Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 1.djvu/155

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
PRIESTLY TERRORISM.
129

hand at first refuses to sign the deed; but more threats and promises are resorted to and at length the thing is done. Absolution in full is granted; the bugbear of purgatory is withdrawn; the last sacrament is administered to the sufferer;—but ere the consecrated wafer can have had time to melt upon his tongue; he dies![1]

"Your money, or your life!" was the summons of the English robber; "Your estate or your soul!" is the demand of the Mexican priest.

  1. A similar scene has so recently been enacted in England—except that the dying man in the case had neither wife nor family—that it may be necessary to state that the above account was written long before the bequest by the teacher of languages, M. Carré, to a Roman Catholic seminary, became the subject of proceedings in the Court of Chancery.