CHAPTER IX
APOSTOLIC LABORS.
1522-1526.
Religious Feeling among the Conquerors — The First Ministers — Juan Diaz and Friar Olmedo — Papal Interest Displayed — Francisco de Los Ángeles' Proposed Mission — Brother Gante and his Companions — Father Valencia — Franciscan Rules and Privileges — The Twelve Apostles — Indian Astonishment — Cortés at the Feet of the Friars — Politic Self-abasement — First Synod — Monastic Discipline — Convents and Hospitals — Methods of Conversion — Choirs and Orchestras — Tricks of Trade — Friars and Disciples — Stubbornness of Proselytes — Baptism en Masse and Bestowal of Names — Legality of the Rite — The Marriage Question — Nativb Catechists and Missionaries — Inconoclasts and Martyrs — Progress of Conversion and its Causes — Christian-like Rites among the Natives — Attractive Features of the Roman Church — Festivals — Character of the Friars.
While political and financial projects formed the absorbing motive with the ever increasing swarm of adventurers in New Spain, as elsewhere, Cortés among others had not forgotten the sacred motto under which he had set forth, and to which he attributed his success. In the famous regulations issued at Tlascala before undertaking the siege of Mexico he had sought to recognize their indebtedness to heaven by proclaiming the primary motive of the campaigns to be spiritual conquest, without which the temporal acquisitions must be regarded as unjust.[1] With only one friar, however, whose services, in connection with those of the clergyman Diaz, were almost wholly absorbed by the soldiers, little or no progress could be made toward the great aim. In his letters to Spain,
- ↑ See full text thereof in Icazbalceta, Col. Doc., i. 445-51.
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