom, this immense structure was founded.

It appears that when Cortes invaded and conquered the country he was accompanied by five friars, or that they came almost immediately after him. The names of two of them have been lost, but of three they are recorded as Fray Pedro de Gante, Fray Juan de Tecto, and Fray Juan de Aora. Five years later, Spain sent a strong body of additional missionaries, consisting of thirteen monks, as a re-enforcement, in order to convert the Aztecs. The chief of these was Fray Martin de

Valencia. They entered the capital in the year 1524, and were the founders of the convent of San Francisco. Immediately they commenced the work of leading the Aztecs into the fold of the Roman Catholic Church. Their reception in Mexico City is thus graphically described by a Spanish writer: "As they tread the streets of the capital, they are received by the acclamations of the people. Cortes, and the other conquerors, in company with the remains of the Mexican (Aztec) nobility, salute them, prostrating themselves in their presence, and putting their hands to their lips. The natives stand by in silence and look upon the scene."

Other bodies of monks came subsequently from Spain, manifesting the great earnestness of the Church of Rome for the conversion of the original inhabitants of Mexico. It is needless to say that their zeal was crowned with wonderful success, as the whole country is now considered a Roman Catholic country-a zeal which we may well emulate in bringing this beautiful land to a purer faith.

Many of these friars or early missionaries, to whom we have referred, though Roman Catholic in name, and differing from us in faith, were no doubt men of pure and holy lives, who had only the glory of God in view as they left their country and came to a strange land. We must remember that the great Reformation had not yet broken out, and that the lines of demarkation between truth and error in doctrine were not as distinctly drawn as they have been in subsequent times.

It is related of Martin de Valencia, the chief of the missionary band, that one day before he left Spain he was reading in the church where he officiated, a passage from Isaiah, and he became so wrapt up in an ecstasy at the thought of God's coming kingdom that he stopped reading, and, full of joy, exclaimed, "Loado sea Jesucristo! Loado sea Jesucristo! Loado sea Jesucristo! (Praised be Jesus Christ!) His brethren thought he was crazy, and shut him up in a cell, where he remained during the day, spending much of his time in prayer, and frequently repeating: "O! when shall it be? When shall this prophecy be fulfilled? Shall I be counted worthy to behold it?"

When this monk arrived in Mexico his mode of evangelizing the Aztecs merits our attention, perhaps our imitation.

His favorite occupation was in giving lessons to the children, laying, as it were, his dignity and talents at their feet, and sitting down among them as one of themselves.

"No less beautiful," says the Spanish author we have referred to," was the picture of the people singing hymns together like one family: the rich, the poor; the servants, the masters; the caciques and their vassals, all mingling together without distinction." Amid a crowd of people the monks would commence some simple melody, repeat it over and over, or, as it was among the early Methodists, line it out, and by dint of perseverance get the words and tune into the minds of the people, who would then join in the song.

The monks applied themselves with great assiduity to the acquisition of the Aztec language, making use of the children principally as their instructors. They attempted at first to teach them Latin prayers, but soon finding this unprofitable they desisted. An account is given of a Spanish boy who, by frequent association with the Aztec children, became so familiar with the language that he spoke it as his native tongue. The friars, seeing their advantage, took this boy with them in their preaching tours, and made him not only an interpreter, but an evangelist. At every step of their progress in turning the Aztecs from idolatry, we are informed, they made use of this instrumentality. One of the historians of the period remarks: "If these children had not helped in the work of conversion, and the interpreters alone had to do the work, it seems to me that it would have been just as the Bishop of Tlaxcallan wrote to the emperor, We, the bishops, without the interpreters, are like dumb falcons, and thus are the friars without the children.'"

We read of one Aztec chief who employed himself in bringing the Indian children to the convent of San Francisco, children who appeared to have been chosen by him for their capacity, excelling others in the convent who had been longer under instruction.

Every one knows, who has been at the Methodist Episcopal Church in Mexico, that it fronts on the street called Gante. It is so named from Pedro de Gante, one of the first Roman Catholic missionaries, of whom it was said that as many as a hundred churches in Mexico owed their erection to him. He founded the college of San Juan de Letran, the buildings

of which have been confiscated, and in which the English Protestant services have long been held in Mexico. Perhaps the good friar, as he looks down from heaven, and sees how his brethren have departed from his zeal and earnest piety, is just as well pleased to behold the present use of the college he founded as if he saw it in the possession of his own Church.

As an illustration of the labors of these zealous monks among the children, a Spanish writer records a touching story of the martyrdom of an Aztec boy. His name was Cristobal; he was of the age of twelve, the son of an Indian chieftain called Acxotecatl. The child was sent to the convent of San Francisco, and there appears to have learned the glad tidings of a crucified Saviour. He was baptized, and with great earnestness immediately began to manifest the fruits of conversion in teaching and exhorting the vassals of Acxotecatl.

But Cristobal labored more especially for his father, whose hands were stained with crime and blood, and who, by frequent intoxication, rendered himself incapable of profiting by the instructions of his son. The boy, however, by unwearied effort urged him to renounce his idol worship, abstain from drink, and "turn to God and Jesus Christ, his Son, who would pardon him." Finding his efforts vain, he adopted more energetic measures, and threw out the wine which his father was in the habit of drinking, and broke in pieces the idols which he worshiped. The servants of Acxotecatl came to him, saying: "Thy son Cristobal breaks thy gods and ours, and spills all the wine he can find. This is a reproach both to thee and to us."

The father sent for his boy, and with an oaken club beat him until his limbs were broken, and he lay before him a mass of blood, the poor child constantly crying to God in his own Aztec tongue: "Lord God, have mercy on me; and if it be thy will that I should die, let me die. If it please thee that I should live, save me from this cruelty of my father." The mother of Cristobal rushed to the spot exclaiming, "Why do you kill my son? Let me carry him away, and then kill me, but spare my child."

Acxotecatl commanded his servants to take her away, and she was violently dragged from the place; whereupon the cruel father ordered a fire to be made, and as the flames rose

high, threw the boy into them. When he struggled back he threw him again and again into the flames, until his back and breast were blistered with the fire. He lived, notwithstanding, until the next day, when the child-martyr sent for his unnatural parent and said to him: "O! padre, no pienses que estoy enojado. Porque yo estoy muy alegre, y sabete que me has hecho mas honra que no vale tu senorio." ("O father! do not think that I am angry. Indeed, I am very joyful, and I wish you to know that you have conferred an honor upon me of more value than all the honors of your rank.") Cristobal then called for drink, and as he drank, his pure spirit passed away.

These early friars, we repeat, labored with great zeal and earnestness for the propagation of their faith. They effected something, and it is but fair to give them honor for all they accomplished. We find in the early annals of the country a constant struggle between them and the rough soldiers of Cortez as to the enslaving of the natives, and the friars succeeded in preventing it. They abolished also the bloody rites of the Aztec priesthood.

But the time came when the successors of these devoted missionaries departed from their piety and zeal, and, in the language of a Spanish historian, became a body without a soul. Whatever of spirituality there may have been in the preaching of Martin de Valencia, Pedro de Gante, and their associates, then disappeared, and rites and ceremonies alone were the means of supposed conversion. The touch of a priestly hand, a few drops of oil or water from priestly fingers, were a guaranty of paradise. And while great multitudes of the Mexican people apparently adopted the Christian religion, and were called Christians, there was no change in their moral nature, and no Christianity whatever. They continued to be the same idolaters that they were before. There was only a change in the names of their idols. The Aztec image was christened San Pedro or Santa Maria, and the worship was continued the same as before. It is the same old Aztec idolatry which still exists under the name of Christianity.

The Indians, or pure Aztecs, form now about three quarters of the inhabitants of the country. These are unmixed with Spanish blood. They are met with every-where throughout city and country. Very many of them in the rural districts