an unheard-of exercise of his spiritual power. It was declared that the Church had more of the merits of Christ and the saints than was needed for her ordinary use, and that a surplus was now for sale. Forgiveness of sins could be had for cash, and, as for souls in purgatory, "the moment the money chinked in the box" of a seller of indulgences they were released from suffering for any time specified, and paid for accordingly. Heresy was the only crime which could not be forgiven. No indulgences were so popular as those which condoned lying, stealing and murder. This infamous traffic aroused Luther to a valiant defence of the truth. In 1517, as he nailed his famous theses on the church door at Wittenberg, the sturdy blows of his hammer had resounded throughout Europe, and for years afterward its princes and prelates were battling around the standard of religious liberty which he then raised. But no sound of this warfare seems to have crossed the sea to Mexico. In time we hear of an arrangement between the pope and Charles V. by which Mexican gold was made to flow into the coffers of Rome. The king bought up a large number of indulgences and dispensations and retailed them in New Spain. It was one of the conditions of this wicked traffic that no man should buy more than fifty permissions to steal in one year. "Darkness covered the land, and gross darkness the people." Charles made vast sums of money by this monopoly, and in the squabbles which arose between him and his partners as to which was the largest shareholder the pope was beaten. Those who believed that God could thus be bribed to wink at sin had small need of clean hands in doing the work of his Church.
The spirit of inquiry could not have been wholly re-
