sold to Bishop Riley and a well-known philanthropist of New York, acting for the American Episcopal missions, at an understood price of thirty-five thousand dollars, and is now valued at over two hundred thousand dollars. In like manner, the American Baptist missionaries have gained an ownership or control in the city of Puebla of the old palace of the Inquisition, and in the City of Mexico the former enormous palace of the Inquisition is now a medical college, while the Plaza de San Domingo, which adjoins and fronts the church of San Domingo, and where the auto-da-fé was once held, is now used as a market-place. A former magnificent old convent, to some extent reconstructed and repaired, also affords quarters to the National Library, which in turn is largely made up of spoils gathered from the libraries of the religious 'orders' and houses. The national government, however, does not appear to have derived any great fiscal advantage from the confiscation of the Church property, or to have availed itself of the resources which thus came to it for effecting any marked reduction of the national debt. Good Catholics would not buy 'God's property' and take titles from the State, and so large tracts of land and blocks of city buildings passed at a very low figure into the possession of those who were indifferent to the Church and had command of ready money; and in this way individuals rather than the State and the great body of the people have been benefited."
