Politics and economics were subordinated to religion; the third combined the absolutism of the first and the monopoly of the second. The conquest of America was apostolic. The Spanish captains fought to convert the overseas infidels. The imperialism of Charles V. and Philip II. had a religious character. To preserve the colonies from heresy it closed the ports, prohibited all traffic with foreigners, and imposed a conventual seclusion upon a whole world. The Church was the centre of colonial life. She governed in the spiritual order; imposed punishments, flagellations, exile, and excommunication, and delivered unbelievers and sorcerers to the purifying care of the Inquisition. In the department of morals she kept a watchful eye upon the people; she defended the Indians, and often opposed the governors. Viceroy and _cacique_ feared her equally. A formidable moral power, she helped to discipline the unruly Creoles, to unite classes and races, and to form nations. The cities were adorned by her chapels and convents, and to these convents, in pious mood, the hidalgos often left all their possessions. Thus property became a monopoly of the convents. Hence a plethora of monks and nuns, and the {53} accumulation, in Mexico and at Lima, of enormous wealth. In Peru the annual income of the archbishop amounted to £8,000, and that of some bishops to £4,000. What with bishops and viceroys there was no lack of luxury. A pompous and sensual Catholicism satisfied the imagination of the Creoles, the superstitious fears of the Indians, and the cheerful materialism of the negroes. The Aztec, the _quechua_, accepted from the monks a strange, Byzantine dogma, mingled with aristocratic ideals and Oriental mysteries. The native soon confounded the two mythologies. In Mexico, so Humboldt reported, "the Holy Ghost is the sacred eagle of the Aztecs." Novel and sumptuous rites were added to the traditional religion. Processions and festivals, a kind of continual religious fair, united all races. The people loved the cult of religion, with its external manifestations, its virgins loaded with heavy _ex-votos_, its sorrowing Christs, its gorgeously-decked saints, and the glitter of gold and silk. As confessor the priest influenced the family and directed the education of children; as preacher he condemned immorality and judged the governors. As in Byzantium, as in the Florence of Savonarola, the colonial monk, speaking in the name of the exploited populace, was an austere professor of virtue. The Creole admired his ecclesiastical learning, and his invincible attitude before the powers of this world; in him the Indian found a protector.