Note 24 — Chapter XIV

An English Protestant Missionary, Mr. F. Crowe, who was established in Guatemala for some years, until driven out by the servile Government, has recently published a work entitled the “Gospel in Central America,” in which he observes:

“Of the fact that infidelity has spread extensively in Central America, and particularly so amongst the very classes upon which Romanism had formerly the strongest hold, there can be no doubt. It is proved by the almost total abandonment of the outward observances of Popery by the better educated amongst the Ladinos, and, in spite of their political tendencies, by the whites and pure Creoles also. With the exception of the more weak amongst the women and children, scarcely any of these classes are now to be seen attending mass or confession, and other requirements are generally neglected by them. Numbers of infidel books are to be found in the libraries, and in the hands of all classes and sexes. So strongly are the minds of these classes imbued with deistical and atheistical notions, that it becomes apparent, and is unblushingly avowed in general conversation. Nay, some of the more candid among the priests openly espouse these notions.”—p. 257.

Some of the priests, this author adds, ridicule the pretended authority of the Pope, and rejoice at the emancipation of the people from the Church of Rome. Mr. Crowe rejoices also, at the success of infidelity over Romanism, as likely to result in good. “The change from Popery, or any other analogous system,” he writes, “to the entire rejection of revealed religion, is one which believers in Divine Revelation may hail with satisfaction, if they be prepared to take advantage of it; for it breaks up prejudices of education, leads to thought and inquiry, and sometimes to a sincere and earnest search after truth!”